The health benefits of drinking green tea cannot be overemphasized. Regular consumption of at least a cup of green tea comes with numerous health benefits to man, some of which include reduced cancer risks, improved cognition and mental productivity, help with weight loss (more noticeable when accompanied by exercise), and many more. Another benefit of extracts from green tea that is not popularly known yet is its potential to help prevent liver toxicity from supplements.
Drinking green tea before taking your supplement helps prevents the risk of liver toxicity. It is recommended that green tea be consumed weeks before taking supplements to make it more effective at preventing toxicity. This was proved by researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
The polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) content of green tea was discovered to have the ability of reducing liver toxicity. The EGCG content from green tea was discovered to be potent in preventing toxicity resulting from the high dose of polyphenol contained in supplements, when taken about 2 weeks before the supplements. This is to say that the polyphenol from the green tea helps reduce liver toxicity from supplement contents.
Dietary pre-treatment with green tea polyphenols helps protect against liver toxicity that arises from the subsequent high oral doses of the same compound in supplements. This is however more common in people consuming supplements containing green tea extracts. Regular green tea extract consumers will be less susceptible to liver toxicity from green-tea-based dietary supplements compared to others.
If you are to take green tea supplements, it is recommended that you drink green tea extract for several weeks or months prior to help reduce the possible side effects from the supplement and prevent liver toxicity.
It is however more safer to drink green tea extract rather than consuming green tea supplements. This totally helps eradicate the risks of liver toxicity that comes with the high dose of polyphenol content in green tea supplement. Taking the green tea extract instead of its supplement form, will ensure that you realize and enjoy the health benefits that come with green tea consumption while avoiding the risk of liver toxicity from its high polyphenol dose/content.
Dietary green tea consumption is therefore better recommended for humans than supplement use. The green tea, Camellia Sinensis, has beeen discovered to be rich in catechins and polyphenols that are natural antioxidants. The EGCG contained in green tea is able to modulate its bioavailability and its dietary treatment thus helping to reduce the toxicity potential of acute high oral doses of EGCG (sudden dosage increase) to the liver. This is because the EGCG dosage contained in green tea based supplements is far greater than that contained in the extract. This is the reason green tea supplements are more liable to result in liver toxicity than are extracts.
