Research

Hormonal

Short-term green tea extract (GTE) supplementation (900 mg catechins/day for 7 days) reduces postexercise insulinemia following an oral glucose load without altering glucose appearance or disappearance rates, suggesting improved insulin sensitivity.

If you are sedentary and healthy, taking 900mg of green tea extract (standardized for catechins, specifically EGCG) daily for a week may help your body manage blood sugar better immediately after exercise. It won't change how much sugar enters your blood, but it will lower the amount of insulin your pancreas needs to secrete to handle that sugar. This effect is specific to the post-exercise window and may not occur at rest.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
We conclude that short-term GTE supplementation did not affect glucose kinetics following ingestion of an oral glucose load postexercise; however, GTE was associated with attenuated insulinemia.
Brian J. Martin et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2016

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, crossover design with rigorous tracer methodology in healthy, sedentary men; however, sample size is small (n=11) and population is restricted.

Source

Green tea extract does not affect exogenous glucose appearance but reduces insulinemia with glucose ingestion in exercise recovery

Brian J. Martin et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2016

DOI 10.1152/japplphysiol.00657.2016

crossover · n=11Cited 10×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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