Healthy tip

Drink This to Fight Fat

Have a little fat you’d like to lose? Maybe now is a good time to turn on the kettle and pour yourself a cup of this: white tea.

Made from the buds and early leaves of the same plants used to make green and black teas, white tea may have special fat-thwarting powers, a new study suggests.

Fat-Blasting Brew
Fat cells increase or decrease in size, according to your weight. And in a lab study, human fat cells treated with white tea extract accumulated significantly less fat. In fact, the white tea extract reduced the incorporation of fat by as much as 70 percent! The tea also seemed to stimulate the breakdown of fat from mature cells.

Why White Whittles
Because white tea is less processed than green or black tea, it has more of certain active compounds, like epigallocatechin-3-gallate (an antioxidant) and methylxanthines (theobromine and caffeine). And researchers suspect that these compounds influence fat-cell metabolism by acting on the expression of certain genes. But human studies will be needed to confirm it. In the meantime, here are a few more no-brainer ways to shed pounds:

Eat slowly.

Limit variety.

RealAge Benefit: Losing excess weight and avoiding a negative body image can make your RealAge up to 32 years younger.