Want to get ripped in just 6 weeks? Rock hard abs with the crunches! Burn your fat off in days! The secret pill that's putting personal trainers out of business!
Any of the above statements sound familiar?
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| Beautiful, minimally dressed woman on the front packet, if she takes them maybe I'll look like her? |
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| Green tea is meant to be really good for you, a super concentrated dose is bound to be even better! |
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| I WANNA BE A RIPPED FREAK! Anything with 'grenade' in the name must be really aggressive against fat! |
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| And so on..... |
As i sit and read these claims on various supplement websites, the same echoes around my head....
"Where is the evidence?!"
What you most likely didn't know is that these pills are not classed as pills, according to many governments around the world (particularly the USA), these pills are classed as foods and so are not regulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
Because of this precise fact, these companies that create and make such claims, do not have to provide evidence. Interestingly when evidence has been provided, who do you think has funded the research? Thats right, the same company that created the product! For some reason I think there may be an issue of bias within these studies??
Without sound evidence, how can anyone continually fall victim to the exaggerated, over-sexualised, impossible and down right lies that these people portray to be gospel truth! For people whose job involves a lot of critiquing, it is easy to immediately stop the supplement salesman in his path and demand some evidence. On the other hand, the majority of the general population has no time to critique or research supplements. They want results fast to keep in line with their busy work-horse lifestyle and if a new pill claims to drop lbs of fat in just 2 weeks without going to the gym they will literally through money at them! In fact, 33.9% of people who have attempted weight loss, have admitted to using a 'fat-loss pill' with the highest prevalence in women and those on low incomes (Pillitteri et al. 2008).
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| These bold claims and a chance to save even more time by not going to the gym is incredibly enticing! |
In years gone by weight loss pills began as typical one ingredient powders or herbs etc. making just the simple claim of weight loss. Nowadays we face the highly concentrated doses of various powders herbs, chemicals that have been broken down, reshaped and given funny names that none of us can pronounce never mind understand what the do. To aim to keep this article as simple as possible, below we have listed the most common of fat burner ingredients:
- Caffeine
- Green Tea Extract
- Yohimbine
- CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)
- Raspberry Ketones
- Pyruvate
Caffeine:
When we refer to caffeine here, we are not referring to a simple cup of hot rich Arabica beans, freshly grounded and filtered in the morning. Instead we are referring to synthetic, lab-created powders lace with many different chemicals from the manufacturing process. That being said not all fat burners use such poor quality caffeine, but many do. Caffeine is the most common of all fat burner ingredients and is available in many different forms, foods, pills, liquids. It has long been claimed to increase fat metabolism and fight the good fight in our battle with excess fat. Thankfully it is such a heavily researched substance, that many papers are available for review.
The consumption of this substance firstly causes a massive surge of activity of the neurons within the brain, which leads to the activation of the pituitary gland and subsequently a release of adrenaline (Bassini-Cameron et al. 2007). This increase in adrenaline is then the direct cause of an increase in an individuals heart rate and blood pressure (British Heart Foundation 2012). Synergistically this has been linked to an increased fat oxidation.
A study by Leijten et al. (1984) has suggested that caffeine also causes an increase in the availability of fat as a fuel source by delaying the breakdown of cyclic AMP. These findings have been shown to increase further when said individual takes part in low intensity exercise (Graham et al. 2008).
A study by Acheson et al. (1980) found that caffeine was shown to provide short-term thermogenic effects on the body.
Theses effects however seem to occur only in the very short term and in no way can allow for a sustainable and permanent weight loss regime, as pointed out by Westerterp-Platenga et al. (2005). Ironiclly it has also been found in repeated studies that an increase in metabolism and fat oxidation deminishes when the individual has a higher body fat percentage (Leblanc 1985).
Green Tea
Along with increased fat oxidation, metabolism and decreased fat percentages, green tea also boasts a lowering of LDL cholesterol, increase of HDL cholesterol and increasing insulin sensitvity, reversing the adverse effects of many obese individuals diets.
Meng et al (2003) notably stated the cause of increase fat metabolism with the consumption of green tea was due to the inhibition of COMT and as green tea also contains caffeine it allows the body to free up fat for metabolism by inhibiting the degrading of cAMP.
As with caffeine, green tea works better with individuals who are not habitual drinkers of the tea (Viechtbauer et al. 2009). The effectiveness of green tea is also limited by a persons genetics, with some ethnicities stating no effect whatsoever and an effect spectrum of 40% each way of the median (Miller et al. 2012)!
Yohimbine
Yohimbe, and its subset yohimbine, are fat-burning compounds, primarily used to lose fat during short term fasting. Yohimbine is also an aphrodisiac and can aid erectile dysfunction. It is also a general stimulant. Yohimbine works by increasing adrenaline levels in the body, as well as inhibiting a regulatory process in fat cells, which normally suppresses fat burning.
This then functions in the same way that caffeine does. Though with that being said, users often dissociate coffee, tea and fizzy drinks as stimulants causing collective effects on the adrenal glands. This may eventually lead to adrenal fatigue.
The effects of yohimbine are partially negated by food intake, which is why it is often taken in a fasted state.
Unfortunately however Yohimbine can cause extreme anxiety in those individuals who are already prone to it.
CLA and Pyruvate
These two popular fat burner ingredients have shown some promising results in particular studies to increase fat metabolism (Gaullier et al. 2004, Blankson et al. 2000). With that being said current trials only show a minimal increase in fat metabolism and weight loss. With individuals having to take very high dosages to have any effect. This obviously would not be feasible financially.
Raspberry Ketones:
This is the new kid on the block! To date there are absolutely no human trials on the effectiveness of raspberry ketones in burning fat! The few animal studies available involved rats and when the dosages used were translated to humans, you would have to take upward of 5g-10g per serving. For example a 100g bag costs £15 on myprotein.com but if your taking 1 serving of 10g per day, you only have 10 servings for £15. Totally financially unfeasible.
There are many other popular ingredients used in fat burners:
- Chromium
- Forskolin
- Fucoxanthim
- Hydroxycitric Acid
For these four ingredients there is no significant evidence for their use as a fat loss method.
To summarise:
Of all the fat loss ingredients, only caffeine and green tea extract have been shown to cause a significant effect in regards to fat loss. This though has been totally dependent on a number of factors: habitual caffeine intake, current fat percentage, genetic predispositions. Regardless The effect of even caffeine and green tea in minimal at best. That being said organic green tea and coffee (as opposed to fat burner pills) have a range of health benefits - not just aiding in fat metabolism.
In otherwords.....
DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY OF FAT BURNERS!!
Many Thanks,
Ethan
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