I’m caught in a dilemma between hot beverages.

Whenever I see, smell, and taste green tea, I’m thinking: “That’s quite nice.”
A couple of moments later, I can feel a light but noticeable soothing wakefulness traversing my body and mind.

I’ve bought matcha powder recently for self-experimentation purposes, but oh my, the taste is horrifying.

It’s like it has been specifically designed to not appeal to my taste buds.

How do people do this?

Whenever I sense coffee, however, things go a little differently.
The situation, after it hits my system, can be more appropriately described with a strongly reverberating “Fuck yeah!”

Judging by what research tells us, coffee seems all fine and dandy.

But green tea is supposed to be so amazing for you.

The catechines in green tea, especially epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), have been implicated in benefitting almost every organ system in your body (1).

The simple answer would be to drink both or just to take a green tea extract.

But I don’t want to. It’s got to be this or that.

Laugh all you want, but the struggle is real for me.

I want to declare a winner.

Taking the Lead

An interesting study was published in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry which might have hit a home run for team green tea (2).

The researchers showed that EGCG had similar effects on the muscle cell as insulin and IGF-1. Maybe I should remind you that these are the two most anabolic hormones your bodily arsenal has to offer. Not only are they anabolic but also anti-catabolic. That means they stimulate protein synthesis and inhibit protein breakdown in muscle cells.

Muscle protein breakdown is regulated by proteins of the FOXO-family. Insulin and IGF-1 inhibit Foxo1 and thus stop protein breakdown.

In this particular study, the researchers examined the effect of IGF-1, insulin, and EGCG on Foxo1 activity in muscle fibers of mice.

All three did the same thing. They decreased FOXO-1 activity and thus lowered protein breakdown, making their action anti-catabolic.

You might ask yourself (as do I):

How did EGCG do this? What’s the underlying mechanism?

As you can see from the graphic, the authors suggested multiple potential pathways.

EGCG could, for example, act directly on Foxo1 –without any detours.

But interestingly, EGCG’s effect on Foxo1 translocation was delayed when compared to the immediate action of insulin and IGF-1 when binding to their receptors on the cell surface.

This suggests that EGCG’s pathway involves additional steps which add time to the effect on Foxo1, or it could use multiple pathways and the effects accumulate over time.

For instance, the researchers showed that EGCG’s effect on Foxo1 is stronger when Akt or ROS were “active”. But EGCG also had a significant effect when either one of them was suppressed.

Again, this supports the idea that EGCG uses different pathways.

How is that interesting at all?

Well, let me tell you why. The study results indicate that besides of ECGC acting directly on Foxo1, or taking a weird detour, it could activate the IGF-1/insulin-pathway directly, …

… thus making it anabolic.

The authors imply that this could indeed be true.

I find it fascinating to see that EGCG, a plant compound, has hormone-like effects on the muscle. This is not the first time that researchers showed that phytochemicals –plant-stuff– can potently regulate metabolism and act on endocrine systems. This is also not the first study to show EGCG’s beneficial effects on the muscle cell, for that matter.

And the dosage the researchers used wasn’t even ridiculous. It was comparable to what we find in the plasma in studies, on humans and animals, where EGCG was consumed orally.

But bear in mind that there is also the turning point of overdosing on EGCG which has detrimental effects and causes cell damage.

Three to five cups a day –we’re talking regular cups (200–250ml), not a German „Maß“– seems like a great place to start.

How to increase the bio-availability of EGCG

There’s still some debate when it comes to the bio-availability, and cellular uptake for that matter, of EGCG from green tea.

Quercetin has been shown to increase the bio-availability of green tea polyphenols in vitro and in vivo.

So, maybe next time brew your tea with onion juice.

We’re all familiar with the study by Khaki et. al in which Iranian researches showed the androgenic activity of the Allium cepa in rats. The rodents increased their testosterone levels by a whopping 314% after drinking this miracle potion for 20 days (3).

That’s what I’d call an anabolic double whammy!

You’d have to use, if you’re a male with average weight, about 60 ml to get the equivalent to the optimal dose from the study.

I’m kidding. This is stupid and gross. Please don’t do this.

But the bio-availability issue of EGCG from green tea is something to bear in mind. Quercetin and or fish oil help with that.

Concluding Remarks

As exciting as these findings are, we may not rejoice yet, because it was a petri-dish study on isolated muscle fibers. Muscle fibers of a female mice, to be precise. But, like I’ve said, it isn’t the first study to show beneficial effects of EGCG on muscle tissue.

If this has any actual implications for non-dissected free living members of the human race, however, remains to be seen.

But it’s still intriguing, don’t you think?

This would be a whole new and good reason to drink green tea.

The authors conclude: „Further understanding of EGCG’s parallel signaling pathways could have implications both in slowing muscle atrophy as it relates to Foxo1 or, more broadly, in providing a clinically significant parallel pathway to IGF-1 or insulin signaling which may help provide an alternative clinical therapy for the reduced insulin receptor sensitivity associated with Type II Diabetes Mellitus.“

Potential alternative clinical therapy for people with Type II DM… Cool stuff :).

If you’re looking for more shorter life-lessons, just follow the link ;)

This article was brought to you by the lovely Leon Brouwer, co-founder and author at Beasts by Nature. In future, this channel will include more of his work. I hope you enjoyed it (if yes, leave him a clap :P) , Till