Can Yerba Maté have an Ozempic-like slimming effect?

“TL;DR: Yerba maté is not much different to normal coffee (it is equally stimulant, diuretic and antioxidant) and certainly has no special Ozempic-like anti-obesity properties, neither any special effects again cellulite.”

Yerba Maté, obesity and cellulite

• Can yerba mate fight overweight, like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy do?

• Can yerba maté reduce cellulite?

• Yerba Maté, antioxidants, caffeine, slimming and cellulite

• Comparing yerba maté with other herbal drinks and berries

• Polyphenols, maté and cellulite

• Have a skin tightening/cellulite treatment in London with the experts

• Discover our professional training and consultancy in cellulite, skin tightening, radiofrequency and ultrasound

Can yerba mate fight overweight, like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy do?

The South American tea drink Yerba-Maté (Ilex paraguariensis) has been in the news again recently (April 2024) when tabloids hyped it up as “Football’s secret Ozempic", apparently because Lionel Messi drinks it, and David Beckham has tried it, so it must be a slimming superdrink - or words to that effect 😂

Apparently, according to studies, yerba mate’s antioxidants and caffeine make it have amazing secret slimming powers. However, most superfoods and drinks, anything from berries to green tea have also been found to have such properties but no-one who consumes them is getting suddenly any slimmer - at least not nearly close to an Ozempic-like scale.

People may CONDITIONALLY get *a bit* slimmer with high antioxidant foods, such as green tea, yerba mate, bilberries, green coffee* or açaí* but by no stretch of the imagination do they “shed the pounds”.

(* Remember green coffee and acai a decade ago? What a hype, eh?)

And under no conditions do these superdrinks and superfoods allow you to follow an American-style diet* and keep the weight off just by drinking yerba mate, açaí or matcha tea. It ain’t gonna happen, so don’t get excited.

(* Basically pre-fried, frozen and then fried again food, laden with HFCS, trans fats and preservatives and washed down with more HFCS-laden soda. Also very popular in Britain, Australia, South Africa and most of the “civilised world”. Some beautiful examples where no amount of yerba mate can help can be seen here and here 😂. Enjoy.)

And maté tea has nothing else to make it even come close to an Ozempic-like effect. If it did, it would be already known for centuries as the miracle cure to obesity, which it obviously isn’t.

And thank God for yerba mate not having an GLP-1 inhibitor-like effect (Ozempic is a GLP-1 inhibitor), as if it had such a pronounced effect it would also have GLP-1 inhibitors’ side-effects too, which in some people can be quite severe.

Can yerba maté reduce cellulite?

Neither maté can help you reduce cellulite, even if following a healthy diet, more than green tea, cocoa, coffee, matcha tea or green coffee would.

As we will see below, yerba maté tea is just another high-caffeine, high-antioxidant tea. But it is not enormously high in antioxidants - or anything else - to make it a special anti-cellulite drink. It’s just one of the many nice herbal drinks with an added high caffeine content.

Yerba mate, antioxidants, caffeine, slimming and cellulite

Indeed polyphenols do help fight obesity and cellulite - but only when a balanced, nutritious diet is followed and always in combination with daily physical activity and cellulite. Polyphenols do have an antioxidant, anti-glycation, anti-inflammatory, collagen-protecting action and they are one of the pillars of whole body health.

A good approximation of the concentration of polyphenols in plants is the antioxidant score, also known as ORAC value (oxygen radical absorbance capacity), measured in μ mol TE/100g (micro mols of Trolox Equivalents per 100g).

According to the ORAC assessment of antioxidant capacity, and consequently polyphenol content estimation, we have (per 100g of tea or tea):

• Maqui berries, 19850

• Hibiscus Tea, Brewed, 6990

• Blueberries, 4669

• Brewed Arabica Coffee, Medium Roast, 2780

• Yerba Mate Tea, Brewed, 1704

• Green Tea, Brewed, 1253

• Ceylon Tea, Brewed, 1210

• Black Tea, Brewed, 1128

• Early Grey Tea, Brewed, 950

• Rooibos Tea, Brewed, 610

Comparing yerba maté with other herbal drinks and berries

What does the ORAC list above show us? It shows us that you can obtain the antioxidants contained in 1 cup of yerba maté tea just by drinking roughly 1.5 cups of green tea or ceylon tea or black tea - or by drinking 0.6 cup of good old coffee (yup!). Clearly yerba mate is no big deal in terms of antioxidants.

In terms of caffeine maté is quite similar to normal coffee or tea - and there is no shortage in this world of caffeine containing drinks - natural like tea and coffee or artificial junk “energy” fizzy drinks.

Sure, maté contains the stimulants theobromine (found on cocoa) and theophylline, in addition to caffeine, but:

• There is no shortage of stimulants in today’s world

• Taking stimulants will exhaust your nervous system and adrenals and lead to exhaustion and obesity in the long-run, after an initial slimming effect - not very smart

The other thing the graph shows us is that you’d better drink some hibiscus tea (4x more antioxidants than yerba maté), eat some blueberries (2.5x more antioxidants than maté) or have some good old arabica coffee (1/6x more antioxidants than maté), especially given than maté tastes kinda horrid (I tried maté back in 2002 or so and I can’t say it doesn’t taste like an ashtray).

And for any nice Argentinian people that read this article, I would say that I would prefer the amazing maqui berries (12x the antioxidants of maté) as an Argentinian product than yerba maté (in Europe and the US you can find maqui berry powder on Amazon).

Polyphenols, maté and cellulite

All in all, if polyphenols is what you are after to help you fight cellulite (most probable, they can have a bigger impact) and obesity (not that probable, don’t expect to shed the pounds in an Ozempic-like manner), always in combination with healthy eating and exercise, you may be better off with berries or hibiscus tea.

On the other hand, if you really like maté, that’s great. Just always be mindful of not consuming too much caffeine, which can exhaust your system in the long run. Personally I would prefer to take my antioxidants from green tea or cocoa, which both have a higher polyphenol to caffeine ratio.

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