Dr. Ming Tea is a product line used to support weight loss and detoxification. The brand claims to have caused "over 100k transformations since 2007."
But does Dr. Ming Tea contain ingredients shown in clinical studies to cause weight loss, or are these just marketing claims? Does the tea contain any questionable additive ingredients? Is "detox" tea unscientific? And how do real customers rate and describe the effects of Dr. Ming Tea?
In this article we'll answer all of these questions and more, as we analyze the ingredients in Dr. Ming Tea based on clinical studies, to give our take on whether or not the brand is likely to cause weight loss.
We'll share our concerns about the research cited by the brand, and feature unsponsored customer reviews.
Slimming Tea Ingredient Analysis
The ingredients in Dr. Ming Slimming Tea are shown above.
Green tea is clinically shown to be effective for weight loss to a small degree.
A medical review on green tea use in overweight and obese patient populations, published in the Cochrane Library, analyzed data from many clinical trials on the topic and concluded the following:
"Green tea preparations appear to induce a small, statistically non‐significant weight loss in overweight or obese adults. Because the amount of weight loss is small, it is not likely to be clinically important."
Senna is clinically shown to cause liver injury in some individuals when used at high doses, as we discussed in our Inno Cleanse reviews article.
We're unable to locate any clinical studies showing senna to cause weight loss, nor does Dr. Ming Tea cite any on their product page at the time of updating this article.
Peppermint is another ingredient that we can't find any research support for in regard to weight loss.
A 2019 animal study reported that dietary intake of peppermint caused weight gain.
Orange peel is another active ingredient we can't find any research backing for.
Uva ursi was shown to be effective for treating kidney and bladder stones in a medical review published in the LiverTox journal.
This suggests that this ingredient can support detoxification, but we wouldn't recommend using it to treat any health complaint without the approval of a doctor.
Overall, we consider Dr. Ming Slimming Tea potentially effective for weight loss given the inclusion of green tea.
However, we don't currently recommend this product due to the inclusion of senna at an unspecified dose.
Questionable Health Claims
The homepage of Dr. Ming’s website features a section claiming their products are "Backed By Proven Results" such as "reduced waist circumference" and "eliminated excess weight."
These results are apparently backed by a "test group of 35 subjects" self-evaluating the efficacy of Dr. Ming Tea. Essentially, it seems as though the brand gave products to 35 individuals and had them report back on changes.
We consider it to be highly questionable from an ethical perspective for a brand to be making claims of clinical efficacy based on user self-reporting. It's an extremely weak standard of evidence in our opinion.
Interestingly, Dr. Ming Tea previously used the term "clinically proven" but appears to have since updated their claims after our article disputed their use of this term.
We recommend that consumers entirely disregard clinical claims made by health brands based on studies that are not published in any peer-reviewed journals. The potential for bias is so high that it makes the results worthless to consumers in our opinion.
Real People Try Dr. Ming Tea
A YouTube creator named "Jazzmarie" claims that Dr. Ming Tea caused her to lose a significant amount of weight:
A YouTube creator named Briana Bishop shared her thoughts about Dr. Ming Tea after 30 days of use:
Is Dr. Ming Pineapple Tea Better?
The ingredients in Dr. Ming Super Detox Pineapple Tea are shown above.
Senna is an ingredient that we recommend avoiding when its dose isn't published, for reasons described in the previous Ingredient Analysis section.
Rose hips are typically used for blood pressure support, but we located a clinical trial which found that rose hip supplementation increased metabolic rate and reduced body fat mass.
This study had animal subjects rather than human subjects which is a weaker standard of evidence, but we'll consider this ingredient potentially effective for weight loss.
Orange peel is an active ingredient that we can't find any research backing for in regard to weight loss, as we described in the previous Ingredient Analysis section.
Pineapple has been associated in one rodent study with weight loss. We cannot find any human studies proving this ingredient effective, so we'll consider pineapple potentially effective for weight loss.
Overall, we consider Dr. Ming Super Detox Pineapple Tea potentially effective for weight loss due to the use of rose hips and pineapple which were shown effective in animal studies.
We consider this formulation to be less likely to be effective than Dr. Ming Slimming Tea, because Dr. Ming Slimming Tea contains green tea which is clinically shown to cause weight loss in humans.
We don't recommend this product due to the inclusion of senna at an unspecified dose.
Doctor Shares Thoughts on "Detox" Tea
Not only does Dr. Ming Tea describe their products as effective for weight loss, but the brand also describes both of their teas as "detox" teas.
One of the most popular YouTube videos explaining why "detox tea" claims are highly questionable and potentially unscientific comes from a creator named "Doctor Mike," and has over 1 million views at the time of updating this article:
Pros and Cons of Dr. Ming Tea
Here are the pros and cons of Dr. Ming Tea in our opinion:
Pros:
- Organic
- All botanical ingredients
- Slimming Tea may support weight loss
- Super Detox Pineapple Tea may support weight loss
- Super Detox Pineapple Tea may support detoxification
- Mostly positive online customer reviews
Cons:
- Brand makes questionable clinical claims
- Senna can cause liver injury at high doses
- Slimming Tea contains senna at unspecified dose
- Super Detox Pineapple Tea contains senna at unspecified dose
- Super Detox Pineapple Tea doesn't contain any ingredients that we can find research backing for to support weight loss in humans
