A Survey on Clinical Effectiveness of Green Tea Supplementation Compared to Fiber, Caffeine and L-carnitine Supplements on Weight Loss: a Network Meta-Analysis

No study compared the effectiveness of the green tea, fiber, caffeine and L-carnitine on weight loss in individuals. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of green tea, fiber, caffeine and L-carnitine in clinical aspects of people.  

The databases of Pubmed, Scopus and Cochran were searched up to November 2018. The pairwise method was used to compare the difference between the mean weight loss of drugs in two direct methods (comparison of drugs with the control group) and non-direct (Compare medications together).

The present study performed on 73 clinical studies with a cumulative population of 3921, showed that caffeine (-0.88 kg; -2.60 to -0.84), caffeine + catechine (-0.74 kg; -1.70 to 0.21), green tea (-0.61 kg; -1.33 to -0.11), fiber (-0.31 kg; -0.79 to -0.17), respectively, had the most effect on weight loss compared with the placebo group. In addition, carnitine supplementation did not effect on weight loss.

The present study indicated that green tea supplementation had a lower effect on weight loss compared with caffeine and caffeine+catechin, and had a greater effect on weight loss compared with fiber and carnitine.