Sensitive to caffeine? Four things to check before you take green tea extract
YOU DID EVERYTHING RIGHT. SO WHY CAN’T YOU SLEEP?
You cleaned up the diet.
You started training again.
You added a supplement, because you wanted to give the effort every chance of working.
And now you are lying awake at 1am with your heart going, wondering what changed.
Here is a possibility most people never consider: you may be taking more caffeine than you think.
Not from coffee. From a capsule.
Green tea extract is one of the most common ingredients in weight-management and workout formulas.
It also contains caffeine — and a great many product pages never mention it.
That is not a scandal. It is an information gap. Here is how to close it in four checks.
THE FOUR CHECKS
1 — Look for green tea by its proper name
On a Canadian label the ingredient is usually listed as Camellia sinensis, sometimes with “leaf” or “leaf extract” beside it.
If you only scan for the words “green tea” you can miss it entirely.
2 — Read the potency line, not just the quantity
An extract has two numbers that matter: how much extract is in the capsule, and what that extract is standardised to.
Green tea extracts are commonly standardised to EGCG — epigallocatechin 3-gallate — and the licence record may also declare caffeine as a potency constituent.
Check it: look up the product’s NPN in Health Canada’s Licensed Natural Health Products Database and read the medicinal ingredient table. Potency constituents are listed there whether or not the marketing mentions them.
3 — Multiply by the daily dose, then compare it to the limits
The amount per capsule is not the amount you take. A product at one capsule twice daily delivers double what the ingredient panel shows for a single capsule.
Health Canada sets ceilings for green tea extract, and they are worth knowing:
✓ No more than 690 mg of total catechins per day
✓ Within that, no more than 300 mg of EGCG per day
✓ No more than 150 mg of caffeine per day from the extract
There are floors as well as ceilings. A weight-management claim requires 136 to 300 mg of EGCG and 75 to 150 mg of caffeine per day, at an EGCG-to-caffeine ratio between 1.8:1 and 4:1. A product below those floors is not delivering what the claim was authorised on.
Check it: find the recommended dose on the licence, do the multiplication, and see where the product sits between the floor and the ceiling. This is the step almost nobody performs.
4 — Add up your whole day, not just this product
Coffee. Tea. A pre-workout. An energy drink at 4pm. A second supplement that also contains green tea or guarana.
Caffeine sensitivity is not a property of one product. It is a property of your total daily intake and how late in the day it arrives.
One more thing worth knowing: where a green tea product provides 40 mg or more of caffeine per day and its catechins-to-caffeine ratio is below 2:1, Health Canada requires it to tell you to consult a practitioner before use if you have high blood pressure or glaucoma. If you have either condition, that is a line worth looking for.
Check it: write down everything caffeinated you consumed yesterday, including capsules. Most people are surprised once.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR OUR OWN FORMULA
We would rather tell you this than have you find it out at 1am.
Biogénique L-Carnitine + Green Tea, NPN 80086440, contains green tea (Camellia sinensis, leaf) extract. The licence record declares EGCG and caffeine among its potency constituents.
The authorised dose is one capsule, one to two times per day, taken with food, for adults 19 years and older.
So: treat it as a caffeine-containing product. If you are caffeine-sensitive, take it earlier in the day rather than in the evening, and count it inside your daily total rather than beside it.
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ALSO ON THIS PRODUCT’S LICENCE AND LABEL Consult a health care practitioner prior to use if you have kidney disease, seizure disorder or liver disorder. Consult a health care practitioner prior to use if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Consult a health care practitioner prior to use if you have an iron deficiency. Consult a health care practitioner before use if you are taking medications. Ask a health care practitioner for use beyond 12 weeks. Stop use and consult a health care practitioner if you develop symptoms of liver trouble such as yellowing of the skin or eyes, stomach pain, dark urine, sweating, nausea, unusual tiredness or loss of appetite. Known adverse reaction: rare, unpredictable cases of liver injury associated with green tea extract-containing products have been reported in Canada and internationally. Keep out of reach of children. |
Rare is not the same as impossible. You are entitled to read that before you buy, not after.
THIS IS WHAT QUALITY FIRST™ IS FOR
It would be easier to write a page about energy and leave the word caffeine out of it.
It would also mean the first honest thing you learned about us came from a bad night’s sleep.
Quality First™ is the simplest commitment we can make: the product, and the truth about the product, come before the promise.
THE BIOGÉNIQUE 3X PUR™ STANDARD
PURETÉ
Applicable laboratory testing evaluates specifications such as microbiological quality and contaminant limits.
QUALITÉ
The formula. The medicinal ingredients. The specifications. The lot. The expiry. The documentation that connects them.
PERFORMANCE
Whether the finished product was built properly, including physical specifications such as disintegration.
AND WHAT THE BATCH DOCUMENT CAN’T TELL YOU
Every production lot has a Certificate of Analysis. It records what was tested on that batch against a written specification:
✓ Lot identification, manufacturing and expiry information
✓ Disintegration time
✓ Microbiological testing
✓ Heavy metals — arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury
Now the part we would rather say out loud than have you discover:
— A Certificate of Analysis is a batch quality record. It is not a claims document.
— The caffeine and catechin content of an extract is a formulation and licensing matter, not something a routine batch certificate is designed to answer.
If you want to know what is in the capsule, read the licence. If you want to know how that batch performed against its specification, read the certificate. They are different questions, and any brand that blurs them is hoping you will not notice.
COREACTIVES™ — DECLARED, NOT IMPLIED
Check number two is only possible when a formula declares every medicinal ingredient and its amount.
That is what CoreActives™ is built around: clearly identified medicinal ingredients at stated amounts, so the arithmetic in check number three is something you can actually do.
SLEEP IS NOT A SIDE ISSUE
If a supplement is costing you an hour of sleep, it is working against the thing you bought it for.
Recovery is not what happens after the training. It is part of the training.
GeniQCare™ is being built alongside our supplements as education and guidance designed to support better everyday health decisions — including the ones about timing, routine and rest.
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FOUR CHECKS. TWO MINUTES. Find the ingredient by its proper name. Read the potency line. Multiply by the daily dose and compare it to the limits. Add up your whole day. Then decide — with the information in front of you rather than behind you. |
References
Health Canada. Licensed Natural Health Products Database (LNHPD), product information for NPN 80086440. Licence status active; revised 18 June 2024.
Health Canada, Natural and Non-prescription Health Products Directorate. L-Carnitine Monograph, 25 July 2025.
Health Canada, Natural and Non-prescription Health Products Directorate. Green Tea Extract Monograph, 25 July 2025.
Biogénique L-Carnitine + Green Tea product label, 60 capsules, NPN 80086440.
Health Canada. Guidance Document: Labelling of Natural Health Products.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
This content is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease and does not replace advice from a qualified health care professional.
Always read and follow the product label. Recommended uses, doses, cautions and warnings vary by product.
Quoted authorised uses, doses and risk statements are reproduced from the Licensed Natural Health Products Database entry for NPN 80086440 and from the product label, and are current as at 14 August 2026.
References to laboratory testing, Certificates of Analysis, specifications and batch results apply only where supported by the applicable documentation. A result from a specific lot should not be interpreted as a test result for every Biogénique product or batch.
Natural Product Numbers indicate that applicable natural health products have been authorised for sale in Canada under their approved conditions of use. Health Canada authorisation should not be represented as an endorsement of Biogénique.