Consuming caffeine may assist in limiting weight gain from a diet high in fat and sugar, according to a new study by US scientists at the University of Illinois.
They fed six groups of rats a high-fat, high-sugar diet for 28 days, and then gave five of the groups one of the following: synthetic caffeine, mate tea containing caffeine, caffeine extracted from mate tea, caffeine extracted from coffee or decaffeinated mate tea — equivalent to the amount humans ingest from drinking 4 cups of coffee per day.
After 28 days, there was a marked difference in lean body mass among the six groups: those who consumed caffeine from any source gained less body fat than their counterparts in the non-caffeine group.
For example, rats that consumed the caffeine extract gained 16% less weight and 22% less body fat than those that consumed decaffeinated mate, and anti-obesity effects were similar among rats that consumed synthetic caffeine or caffeine extracted from coffee.
Study author Professor Elvira Gonzalez de Mejia said ‘mate tea and caffeine can be considered anti-obesity agents’ and medicalnewstoday.com noted: ‘The findings add to increasing knowledge about the potential for mate tea to help combat obesity. This is in addition to other health benefits conferred by the vitamins, flavonoids and phenolic compounds in the herbal tea.’ Mate (or yerba mate) is a beverage made from the leaves of the tree Ilex paraguariensis St. Hilaire. It is a popular drink in South America, where annual consumption in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay can reach 3-10 kilograms per capita.
In recent years it has become a popular alternative to black tea and coffee because of its reputation of beng protective against infection, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.
Studying the rats’ cells, the scientists reported in the Journal Of Functional Foods that caffeine exerts some of its effects ‘by altering the expression of certain genes’.
They exposed fat cells from mice to all three types of caffeine (synthetic, coffee-extracted and mate-extracted) and found ‘lipid build-up in fat cells decreased by 20-41%, regardless of the type of caffeine’.
Examination of genes relevant to lipid metabolism and obesity also revealed caffeine ‘reduced the expression of certain genes’ that code for fatty acid synthase (FASN, an enzyme that helps produce longchain fatty acids) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL, an enzyme with a key role in breaking down triglycerides).
All three types of caffeine reduced the expression of FASN by 31-39% and LPL by 51-69%.
‘The results of this research could be scaled to humans to understand the roles of mate tea and caffeine as potential strategies to prevent overweight and obesity, as well as the subsequent metabolic disorders associated with these conditions,’ said Professor Gonzalez de Mejia.
Sources: Journal Of Functional Foods and medicalnewstoday.com
