Sufficient Sleep & 6 Cups of Green Tea - Proven Ways to Increase Your Energy Expenditure & Conserve Your Resting Metabolic Rate While Dieting | Part II of A Multipart Series

I suppose you will have known that sleep hygiene & green tea help, but did you know the exact numbers when it comes to their effects on your resting energy expenditure, as well? No? In this case, today's SuppVersity article is for you!

In the first installment of this new SuppVersity series, you've learned about the pro-metabolic effects of eating less frequent large(er) meals and the ability of caffeine to boost resting energy expenditure and fatty acid oxidation. Today, we're going to take a look at the effects of sleep and green tea on the amount of energy your body consumes in a given 24h window.

In 2011, Christian Benedict and colleagues conducted an interesting study. The German scientists examined the resting energy expenditure of 14 normal-weight male subjects on two occasions during a regular 24-h sleep-wake cycle (including 8 h of nocturnal sleep) and a 24-h period of continuous wakefulness in a balanced cross-over study.

Not living in tune with your circadian rhythm is a reliable way to become obese!

Sunlight, Bluelight, Backlight and Your Clock

Sunlight a La Carte: "Hack" Your Rhythm

Breaking the Fast to Synchronize the Clock

Fasting (Re-)Sets the Peripheral Clock

Vitamin A & Caffeine Set the Clock

Pre-Workout Supps Could Ruin Your Sleep

On the morning after regular sleep and total sleep deprivation, resting and postprandial energy expenditures were assessed by indirect calorimetry, and the free choice food intake from an opulent buffet was tested in the late afternoon at the end of the experiment.

In addition to energy expenditure and intake the scientists also checked, whether the lack of sleep would affect the concentrations of ghrelin, leptin, norepinephrine, cortisol, thyreotropin, glucose and insulin; and they did so repeatedly over the course of the whole 24 study period.

Figure 1: Sleep loss reduced the morning energy expenditure in humans. After a night of regular sleep (black bars) and a night of continuous wakefulness (white bars), metabolic rates were measured by indirect calorimetry in healthy young men under resting conditions [resting metabolic rate (RMR)] between 0745 and 0815 and after the consumption of a liquid standard breakfast (600 mL of a vanilla-flavored energy drink that contained 3.8 MJ | Benedict. 2011)

As you can easily see, Benedict et al. observed highly significant decreases in energy expenditure in the sleep deprivation condition (Figure 1, open bars). Similar results (-147kcal/day | ca. -10%) have been observed by Nedeltcheva et al. (2010) who were also able to confirm that "sleep curtailment decreased the fraction of weight lost as fat by 55% (1.4 vs. 0.6 kg with 8.5 vs. 5.5-h sleep opportunity, P=0.043) and increased the loss of fat-free body mass by 60% (1.5 vs. 2.4 kg, P=0.002)" in a long(er) term human study.

Figure 2: 10% reduction in insulin sensitivity after less than one week of sleep deprivation is bad news, even if there were two outliers where the insulin sensitivity increased - they are the literal "exceptions that confirm the rule" (Buxton. 2010)

Reduced energy expenditure + increased intake: That's the perfect recipe for becoming obese and ruining your diet efforts; and it is the consequence of sleep deprivation, which increases energy intake in general and your propensity to grab unhealthy snacks instead of whole foods to satisfy your cravings (Nedeltcheva. 2009). In conjunction with the rapid onset of insulin resistance (-10% glucose clearance on oral GGT after less than one week in Buxton. 2010) and up to 52% reductions in overnight fatty acid oxidation (Klingenberg. 2012), this should be reason enough to ensure that you're getting your 6.5-8h of quality sleep every night... and this goes even if studies show population-specific differences in the extend and significance of the effects.

Benedict et al. also observed increased wake-up ghrelin levels (➭ increased hunger), unstable glucose and increased stress (norepinephrine) levels during the night (➭ sugar cravings, while staying awake), as well as paradoxically increased thyretropin levels (➭ should increase the production of thyroid hormone). Ndeltcheva et al. report changes in metabolically relevant hormones, as well - statistically significant were yet only the increases in acetylated ghrelin and the drop in epinpephrine at the end of the intervention. Effects on thyroid hormone concentrations as they have also been observed and outlined by Baumgartner et al. (1993) and Pereira et al. (2014), respectively, have not been observed by either of the scientists.

Three to six cups of green tea and a good nights sleep - that's all?!

Let's leave the sleep issue now and get to #2 on today's list of RMR boosters: Green tea. There is surprisingly little evidence with respect to the beneficial or detrimental effects of green tea on sleep. What we do know, though, is that theanine, an amino acid that can be found in all sorts of teas, appears to promote healthy sleep in people who are at a particularly high risk of not getting their daily dose of quality sleep due to ADHD (Lyon. 2011) and people who have problems to relax (Mason. 2001; Unno, 2013).

No, theanine is not green tea specific! In fact, Keenan et al. found only three years ago that "[c]ontrary to previous research, a standard (200 ml) cup of black tea was found to contain the most l-theanine (24.2 ± 5.7 mg) while a cup of green tea contained the least (7.9 ± 3.8 mg)." (Keenan. 2011). If you want to calm yourself down, you're thus better off with a long-brewed cup of black tea.

Now theanine has also been found to "partially counteracts caffeine-induced sleep disturbances" (Jang. 2012). Accordingly, you may argue that it's probably not that much of a problem if you are consuming green tea relatively close to going to bed. Personally, I would yet not recommend taking the risk that the caffeine messes with your sleep (learn more).

The reason green tea made it into today's issue of the "natural metabolism boosters"-series should be obvious: There are dozens of studies showing increases in RMR, even when the guys or, as in the case of a 2010 study by Stendell-Hollis, the girls in the placebo group experienced a diet-induced reduction in resting metabolic rate.

Figure 3: Changes in RMR in cancer survivors on lifestyle program with or without 960 mL of green tea per day with, on average, 236 mg total catechins (Stendell-Hollis. 2010)

The number of studies, where this difference reached statistical significance, on the other hand, is small. In the previously cited study by Stendell-Hollis, for example the total difference was 18.09 kilocalories per day, which would be a joke, even if the standard deviations were not >200kcal/day and the result thus statistically 100% non significant.

Figure 4: Energy expenditure (EE) during the 125 h chamber stay plotted against the five different treatments. Inter-group differences in % (Gregersen. 2009).

Caffeine + EGCG make a powerful team, but... In a 2009 studies, scientists from the University of Kopenhagen found that EGCG, the best known of the dozen of green tea catechins is an excellent synergist to caffeine, my recommendation from the last installment of this series and increases. The data Gregerson et al. present in the May issue of the British Journal of Nutrition does yet also show that (a) the other catechins work as well, and (b) caffeine, not EGCG is the #1 metabolic energizer (150mg caffeine alone ➭ 1.7% increase in energy expenditure vs. caffeine + EGCG ➭ 2.3% increase in energy expenditure).

It is thus questionable, whether it makes sense to buy caffeine-free green-tea extracts, unless you want to take an additional dose right before bed and plan to combine the product with coffee or caffeine tabs in the AM and early PM.

As the data Hursel et al. present in one of the most comprehensive reviews of the effects of green tea on energy expenditure suggests, the extent of the effects is highly variable and depends on dosing and subject characteristics (specifally obese vs. non-obese subjects with greater efficiacy of caffeine + GTE in lean sujects / this went so far that in Boschmann (2011) EGCG alone had even zero effect in obese men; also, from previous studies: greater effects in Asians vs. Caucasians and smaller effects in people consuming >300mg/day of caffeine habitually; cf. Hursel. 2009).

Figure 5: Modified overview of the changes in energy expenditure (left) and fatty acid oxidation (right) from Hursel et al. (2008) - a brief glance at the data from the circled trials indicates: there is a benefit from adding catechins!

If we discard this important fact and simple average the data from the studies Hursel et al. reviewed in 2008, the mean increase in energy expenditure over 24 h for green tea catechins + caffeine would equal 428.0 kJ/day. That's 102.3kcal/day (+4.7%) and thus lower, albeit not significantly lower than the average of the caffeine only trials that were included in the same review.

Toxicity Warning! Do yourself a favor and don't buy lead, chromium and cadmium laden Chinese green tea. I wrote about this problem back in May and I don't think that the levels have improved in the mean time (learn more). In the end, even the previously reported reductions in testosterone in response to green tea consumption could be related to unwanted heavy metals.

Figure 6: Green tea does more to help you lose weight than to increase your energy expenditure (Rains. 2011)

If we look at it study by study, however, it turns out that the circled trials in Figure 5 proof an additive effect of green tea catechins that goes beyond that of caffeine. It may be smaller than the hype around green tea supps suggests, but it is there.

In conjunction with the other established benefits of green tea catechins, as they were highlighted by Rains et al. in a 2011 review (see Figure 6), the addition of green tea extracts to your regimen as a means to increase and maintain your resting energy expenditure appears warranted, specifically if you're suffering from high grade inflammation, as well.

There is yet more to the data in Figure 5, specifically to the data that relate to a study by Sonia Bérubé-Parent, Catherine Pelletier, Jean Doré and Angelo Tremblay (check out the data from the Bérubé-Parent study in isolation). Their study does after all answer the question that may be preying on your heads, now: Yes, there is an increase in energy expenditure with increasing EGCG levels, but this increase is minimal and the use of more than 250mg/day appears futile based on the data Bérubé-Parent et al. collected.

Figure 7: Estimated catechin (large box) and caffeine (small box) intake form 6 cups of fruit, green or black teas as they are commonly sold in the United Kingdom (Khokhar. 2002)

Bottom line: The improvements in energy expenditure in response to green tea and sleep may not be as pronounced as those in response to the agents / habits in the last installment of this series (go back and learn more).

And still, the use of green tea supplements and, even more so, sleep hygiene (regular sleeping patterns, 6-8h of sleep every night, sleeping in a quiet, dark environment, no screen use in the late PM, etc.) have multilayered metabolic effects that will help you lose weight and stay lean and will thus work synergistically with caffeine and eating larger meals less frequently.

In that, I would consider sleep hygiene, the basics of which I outlined in the circadian rhythm series. The consumption of 6 small cups (100ml) of green tea (this will deliver ~260mg of catechins including approx. 100-120mg of EGCG, six regular cups would get you to the dosage at which Bérubé-Parent et al. observed a ceiling effect | Khokhar. 2002) or a similar amount of catechins from supplements, on the other hand, that is commonly overestimated | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Baumgartner, Andreas, et al. "Influence of partial sleep deprivation on the secretion of thyrotropin, thyroid hormones, growth hormone, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, and estradiol in healthy young women." Psychiatry research 48.2 (1993): 153-178.
• Benedict, Christian, et al. "Acute sleep deprivation reduces energy expenditure in healthy men." The American journal of clinical nutrition 93.6 (2011): 1229-1236.
• Bérubé-Parent, Sonia, et al. "Effects of encapsulated green tea and Guarana extracts containing a mixture of epigallocatechin-3-gallate and caffeine on 24 h energy expenditure and fat oxidation in men." British Journal of Nutrition 94.03 (2005): 432-436.
• Boschmann, Michael, and Frank Thielecke. "The effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate on thermogenesis and fat oxidation in obese men: a pilot study." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 26.4 (2007): 389S-395S.
• Buxton, Orfeu M., et al. "Sleep restriction for 1 week reduces insulin sensitivity in healthy men." Diabetes 59.9 (2010): 2126-2133.
• Gregersen, Nikolaj T., et al. "Effect of moderate intakes of different tea catechins and caffeine on acute measures of energy metabolism under sedentary conditions." British journal of nutrition 102.08 (2009): 1187-1194. 
• Hursel, R., W. Viechtbauer, and M. S. Westerterp-Plantenga. "The effects of green tea on weight loss and weight maintenance: a meta-analysis." International journal of obesity 33.9 (2009): 956-961. 
• Hursel, R., et al. "The effects of catechin rich teas and caffeine on energy expenditure and fat oxidation: a meta‐analysis." obesity reviews 12.7 (2011): e573-e581.
• Jang, Hwan-Soo, et al. "L-theanine partially counteracts caffeine-induced sleep disturbances in rats." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 101.2 (2012): 217-221.
• Lyon, Michael R., Mahendra P. Kapoor, and Lekh R. Juneja. "The effects of L-theanine (Suntheanine) on objective sleep quality in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial." Altern Med Rev 16.4 (2011): 348-354. 
• Keenan, Emma K., et al. "How much theanine in a cup of tea? Effects of tea type and method of preparation." Food chemistry 125.2 (2011): 588-594. 
• Khokhar, S., and S. G. M. Magnusdottir. "Total phenol, catechin, and caffeine contents of teas commonly consumed in the United Kingdom." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 50.3 (2002): 565-570.
• Klingenberg, Lars, et al. "Short sleep duration and its association with energy metabolism." Obesity Reviews 13.7 (2012): 565-577.
• Mason, Russ. "200 mg of Zen: L-theanine boosts alpha waves, promotes alert relaxation." Alternative & Complementary Therapies 7.2 (2001): 91-95.
• Nedeltcheva, Arlet V., et al. "Sleep curtailment is accompanied by increased intake of calories from snacks." The American journal of clinical nutrition 89.1 (2009): 126-133.
• Nedeltcheva, Arlet V., et al. "Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity." Annals of internal medicine 153.7 (2010): 435-441.
• Pereira Jr, José Carlos, and Mônica Levy Andersen. "The role of thyroid hormone in sleep deprivation." Medical hypotheses 82.3 (2014): 350-355. 
• Rains, Tia M., Sanjiv Agarwal, and Kevin C. Maki. "Antiobesity effects of green tea catechins: a mechanistic review." The Journal of nutritional biochemistry 22.1 (2011): 1-7.
• St-Onge, Marie-Pierre, et al. "Short sleep duration increases energy intakes but does not change energy expenditure in normal-weight individuals." The American journal of clinical nutrition 94.2 (2011): 410-416. 
• Stendell‐Hollis, Nicole R., et al. "Green tea improves metabolic biomarkers, not weight or body composition: a pilot study in overweight breast cancer survivors." Journal of human nutrition and dietetics 23.6 (2010): 590-600.
• Unno, Keiko, et al. "Anti-stress effect of theanine on students during pharmacy practice: Positive correlation among salivary α-amylase activity, trait anxiety and subjective stress." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 111 (2013): 128-135.

Less Frequent Large(r) Meals & Caffeine - Proven Ways to Increase Your Energy Expenditure & Conserve Your Resting Metabolic Rate While Dieting | Part I of A Multipart Series

Whether you want to lose or gain weight, never forget to "Eat to live!"

To lose weight, you must create a negative energy balance.It is however unrealistic to expect your body not to do everything it can to conserve energy, when you've been eating 50% below maintenance for weeks (e.g. you need 2,000kcal, but eat only 1,000). Not to reduce your energy intake by more than 40% (for max. 2 weeks) and going with 20-25% if you plan to diet for 4-6 weeks would thus qualify as rule #1; a rule of which I can only say that I highly recommend you stick to it, because if you don't even the five tips below are not going to save your metabolism from crashing (learn more about the nine rules that can help avoiding metabolic shut-down).

There is evidence of effects of coffee & CGA on your gut microbiome (Jaquet. 2009)

Fiber for Female Fat Loss

Sweeteners & Your Gut

Foods, Not Ma- cros for the Gut

Lactulose For Gut & Health

Probiotics Don't Cut Body Fat

The Macrobiotic MaPi2.0 Diet

Ah, and before I forget to mention it. If you don't control your dietary energy intake, chances that any of the following tricks (in that case magically) help you lose weight without the need to diet are anywhere between "slim" and "zero".

• Eat large meals less frequently: It may go against the longstanding recommendation, but due to the fact that meal size, not macro composition is the main determinant of the post-meal increase in thermogenic effect.

  

  Figure 1: Increase in metabolic rate above basal metabolic rate (BMR) (kJ/min) after ingestion of
  four different test meals by human subjects (Kinabo. 1999)

  And considering the fact that the latter lasts for 5h+ (see Figure 1) the idea that you have to eat a small meal every hour "to stoke the furnace" is fundamentally flawed. No wonder, people all over the world are successfully using weight by intermittent fasting.

Thermic effect of food (in kcal/3h), when it's consumed at rest or after a workout in lean vs. obese (fat, not just heavy) subjects (Segal, 1985)

The thermic effect of food is reduced with obesity: A review of 49 pertinent studies by researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center clearly indicates "the reduction of TEF in obesity is related to the degree of insulin resistance, which may be influenced by a low level of sympathetic activity." (Jonee. 1997). A study by Segal et al. measured a difference of 42% at rest and 64% if the meal was consumed after a workout (see figure on the left). Accordingly those of you who are still carrying more than "some" extra weight should be careful not to overestimate the benefits of food induced increases in thermogenesis. Don't misinterpret this as "you got to eat more often", though! This could make things even worse.

• You have to be careful, though, long arduous workouts during the fast or fasting for more than 12-16h could nullify the thermogenic benefit of being able to eat to satiety once or twice a day. And no! The Kinabo study is not a statistical outlier, it's just like a study with almost identical results by Tai et al. (1991) real vs. broscience which dictates that you "got to stock the furnace" - a practice of which the latest controlled studies show that is has "no significant effect on 24-h fat oxidation, but may increase hunger and the desire to eat." (Ohkawara. 2013)

• Use 4mg/kg caffeine per day - You will certainly have expected to see caffeine on the list of agents that help. Unfortunately, caffeine is significantly more effective for lean vs. overweight individuals. In a study from the Institute of Physiology at the University of Lausanne, David Bracco and colleagues were able to show that the thermogenic effect of caffeine coffee (4mg/kg body weight) was 35.6% more pronounced in the lean vs. obese female subjects (Bracco. 1995) - similar results have been reported by Belza et al. (2007), Hollands et al. (1981) increases of 15% in the two hours after the ingestion of caffeinated vs. decaffeinated coffee.
  

  

  Figure 2: Relative increase in resting metabolic rate, energy expenditure during exercise and sleep in lean and obese women in response to the ingestion of 4mg/kg of caffeine (vs. placebo | Bracco. 2014)

  In addition to the overall effect size, the data in Figure 2 does also indicate that an "over night" effect, as well as the increase in energy expenditure during workouts were likewise only observed in the lean, not in the obese women (since the lack of thermogenesis has been associated with decreased insulin sensitivity using 300-500mg of alpha lipoic acid, as I have suggested in a recent article, may ameliorate the reduction in postprandial thermogenesis).

Remember not to go overboard on caffeine (here's why): Stick to 600mg/day and take it in three to four doses of 200mg or 150mg respectively; and, if possible, get some of it from coffee, for the added benefits of chlorogenic acid & co (McCarty. 2005). In fact, a recent study from the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern shows that coffee consumption 250ml 3x per day (vs. decaffeinated coffee as placebo) will even induce body fat loss(es) in the absence of deliberate restrictions of food intake in 84 healthy subjects... and on top of it, the coffee consumption protected the study participants DNA (Bakuradze. 2014).

• Now 4mg/kg may seem like quite a high dosage for some of you. In contrast to the usual SuppVersity mantra that "more won't help more", those 4mg caffeine per kg of body weight are yet well necessary. In a 1999 study from the University of Geneva, for example, the administration of only 50mg of caffeine had no effect on the resting energy expenditure of 10 healthy male volunteers (Dullo. 1999).
  
  

  

  Figure 3: Substrate utilization (mg/min) before (filled bars) and after (empty bars) the ingestion of a complex test meal with either coffee (4mg/kg caffeine) or decaffeinated coffee (Acheson. 1980).

  Furthermore, caffeine has also been shown to increase the thermic effects of a meal and to shift the fuel utilization towards fatty acids (Acheson. 1980; see Figure 3). The latter will not necessarily help you to burn more body fat, but it will spare liver and muscle glycogen, when you're dieting and reduce the chances that your liver resorts to amino acids from your musculature to cover the glucose requirements of your body.
  
  In conjunction with the net increase in energy expenditure Dullo et al. quantify in the range of 150 kcal in lean volunteers and 79 kcal as a response to the bi-hourly consumption of 100mg of caffeine in the post-obese subjects, there is little doubt that
  

  "Caffeine at commonly consumed doses can have a significant influence on energy balance and may promote thermogenesis in the treatment of obesity." (Dullo. 1989)

  Studies by Yoshida et al. support this notion and confirm that the addition of caffeine to the weight loss equation will be particularly effective in overweight individuals with reduced baseline metabolic rate (Yoshida. 1995) and more recent experimental data from the University of Maastricht confirms that high caffeine intakes are associated not just with increased weight loss through thermogenesis and fat oxidation, but also with reduced fat mass, and waist circumference in overweight and moderately obese subjects (Westerterp‐Plantenga. 2005).

Suggested: Many Small Meals Suck - Especially for Diabetics | more

You already knew those two? Well in that case you've probably been following my articles here at the SuppVersity for quite some time, now. I have, after all, written about caffeine, coffee, intermittent fasting and meal frequencies, before. And in case you didn't find at least a couple of additional new figures, you haven't seen before, I can comfort you: There will be follow ups in the course of the next weeks.

It would thus be a stroke of bad luck if you didn't find at least one new agent or trick in one of the next installments of this series or spend your time commenting on Facebook!

References:

• Acheson, K. J., et al. "Caffeine and coffee: their influence on metabolic rate and substrate utilization in normal weight and obese individuals." The American journal of clinical nutrition 33.5 (1980): 989-997. 
• Bakuradze, Tamara, et al. "Four weeks coffee consumption affects energy intake, satiety regulation, body fat, and protects DNA integrity." Food Research International (2014).
• Bracco, David, et al. "Effects of caffeine on energy metabolism, heart rate, and methylxanthine metabolism in lean and obese women." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 32.4 (1995): E671. 
• Dulloo, A. G., et al. "Normal caffeine consumption: influence on thermogenesis and daily energy expenditure in lean and postobese human volunteers." The American journal of clinical nutrition 49.1 (1989): 44-50.
• Dulloo, Abdul G., et al. "Efficacy of a green tea extract rich in catechin polyphenols and caffeine in increasing 24-h energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans." The American journal of clinical nutrition 70.6 (1999): 1040-1045.
• Hollands, Marjorie A., J. R. Arch, and M. A. Cawthorne. "A simple apparatus for comparative measurements of energy expenditure in human subjects: the thermic effect of caffeine." The American journal of clinical nutrition 34.10 (1981): 2291-2294.
• Jonee, Lilian, and George A. Bray. "The thermic effect of food and obesity: a critical review." Obesity research 5.6 (1997): 622-631.
• Kinabo, J. L., and J. V. G. A. Durnin. "Thermic effect of food in man: effect of meal composition, and energy content." British Journal of Nutrition 64.01 (1990): 37-44. Segal, Karen R., et al. "Thermic effect of food at rest, during exercise, and after exercise in lean and obese men of similar body weight." Journal of Clinical Investigation 76.3 (1985): 1107.
• McCarty, Mark F. "A chlorogenic acid-induced increase in GLP-1 production may mediate the impact of heavy coffee consumption on diabetes risk." Medical hypotheses 64.4 (2005): 848-853.
• Ohkawara, Kazunori, et al. "Effects of increased meal frequency on fat oxidation and perceived hunger." Obesity 21.2 (2013): 336-343.
• Segal, Karen R., et al. "Thermic effect of food at rest, during exercise, and after exercise in lean and obese men of similar body weight." Journal of Clinical Investigation 76.3 (1985): 1107.
• Tai, Mary M., Peter Castillo, and F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer. "Meal size and frequency: effect on the thermic effect of food." The American journal of clinical nutrition 54.5 (1991): 783-787. 
• Westerterp‐Plantenga, Margriet S., Manuela PGM Lejeune, and Eva MR Kovacs. "Body weight loss and weight maintenance in relation to habitual caffeine intake and green tea supplementation." Obesity research 13.7 (2005): 1195-1204.
• Yoshida, T., et al. "Relationship between basal metabolic rate, thermogenic response to caffeine, and body weight loss following combined low calorie and exercise treatment in obese women." International journal of obesity and related metabolic disorders: journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity 18.5 (1994): 345-350.