Fight obesity with coffee, tea and cocoa?

Functional foods can offer effective approaches to combating obesity. Thanks to their bioactive ingredients, coffee, tea and cocoa have particularly promising preventive and therapeutic potential.

In a recent study, a Chinese research team investigated the mechanisms by which coffee, tea and cocoa counteract obesity and how this could be used for medical purposes and published the results in the specialist magazine “Current Research in Food Science”.

Obesity a growing problem

More and more people worldwide are suffering from obesity, which threatens to have numerous negative health effects, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Obesity is a serious metabolic disease that can lead to complications in all organs, the researchers emphasize.

In addition to permanent changes in diet and accompanying exercise therapies, there are also some drug treatment approaches for obesity, although conventional anti-obesity drugs have a high potential for abuse and are often insufficiently effective and have negative side effects, the experts continue.

Functional foods help?

In her opinion, functional foods could offer an effective alternative to combat obesity. Numerous studies have already suggested that coffee, tea and cocoa have beneficial effects against obesity.

In the new review, the team tried to determine the potential mechanisms of action of coffee, tea and cocoa against obesity, determine the responsible bioactive ingredients and identify possible future medical uses.

Effect via polyphenols & alkaloids

According to the researchers, polyphenols and alkaloids are basically the most important active ingredients in coffee, cocoa and tea and the anti-obesity effect essentially comes from:

• an inhibition of adipogenesis in the white adipocytes,
• promoting the development of brown/beige adipocytes,
• and promoting lipid catabolism (breakdown of fats).

In addition to caffeine, the key bioactive compounds in coffee are chlorogenic acid, trigonelline, cafestol and kahweol. Coffee extracts have been shown to have a positive effect in the treatment of obesity and hyperlipidemia, the team reports.

In tea, catechins, L-theanine, theaflavins, thearubigins and theabrownins are primarily responsible for the anti-obesity effect, and tea extracts have been shown to increase energy consumption, reduce lipid synthesis and suppress adipogenesis, the researchers continued.

Cocoa develops its anti-obesity effect via the polyphenols quercetin, epicatechin and procyanidin B2 as well as the alkaloid theobromine.

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Preventive and therapeutic effect

Overall, the consumption of tea, coffee and cocoa could definitely contribute to obesity prevention and also have therapeutic benefits, the researchers conclude.

However, parameters such as the required dose, efficiency and bioavailability must first be clearly clarified before appropriate nutritional recommendations can be made.

It also seems sensible to examine the bioactive substances in the three drinks in more detail. “We believe that bioactive substances from these three functional foods will make a major contribution to human health in the future,” said the research team. (fp)