A systematic review of the effect of green tea supplementation on the rate of fat oxidation in humans

The effects of Green tea catechins on cardiovascular disease and prevention have been researched extensively, however in comparison, there has been very little on its effect on fat oxidation. Therefore, the aim of this project was to conduct a systematic review of the effect of Green tea supplementation on fat oxidation. Following a rigorous filtering process of using the PRISMA checklist and removing any studies that could cause validity issues or were not appropriate to the research question, nine appropriate studies were selected using the databases of Google scholar and PubMed. The percentage fat oxidation with supplementation was calculated for each of the studies, this percentage was compared to other variables reported in the studies (e.g. polyphenol content, treatment duration, etc.) to determine if there was any patterns or trends in the data. Overall, the average percentage increase in fat oxidation from the Green tea supplementation was 15% with 56% of the studies finding the increase to be significant. Out of the several variables, the characteristics of the studies sample was found to have the greatest effect on the magnitude of the effect on fat oxidation, with studies using a younger, healthy sample yielding lower percentages and the reverse showing larger benefits. In conclusion, Green tea supplementation does have a significant effect on green tea and could be used in weight management programmes