Study: Green tea hikes exercise endurance

BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Japanese researchers have found taking green tea extract regularly for 10 weeks substantially boosts endurance exercise performance.

The study by the Biological Sciences Laboratories of the Kao Corp. in Tochigi, Japan, said performance rose by up to 24 percent with 0.5 percent GTE supplementation, and 8 percent with 0.2 percent by-supplementation with food.

The Japanese researchers said the 8 percent to 24 percent increase in swimming-time-to-exhaustion was "accompanied by lower respiratory quotients and higher rates of fat oxidation."

The results "indicate that GTE is beneficial for improving endurance capacity and support the hypothesis that the stimulation of fatty acid utilization is a promising strategy for improving endurance capacity," the study said.

"Green tea extract improves endurance capacity and increases muscle lipid oxidation in mice," the Researchers said. The results were obtained from the equivalent of about four cups of tea per day.

The results of the study appear in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.