[00:00] The most dangerous type of fat is not the fat&nbsp; we can pinch. It's the fat inside the belly&nbsp;&nbsp; around our organs and inside the liver and the&nbsp; pancreas. More and more people are aware of this&nbsp;&nbsp; and there's more content out there which is good,&nbsp; but some mistakes are being made. One thing I see&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:16] recommended a lot out there is drink green tea&nbsp; to lose visceral fat. And that's because green&nbsp;&nbsp; tea is high in catechins which are compounds&nbsp; with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect.&nbsp;&nbsp; And yes, catechins can help with weight loss and&nbsp; specifically losing visceral fat. It's been shown&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:34] in randomized control trials. But there's a huge&nbsp; catch. It depends on the amount. These trials&nbsp;&nbsp; people are pointing to use special formulations of&nbsp; green tea and drinks with very high concentrations&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:47] of catechins, much higher than most commercially&nbsp; available green teas. In fact, these studies often&nbsp;&nbsp; use regular green tea or a drink that has&nbsp; the amount of catechins normally present in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:00] run-of-the-mill green teas. They use that as the&nbsp; control. They sometimes even call it the placebo.&nbsp;&nbsp; Right? So, the control group, and they don't see&nbsp; an effect on visceral fat with that. And then in&nbsp;&nbsp; comparison in the intervention group, they use&nbsp; a drink with concentrated catechins and that's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:16] where they see the effect, a reduction in visceral&nbsp; fat. So, all of these videos and content telling&nbsp;&nbsp; people to drink green tea to lose visceral&nbsp; fat, it's well-intentioned, but in practice,&nbsp;&nbsp; you're not going to see the effect with the&nbsp; vast majority of green teas out there. Okay,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:31] how do we get around it? Well, one solution&nbsp; is just drink more green tea, larger volume,&nbsp;&nbsp; right? To get more catechins. In practice, with&nbsp; most commercially available green teas, this can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:43] mean drinking a couple of liters of green tea a&nbsp; day to get enough catechins to get the effect. So&nbsp;&nbsp; most people are not going to do that consistently.&nbsp; It's kind of a drag. Also the content of catechins&nbsp;&nbsp; depends on the quality of the tea, the quality of&nbsp; the leaf that is used and also on the preparation&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:00] steps because the thing is green tea is an&nbsp; infusion. Right? Most teas are infusions. You&nbsp;&nbsp; put the leaf in water and whatever leeches out&nbsp; of the leaf is what you're going to drink. So if&nbsp;&nbsp; we use a very high quality tea, very high quality&nbsp; leaves with higher concentration of catechins and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:17] hotter water and longer steeping time, yeah, you&nbsp; can increase the concentration of catechins in the&nbsp;&nbsp; tea up to a point, but it's always hard to know&nbsp; how much you're really getting out of it. Another&nbsp;&nbsp; option are green tea extracts. So there's a number&nbsp; of supplements commercially available, and these&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:34] are more concentrated in catechins because they're&nbsp; extracting them from the leaf and concentrating&nbsp;&nbsp; them. There's some evidence that these extracts,&nbsp; these supplements do help with liver health and&nbsp;&nbsp; liver fat, although we need larger trials to&nbsp; be really sure. Another option for people who&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:49] prefer more natural strategies and this might be&nbsp; the best option is matcha. So matcha is a green&nbsp;&nbsp; powder that you can make tea with. But the thing&nbsp; is matcha uses the whole leaf. Everything that's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:02] in the leaf is extracted. And so the concentration&nbsp; of catechins or any phytonutrients in the leaf is&nbsp;&nbsp; going to be much higher in matcha than in regular&nbsp; green tea products where it's an infusion. So&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:14] it's just whatever seeps out of the leaf in water.&nbsp; Obviously, this is going to depend on the quality&nbsp;&nbsp; of the matcha, how it's done, and the quality of&nbsp; the leaves that they use. And most companies don't&nbsp;&nbsp; report the content of catechins. But in general,&nbsp; higher quality matcha has a higher concentration&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:31] of catechins. They call it ceremonial grade, and&nbsp; these are usually Japanese brands of matcha that&nbsp;&nbsp; are higher quality, and they're shipped from Japan&nbsp; often. It's not the cheapest product, but it's one&nbsp;&nbsp; option. I've seen it around $50 to $100 for a&nbsp; tin that lasts you probably about a month, give&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:50] or take, if you're doing it daily. So, might not&nbsp; break the bank by itself, but it's also not the&nbsp;&nbsp; cheapest thing out there. We also dug around and&nbsp; we found two companies that sell matcha products&nbsp;&nbsp; that actually report the content of catechins.&nbsp; And by the way, I have no relationship with these&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:06] companies. So this is one company called matcha&nbsp; therapy. And they guarantee a minimum content of&nbsp;&nbsp; a specific catechin called EGCG. It's basically&nbsp; the most active kind of catechin in green teas&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:18] and in matcha. And it's thought to be behind most&nbsp; of the benefits of these products. So they have a&nbsp;&nbsp; EGCG 30+ and that means they guarantee at least 30&nbsp; milligrams of EGCG per gram of the matcha powder&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:33] and then a 60+, a 90+ and a 130+, increasing&nbsp; concentration of EGCG. So which one of these&nbsp;&nbsp; is best and are they enough? Is that enough EGCG&nbsp; in there? I went over every randomized trial that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:46] I could find looking at matcha products and liver&nbsp; fat or visceral fat loss treatments with low doses&nbsp;&nbsp; of the product amounting to about 15 milligrams&nbsp; of EGCG which is roughly in the ballpark of green&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:00] teas out there. Most kind of run-of-the-mill&nbsp; green teas those don't work. So you don't see&nbsp;&nbsp; a reduction in liver fat or visceral fat. Then&nbsp; around 50 milligrams, and this is daily intake,&nbsp;&nbsp; 50 milligrams of EGCG, you start seeing results.&nbsp; You start seeing a reduction in visceral fat or&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:17] liver fat. One trial compared 50 milligrams to&nbsp; 84 milligrams of EGCG. Both worked, both reduced&nbsp;&nbsp; liver fat. And the 84 milligram treatment seemed&nbsp; a little stronger, kind of stronger reduction. So&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:32] you might be better off closer to 100 than closer&nbsp; to 50, although both seem to give you some effect.&nbsp;&nbsp; Does it increase even further? What happens at&nbsp; even higher doses? There's a pooled analysis that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:44] looked at six randomized trials pooled together&nbsp; and most of the trials were either around 100 or&nbsp;&nbsp; 200 milligrams a day of EGCG and there was no&nbsp; obvious difference in the effect. They seem to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:59] be about equivalent. So it seems like around 100&nbsp; milligrams a day of EGCG, ballpark, gives you all&nbsp;&nbsp; you need. So looking at this matcha therapy range&nbsp; of products and based on what I've seen from the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:11] trials, the educated guess would be that the 30+&nbsp; might be too low. 60+ you should start seeing&nbsp;&nbsp; results and the 90 or 130 should give you a little&nbsp; stronger results. Is there a difference between 90&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:24] and 130? No idea. We don't have granular enough&nbsp; trials to confidently say. So it's whatever the&nbsp;&nbsp; person prefers. Now there's one issue with this&nbsp; brand. I looked at the website. They ship to all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:36] kinds of European countries and Canada, but for&nbsp; some reason they don't ship to the US. And I know&nbsp;&nbsp; we have a lot of viewers in the US. So, we wanted&nbsp; to find another brand that would serve that market&nbsp;&nbsp; as well. So, we found this other brand called&nbsp; Got Matcha, and it seems to ship both to the US&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:50] and Europe and other places, too, I believe. And&nbsp; so, looking at their website, the range that they&nbsp;&nbsp; report, it seems about in the range of the other&nbsp; product of the matcha therapy, about 60 to 90&nbsp;&nbsp; milligs of EGCG per gram of this product. And so&nbsp; one to two grams of that daily in water in a tea&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:09] should give you the desired effect based on the&nbsp; evidence we have. So these are the only two brands&nbsp;&nbsp; I've ever seen that measure EGCG and report it.&nbsp; If you are aware of others, by all means share in&nbsp;&nbsp; the comments for people to see. Okay, couple very&nbsp; important points. You don't want to go overboard&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:25] with these products. There is some evidence that&nbsp; EGCG doses that are very high, over 800 milligrams&nbsp;&nbsp; a day, can cause some problems, can cause some&nbsp; liver toxicity. So I would stay well under that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:38] 100ish, and we're talking about milligrams of&nbsp; EGCG, the specific catechin in the powder. We're&nbsp;&nbsp; not talking about the total weight of powder that&nbsp; you're going to consume where you can consume a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:50] gram or two. That's not an issue per se. It's&nbsp; the amount of EGCGs that you don't want to go&nbsp;&nbsp; crazy. Also, caffeine improves the bioavailability&nbsp; of EGCG. So, you can get more out of it if you&nbsp;&nbsp; consume it together with some caffeine. Now, green&nbsp; tea and matcha already includes some caffeine&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:06] because that's present in the green tea leaf,&nbsp; right? Unless it's a green tea product that's&nbsp;&nbsp; been decaffeinated. And this is also good to know&nbsp; for people who have hypersensitivity to caffeine,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:18] who don't do well, who get jittery. Matcha and&nbsp; green tea could trigger some of those issues&nbsp;&nbsp; for some people. There's one food component that&nbsp; has been shown to cut liver fat in half. And we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:30] covered that in a recent video. I'll link it right&nbsp; here. Check it out, and I'll see you in there.