An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Continuous Intake of Olive Leaf Tea on Physique and Glucose and Lipid Metabolism

In addition to olive fruit, olive leaves contain abundant polyphenols such as oleuropein, and olive leaf tea has been produced with a focus on this point. However, the functionality of olive leaf tea on human health is still unclear. Therefore, we performed a parallel, randomized trial of two groups, using olive leaf tea and green tea as test beverages. The subjects were 40‐70-year-old nondiabetic men and women with borderline or mildly high serum levels of LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) . Only in the olive leaf tea group, body weight (p＜0.05) and waist circumference (p＜0.01) were significantly decreased after the 12-week intervention. LDL-C levels tended to be decreased (p＝0.054) in the olive leaf tea group, although there were no noticeable effects of olive leaf tea in terms of improvement of glucose and lipid metabolism. Further investigations will be needed to clarify the effect of olive leaf tea on human health.