Study finds drinking tea may slim your waistline

It all started in 2737 B.C. when the second emperor of China, Shen Nung, discovered tea after tea leaves blew into his cup of hot water. And now it’s the world’s second most consumed beverage, after water. Just ask the tea drinkers gathering at TahCha tea house in Atlanta, who sip on a variety of teas, for a variety of reasons.

Tea has been long used by the Chinese for medicinal and health purposes, and now there’s a study that claims the hot beverage could trim your waistline.

A recent study shows that men who drink more than two cups of tea a day have thinner waistlines than men who drink coffee or nothing at all. However, for ladies the same doesn't hold true.

The study, which came out at the First International Congress on Abdominal Obesity, looks at the relationship between coffee and tea drinking and stomach obesity. The exact connection between tea and a thinner waistline isn’t exactly understood. Researchers say the role between tea drinking and a trim waistline in men and women deserves more study.

When it comes to coffee and tea drinking, the use of sugar vs. artificial sweeteners seems to play a role in abdominal obesity. And the findings might surprise you. For men, the use of sugar in tea was associated with a nearly 1-inch smaller waist measurement, but the use of artificial sweeteners was linked to a nearly 2-inch larger waistline. Among women, the use of milk in tea was associated with a two-thirds-of-an-inch smaller waistline. But women who used artificial sweeteners had an average of nearly an inch larger waistline.

Green tea has long been associated with weight loss. In tests, among mice with an obesity gene, those that ate food with green tea extract gained less weight and less fat. There was less sign of fatty liver disease in the mice with the obesity gene that ate green tea extract. And the mice had lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.