Effect of green tea extract on bone mass and body composition in individuals with diabetes

•Green tea promotes an intermittent increase in PTH concentration.•Green tea presents therapeutic potential for increasing bone mineral content.•Green tea did not promote improvement of body composition in individuals with DM. Green tea has shown benefits in diabetes and osteoporosis. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effect of green tea on glycemic control, body composition and bone mass in diabetic subjects. A double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial was conducted with 35 diabetic subjects. Participants received 1120 mg of green tea extract containg 560 mg of polyphenols/day or cellulose. Body composition, bone mass measures and other parameters are evaluated after 10 and 20 weeks. For bone mineral content, a 1.60 g increase in green tea group and a 0.98 g decrease in control group resulted in a difference in mean of 2.58 g between groups approaching significance (p = 0.056). It was observed an increase in PTH after 10 weeks in the green tea group (p = 0.008) with a subsequent reduction at 20 weeks. Thus, green tea may contribute to improvement of bone mineral content in diabetic subjects.