Oct. 28, 2024
It&#;s said to help ease anxiety, stress, and reduce insomnia. Before trying it out yourself, learn more about the potential health benefits, as well as any possible risks or complications.
For more information, please visit Witspower.
L-theanine is an amino acid found primarily in green and black tea and some mushrooms. It&#;s also available in pill or tablet form.
Most known for helping people relax, L-theanine has other potential health benefits, including:
Sipping on a hot cup of tea can help you feel at ease, and research suggests that it not only relaxes the mind, but it also does so without causing drowsiness (1).
In a review of five randomized controlled trials that included 104 participants, four trials linked L-theanine with reduced stress and anxiety in people experiencing stressful situations (2).
Another study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry focused on people living with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Researchers found that L-theanine decreased anxiety and improved symptoms (3).
Paired with caffeine, L-theanine may help increase focus and attention.
A small study found that a combination of L-theanine (97 milligrams, or mg) and caffeine (40 mg) helped a group of young adults focus better during demanding tasks. A typical cup of coffee contains 95 mg of caffeine (4, 5).
The study&#;s participants also felt more alert and less tired in general.
Some research suggests that L-theanine may improve the function of the body&#;s immune system. One study published in the journal Beverages found that L-theanine could help decrease upper respiratory tract infections (6).
Another one found that green tea catechins&#; antioxidants&#; and theanine could be effective at preventing the flu (7, 8).
Another study found that L-theanine could help improve inflammation in the intestinal tract. However, more research is needed to confirm and expand on these findings (6, 9).
L-theanine has also been associated with amplifying the anti-tumor effects of certain chemotherapy drugs. Because of these promising findings, researchers expect that L-theanine could also help improve chemotherapy&#;s ability to fight cancer (10).
Although there&#;s no definitive evidence to show that tea prevents cancer, a number of studies suggest that people who regularly drink tea have lower rates of cancer (10, 11, 12).
Researchers of one study in China found that women diagnosed with ovarian cancer who drank at least one cup of green tea a day lived longer than those who didn&#;t (13).
Another study that looked at tea drinkers compared to nondrinkers found that women who drank green tea were 32 percent less likely to develop pancreatic cancer (14).
L-theanine may be beneficial for those who experience increased blood pressure in stressful situations.
One study found that people who usually experienced higher blood pressure after specific mental tasks found that L-theanine helped reduce an increase in blood pressure.
In the same study, the researchers noted that caffeine had a similar but less beneficial effect (15).
Some research indicates that L-theanine could be beneficial for a good night&#;s sleep, which could be because it helps to promote relaxation.
Researchers in one study found that doses of 250 mg and 400 mg of L-theanine greatly improved sleep in animals and humans (16).
Also, 200 mg of L-theanine was shown to help reduce resting heart rate, pointing to its ability to promote relaxation (16).
L-theanine may also help boys diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) sleep better.
A double-blind study looked at the effects of L-theanine on 98 boys ages 8 to 12 years old. A randomized group was given two 100 mg chewable tablets of L-theanine twice daily. The other group received placebo pills.
After 6 weeks, the group taking L-theanine had longer, more restful sleep. While the results are promising, more research is needed before it can be proven safe and effective, especially for children (17).
Other research suggests that L-theanine improved sleep quality for those diagnosed with schizophrenia (18).
The scientific references in this article (marked by 1, 2, 3, etc.) are clickable links to peer-reviewed research material on the subject being discussed.
It is designed to be honest, unbiased and objective, and opinions from both sides of an argument are presented wherever there is disagreement.
This article has been written by experts and fact-checked by experts, including licensed nutritionists, dietitians or medical professionals. The information in the article is based on scientific studies and research.
It can be difficult to keep up with fads. By the time you&#;re aware of the latest and hottest trends, they&#;re likely to be yesterday&#;s news.
That&#;s certainly the case with most fad diets &#; and it&#;s also true for dietary supplements like L-theanine. Sometimes they&#;re even gone before most people are aware of them.
But it&#;s important to understand the pros and cons of the ones that stick around for a while.
For more information, please visit L-Theanine Makes Me Feel Weird.
Featured content:Diets, Supplements and Health
Most readers are probably too old to remember the Lemonade Diet and the Cabbage Soup Diet, both of which had their moments of popularity in the early-to-mid 20th century. (Few people alive today will remember the &#;cigarette diet,&#; pushed by Lucky Strike in .)
And if you blinked, you may have missed the Sleeping Beauty Diet, Deal-A-Meal, the Cotton Ball Diet and the Pioppi Diets in more recent years.
On the other hand, some diets like the Weight Watchers&#; Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Paleo Diet and the Keto Diet soar to popularity and remain there. They&#;re the ones that had an actual basis in medical science.
Just like diets, many popular dietary supplements come and go &#; often, because they&#;re discovered to be unhealthy or dangerous.
The weight loss supplements Ephedra and fen-phen, as well as herbal Viagra, are among the most notorious. But even overconsumption of vitamins A and E has been linked to an increased risk of death.
Well over 50% of American adults now take dietary supplements, which makes safety a crucial consideration when discussing any supplement.
That brings us to L-theanine, a dietary supplement which has become increasingly popular over the last few years. It&#;s often used by people seeking stress and anxiety relief, or better attention and focus.
But is it safe? Are there L-theanine side effects to worry about?
From what we know so far the supplement appears to be safe, and its side effects appear to be minimal at worst. There&#;s a lot more to learn about L-theanine, though, before you decide to add it to your health and wellness regime.
Let&#;s do that now.
It&#;s no secret that green tea is good for you. It&#;s been shown to have positive effects on cardiovascular health, cholesterol and blood pressure, and research shows that it apparently has antioxidant, antibacterial and even anti-tumor properties.
Many of those benefits have been traced to the presence of caffeine, and compounds known as polyphenols, flavonols and catechins, in green tea.
In fact, they&#;re present to some degree in all types of tea, because green, oolong and black tea are all made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. The different varieties of tea are produced by using different processing methods.
There&#;s one more substance in tea that also provides bountiful health benefits, an amino acid called L-theanine (also known as r-glutamylethylamide). And the greatest amount of L-theanine is found in green tea, produced from Camellia sinensis leaves which receive only minimal processing before being used to make tea or sold.
(A side note for those concerned about the side effects of L-theanine: research indicates that consuming as many as five cups of green tea a day is safe and effective.)
You can probably guess that a cup of green tea contains much less of the amino acid than dietary L-theanine supplements &#; so the supplements, which are available in pill, capsule, tablet and powder form, are likely to be the best source of L-theanine if you want to add it to your daily diet.
But should you? Research suggests that it may be a good idea, at least for several common health or wellness concerns.
Many L-theanine branded supplements (like Suntheanine) have been labeled GRAS (generally recognized as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but that doesn&#;t mean the government has actually studied the substances in great detail.
Here&#;s a startling, little-known fact: companies can even &#;self-affirm&#; that they&#;ve performed tests to verify the safety of their products. So we have to dig a little deeper.
We&#;ll lead with the most important information first. No major negative side effects or adverse effects have been reported in association with the use of L-theanine.
There have been anecdotal reports that a small number of users have suffered minor problems like headaches or difficulty falling asleep.
The latter may seem odd, given L-theanine&#;s ability to help promote relaxation and healthy sleep, but everyone&#;s body reacts differently to supplements and medication; it&#;s certainly possible that a few people could suffer minor side effects that appear counterintuitive.
There are other, even less common possible side effects occasionally reported with the use of high doses of L-theanine, including dizziness and nausea, stomach aches and diarrhea, and (again, counterintuitive) difficulty focusing.
That last one is sometimes called &#;theanine brain fog&#; or a &#;theanine high&#; by a small number of users, but it hasn&#;t been confirmed in any scientific research, and it seems likely to be associated only with extremely high doses of L-theanine.
It&#;s also important to note that most of those anecdotal reports concern the use of L-theanine and caffeine together, or the use of green tea supplements which contain L-theanine and all of the other components of green tea.
There are no dangerous interactions known between L-theanine and specific medications.
However, we&#;ve discussed two of the possible effects of the supplements. One is a decrease in blood pressure; the other is the &#;slowing&#; of brain and nervous system activity that allows for greater comprehension and cognitive function.
It&#;s possible that, in the first case, medications taken to reduce blood pressure could combine with L-theanine to cause blood pressure to drop too low. In the second case, people taking stimulant medications, which are meant to speed up brain and nervous system function, may find that they &#;fight&#; with L-theanine and cause unexpected metabolic results.
In both cases, it&#;s a good idea to seek medical advice from healthcare professionals before taking L-theanine. The same advice applies to those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, since there have been no studies confirming the safety of L-theanine for people in those two groups.
And, as with all medications and supplements, it&#;s best to avoid combining their use with alcohol.
Just as there are no conclusive studies on the safety of L-theanine, there are no definitive, science-based rules on the proper amount of the supplement users should take.
The majority of clinical studies that focused on the amino acid used doses between 100-300 milligrams; most naturopaths and herbal medicine experts suggest starting low, with about 100 mg of L-theanine per day, and increasing as needed.
That should be more than enough, as 300mg is about ten times more L-theanine than you&#;d get from a cup of green tea &#; and the limited testing that has been done reported that as much as mg-mg per day was still safe, without major side effects.
What if you want to pair the L-theanine with caffeine? Once your body has become accustomed to L-theanine supplements, a good rule of thumb is to take about equal amounts of caffeine and L-theanine.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of Theanine Powder. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
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