Choosing A Green Tea Pill

There are many different green tea pills you can buy. In this article I will talk about what to look for when buying green tea pills.

How Much Polyphenol?

The polyphenol percentages in extracts vary widely. A few are as little as 15% polyphenols, while others are as much as 95%. I suggest picking a supplement with a very high percentage, preferably 95% or above. Investigation has demonstrated that it's the polyphenols which give most of the health benefits.

A cup of green tea has about 200 mg of polyphenols. To experience significant health benefits, studies recommend drinking 4 or more cups of tea per day, which would have at the minimum 800 mg of polyphenols. A few extracts could give you that 800 mg in a single pill. Others may require you to take 2, 4 or even 8 pills to get the same amount. I favor products where you only have to use one or two pills per day. Search for one with 400 to 800 mg in each pill.

EGCG Supplement?

Is an EGCG supplement more effective than a green tea pill? Actually, they're usually the same thing. Both are for the most part polythenols extracted from green tea.

Although it says EGCG on the label, if you glance at the detailed information it will say something like: contains 95% polyphenols, 50% EGCG. I think it's in all likelihood cost prohibitive for companies to remove the other polyphenols from the EGCG, so they just leave them in. That's alright, because they probably have health benefits too.

The point is, both EGCG supplements and green tea pills can be good products. Simply find one that's 95% polyphenols or greater.

Regular of Decaf?

Almost all extracts contain very low quantities of caffeine. One popular brand has just 4 mg of caffeine per dose. For a reference point, one cup of green tea has about 25 mg of caffeine. I'm thinking that the extraction process results in most of the caffeine being lost. Unless you are highly sensitive to caffeine, regular supplements should be alright.

Additives

A few companies put other stuff to their extracts, including ginseng, fruit extracts, yerba mate, caffeine, and herbs. These products are oftentimes sold as fat burners.

I advise sticking with plain extract. If you wish to use other supplements, go for it. But use each one separately so you can control their doses independently.

Liquid Or Pills?

Pills are simpler to take, and in general cheaper.

Taking a dose of pills is easy, just take one or two pills. One liquid extract I looked at says that a dose is 56 drops. Do you really want to count out 56 drops? Also, liquid extracts are oftentimes two to three times the cost of pills.

Summary - A good supplement will have these characteristics:

-95% or greater polyphenol content

-400 to 800 mg of polyphenols in one pill

-Regular, the majority of people don't require decaf

-Free from additives

-Pills, not liquid

For more information on green tea green tea pills take a look at my site.

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