In the modern day world, the majority of the people, ranging from teenagers to older adults, want to be healthy and stay in shape. Many prefer beginning their journey of fitness and a healthier lifestyle from home remedies.
Herbs have traditionally been used from a long time ago for losing weight and in the treatment of various other diseases.
Some herbal supplements work directly while others induce weight loss by affecting the body mechanisms or biological pathways. Their incorporation and contribution in any plan for weight loss work in weight reduction.
The significance of any particular herbs appears depending on its possible impacts on the body. With research, the confidence over using herbs for weight reduction has increased. This advancement has also led to knowledge about how herbs work.
The benefit of using herbs for weight loss appears when the loss is permanent. According to Cleveland Clinic, the herbal products are not effective in this regard and they don’t cause weight loss permanently.
There are various mechanisms through which herbs induce this change. Some of the products having diuretic and laxative effect act to stimulate the serotonin level in the body. It helps to feel full ending urge for more food.
Some other herbs like Guarana, Dandelion, and Cascara may cause water-weight loss instead of fat loss from the body. Such herbs are also known for their diuretic or laxative effect. The digestion process slows down with the action of Dandelion.
As a result of slow digestion, there is a lesser urge for food and you don’t feel hunger quite earlier after eating any whole food. In contrary, Guarana and Yerba stimulate the metabolism process due to the presence of stimulants in it.
Caffeine is a major stimulant present in herbs. It causes a temporary increase in metabolism for a shorter period of time, thus causing a digestion at a relatively rapid rate.
Ginger possesses a high nutritional value containing all essential vitamins, macro, and micronutrients. Being rich in dietary fiber, ginger contributes a lot in reducing weight. It also contains some important active phytochemicals. They play a role to impart medicinal properties to it.
Ginger also improves the digestion by increasing the metabolic activity by 20% than normal. The essential nutrients are absorbed rapidly in the body. The energy expenditure of body also increases driving the process of digestion, as a response burning up more of the fats stored in the body.
It reduces hunger to a greater level. By less intake of food, the net calorie gain is also low. All food that has been ingested, tailors the body energy requirements to carry out body functions. Also, prefer eating low-calorie food instead of heavy one.
Dandelion
The list of potential benefits associated with dandelion makes it an important herb for various medical purposes. Being rich in essential nutrients and vitamins, this flowering plant is perfect to use as a herb for making tea.
Dandelion is also available as supplements in form of dried leaves, roots, or tincture. For using it against increasing weight, it is preferred to prepare dandelion tea with dried leaves.
The main precursor found in dandelion is the phytochemicals it contains including beta-sitosterol, taraxacin, caffeic acid, alkaloids, and pectin. They are known to impart its diuretic and laxative properties.
The dandelion also stimulates the bile secretion from liver and aids digestion. Its diuretic action increases the weight loss by increasing the volume and frequency of urination to get rid of extra weight water.
Garcinia Cambogia
Have you ever heard of inhibitors? Garcinia works to inhibit the action of digestive enzymes in the body. The phytochemicals which are derivatives of citric acid like hydroxycitric acid (HCA) inhibits the function of citrate lyase.
You can easily find them at medical health care centers in form of supplements as tablets, capsules, and powders. The hydro citrate acid content makes them good to use for weight loss as it suppresses the appetite and blocks the assimilation of carbohydrates and fats.
Guarana
Burn your stored body fats by using guarana. The caffeine content of guarana makes it a good stimulant for weight loss because of the diuretic effect. It results in weight loss due to water but fats are at their place.
The presence of caffeine also makes it a stimulant, and fats are burned this way due to increase in physical activity. So care must be taken while combining it with other herbal remedies or stimulants. It may result in high blood pressure.
Green tea is among most common teas of all time and is now grown in various parts of the world. Green tea is characterized by high level of anti-oxidants including polyphenols and Vitamin C.
Slightly oxidized leaves of Camellia sinensis are used to prepare tea. Its thermogenic properties stimulate the metabolism and burn body fats rapidly if taken regularly. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition carried out research to find its potential in weight loss.
In an experiment, green teas caused significant weight loss in individuals when 690 mg of green tea extract was given them over 3 months period. It showed positive impacts in removing body fats and water weight. So don’t wait and add green tea bags on your grocery list.
Cocoa
Have you ever thought of using raw cocoa beans for making tea? Raw cocoa is known to contain no fats and is also rich in nutrients thus making it good for health. Cocoa works to inhibit the digestive enzymes in a body including lipases and amylases.
Cocoa beans also act to increase the release of adiponectin which is a protein hormone produced in adipose tissues. This hormone is released into blood reducing the number of fats which get stored in the body, thus reducing the weight.
Yerba Mate
Yerba Mate is herbal extract which reduces the body weight by suppressing appetite. Caffeine, theobromine and other phytochemicals act as a stimulant to reduce weight. The alkaloids reduce the body weight by reducing the appetite.
Along with suppression of appetite, it also promotes increased metabolism causing diuresis. This double action increases the fat loss and eliminates water from the body causing weight loss.
What Are the Things You Should Keep In Mind Before Using Herbs?
Herbs act as a potent stimulant and increase the physical activity by stimulating muscles. They may reduce the cravings for food. Some act as thermogenic agent and increase the thyroid functioning which in response increases metabolic rate.
Prevention of fat accumulation and fast fat metabolism burns the fats and generates energy for carrying out various daily activities. This results in immediate release of energy and elimination from the body by conversion of carbohydrates to stored fat.
Herbs reduce triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein level in the body. They are referred to as bad cholesterol, while most of the herbs increase the high-density lipoprotein level in body referred as good cholesterol.
Besides the potential list of benefits be cautious about the dosage of herbs. Herbs also have their associated side effects which may cause threat when taken in high doses. Elderly, children and pregnant women should be careful while using herbs.
Consult a medical practitioner before using herbal supplements. Always follow the prescription to avoid their reaction in a body or with drugs if taken.
Thanks to fake reviews on sites like Amazon and Yelp, it can be hard to trust what you read. Now however, the US government has begun cracking down on fake user reviews posted on Amazon.
On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced its first-ever charges against a company that paid to have fake reviews posted online. The company in question, New York-based Cure Encapsulations, paid the third-party website amazonverifiedreviews.com to write and post positive reviews that appeared to come from consumers for a weight-loss supplement product on Amazon.com, according to the FTC.
“Please make my product … stay a five star,” Cure Encapsulations owner Naftula Jacobowitz told amazonverifiedreviews.com, according to the FTC. Jacobowitz’s company paid for reviews falsely describing its product, the supplement garcinia cambogia, as a “powerful appetite suppressant” that “literally blocks fat from forming,” the FTC says.
Will it make reviews more trustworthy?
The FTC “does not comment about what future actions it may or may not take,” a spokesperson told CNBC Make It. But the fact that the FTC brought the case has already sparked speculation that the case sets the precedent that the federal government is now willing to bring charges against companies that pay for fake reviews making misleading claims.
Fake online reviews are a common problem on e-commerce sites like Amazon and have also shown up on online review platforms like Yelp. Still, roughly 86 percent of consumers still regularly read online reviews, and a majority of people say that positive reviews make them more likely to use a local business, according to a BrightLocal survey.
Cases like the FTC’s settlement with Cure Encapsulations should make it easier for consumers to trust online reviews on sites like Amazon, according to Paul Alan Levy, an attorney who works for the consumer-advocacy group Public Citizen.
“I think it gives consumers more reason to place trust in what they see on these review sites, certainly,” Levy tells CNBC Make It.
“The administrative agencies, like the FTC and state attorneys general, are in an excellent position to do investigations and figure out when there are false positive [reviews] out there, and it’s good that the FTC is doing that, because it creates a sort of pressure on avoiding false positive reviews,” he tells CNBC Make It.
Squashing fake reviews
Levy notes that, in the past, e-commerce companies and review sites have sometimes taken matters into their own hands when looking to squash fake reviews. Amazon itself has filed numerous lawsuits in recent years against sellers who post false reviews, as well as third-party companies that sell the service of posting fake reviews. Amazon estimated last year that “less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic” on the site.
“We welcome the FTC’s work in this area,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Verge. “Amazon invests significant resources to protect the integrity of reviews,” but “even one inauthentic review is one too many.” (The company also announced a new program, called Project Zero, targeting counterfeit goods on the site on Thursday.)
Yelp also has its own Consumer Alerts program that tries to catch businesses that post fake reviews.
Of course, Levy also points out that consumers should still take online reviews with a grain of salt.
“The wisdom of the crowd on review sites has value for consumers,” he says, “[but] you should never take a single review as gospel, whether it be a five-star review or a one-star review.” Instead, he says, look for a pattern of reviews.
The FTC case
The FTC filed its complaint against Cure Encapsulations last week, after finding that the company had paid for the fabricated reviews, which purported to be written by actual customers and which made “false and unsubstantiated claims” about its products. While the extract garcinia cambogia is often claimed to be effective for weight-loss, the National Institutes of Health has noted that there is “no convincing evidence” that it can help you lose weight.
Cure Encapsulations has already reached a settlement with the FTC in which the company has agreed to never again make “weight-loss, appetite-suppression, fat-blocking, or disease-treatment claims” for any product without substantiating those claims with “competent and reliable scientific evidence,” the FTC says. The settlement also prohibits the company from misrepresenting endorsements, including reviews that falsely claim to come from an actual customer.
“People rely on reviews when they’re shopping online,” Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “When a company buys fake reviews to inflate its Amazon ratings, it hurts both shoppers and companies that play by the rules.”
Correction: This article was revised to correct Cure Encapsulation’s location. The company is headquartered in New York.
Fat burners are one of the most enticing supplements on the market. Can I really just take a pill and lose fat? Leanbean presents an interesting and often compelling case.
Squarely marketed at women, the product aims to be an “all natural” fat burner that’s made of ingredients sourced from plants: a tropical Indonesian fruit, a Japanese root, raspberries, tea, coffee. It’s vegetarian, it’s very low in stimulants, it’s for regular people and athletes alike.
For reasons we’ll discuss below, the product has a bigger emphasis on appetite suppression than a lot of its competitors. Leanbean combines several ingredients commonly found in fat burners with some interesting additions for appetite regulation, which in combination could have a synergistic that aids in weight loss. Is this the right tactic for women?
It may make sense to be skeptical of these kinds of products, but there’s more to fat burners than meets the eye. Here I’m going to discuss what this product might help you with, what it won’t help you with, and we’ll hear more from a Leanbean user’s success story. Her weight loss probably didn’t happen the way you think, and she was candid about what impact she thought Leanbean did and didn’t have in her experience.
This fat burner includes multiple ingredients to promote fullness and increase fat burning, such as garcinia cabogia, turmeric, and much more.
Editor’s note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. It’s always a good idea to speak with your physician before making any significant changes to your diet or exercise routine.
Do We Need a “Female Fat Burner”?
First off, this is very clearly marketed as a female fat loss product. If you check out Leanbean’s site they say their reasoning is,
It has been proven that they find cravings harder to resist than men, meaning their temptation to overeat is far stronger.
They go on to state that this is why Leanbean leans more heavily on appetite suppression than other fat burner supplements.
So is this true? Actually, there is evidence to suggest that generally speaking, women may have a harder time skipping meals than men.(1)(2) According to Dr. Helen Kollias, who holds a doctorate is in microbiology in muscle regeneration and a master’s degree in exercise biochemistry and physiology, it may be linked to a hormone called gonadotropin releasing hormone or GNRH, which appears to be pretty sensitive to environmental factors and disruptions in routine.
Men have this hormone as well but because in women it’s involved in ovulation, a process where the body typically follows cycles and schedules, it’s possible that among women, GNRH gets disrupted by big changes to one’s diet and lifestyle.
In other words, because cycles and schedules are a little more intrinsic to the functioning of a woman’s body, it can be a little tougher for women to disrupt their routine and defy that drive we all have to stick to your regular eating routine.
This is just one possible explanation, and by no means does that mean women are more delicate than men (there are a lot of advantages women have over men, like an ability to handle greater training volume). It just suggests that men and women experience different challenges in the weight loss process.
Before explaining the effects of this product, let’s quickly take a look at the ingredients of a 4-capsule serving, which is what you’d consume over the course of a day.
Konjac plant. Credit: Salix, Licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.
Can Leanbean Suppress Your Appetite?
Glucomannan and Appetite
One of the key ingredients for appetite suppression here is glucomannan. You get about 500mg over the course of a day and it’s a thickener and gelling agent made from the root of the konjac plant in Japan, where it purportedly has the nickname “the broom of the intestines.” Basically, it absorbs water and expands in your belly to make you a bit more full.
There’s a lot of really solid evidence for this effect. One study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that two daily doses of 500 milligrams of glucomannan helped obese people lose more weight than a control group even without making any other lifestyle changes.(3) Now, this and most other studies have patients taking twice what you’ll get in a serving of Leanbean. But we didn’t find any studies suggesting that one 500-milligram dose would be ineffective, and it’s combined with other potential appetite suppressants that we’ll discuss below.
The patients in that study didn’t report any side effects but it’s pretty commonly reported that gluomannan makes you thirstier, which makes sense since it’s a gel-like substance that expands in the gut by sucking up fluid. This isn’t medical advice, but it appears it may be a good idea to drink plenty of water while you’re taking glucomannan. Drinking a good amount of water has a bonus effect of also helping to reduce hunger.
Cayenne Pepper and Appetite
Cayenne pepper is another ingredient that seems to be effective at curbing the appetite. This is an something that’s been seen in a lot of research, like a 2014 study published in Appetite that found capsaicin, an active ingredient in cayenne, decreased the desire to eat after dinner.(4) And there are other ingredients in Leanbean with similar effects.
Green Tea and Garcinia cambogia
The green tea might lower appetite because it might interact with dopamine and norepinephrine while the Garcinia cambogia could do the same by interacting with serotonin, according to data published in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.(5)(6)
I do need to make it clear that it’s not necessarily that there’s a complete consensus in scientific circles on this. There’s plenty of evidence, especially with Garcinia cambogia that these ingredients don’t help with appetite suppression at all.(7) But there’s still promising research nonetheless.
But isn’t all the hype around this product’s ability to burn fat?
Does Leanbean Burn Fat?
LeanBean’s commercial says it has ingredients that are meant to quote “get your metabolism moving.” Can a supplement like this — or any supplement, really — actually increase metabolism? How does that work?
Cayenne Pepper and Fat Loss
Practically every fat burner out there contains a hit of cayenne pepper to help with raising your metabolic rate. But how much does that actually help? A 2003 study in the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand found that a dose of chili pepper elevated metabolic rate by roughly 12 percent for 30 minutes.(8) Sounds promising, but if you burn 2000 calories per day that’s just an extra 5 calories.
A larger study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition saw that on average a chili pepper extract helped people burn an average of 50 more calories a day.(9) But that’s less than half a tablespoon of olive oil.
Still, these effects can add up over time for users, and you’ve also got to look at the other ingredients.
Garcinia Cambogia and Fat Loss
Garcinia cambogia, a tropical Indonesian fruit, gets a lot of hype for its purported fat loss abilities. There is some evidence that it actually does help to reduce belly fat accumulation, like a 2003 study of 39 people in Current Therapeutic Research.(10) Split up into an HCA group and a placebo group, it found the HCA group had “significantly reduced visceral, subcutaneous, and total fat areas compared with the placebo group” after 16 weeks.
But there are important caveats: some studies have found no effect on body fat with HCA, plus most that have found such an effect were using at least 1000 milligrams a day.(11)Leanbean has 90 milligrams in a daily serving.
Raspberry Ketones and Fat Loss
Then there’s the raspberry ketones, which gets a lot of publicity for its apparent fat burning abilities. The issue here is that these results are mostly seen in some in vitro studies and a few on rodents, and those that have been performed on rodents used enormous amounts of the stuff. Leanbean cites one on their website, published in the peer-reviewed journal Planta Publica, that saw fat loss among rats using hundreds of times more raspberry ketones than the amount included in Leanbean, going by the bodyweight of the rodents.(12) There aren’t really any great studies on humans.
Green Coffee Bean Extract and Fat Loss
The chlorogenic acid in the green coffee bean extract may help with fat loss as well — the most widely cited study was published in 2007 in the Journal of International Medical Research — but doses in the very few studies that have found this were in the 120mg to 300mg range, whereas Leanbean uses 40mg per day.(13)
But we’re not saying Leanbean is useless for fat loss and it seems possible that all the ingredients together may have a synergistic effect. It just helps to take a closer look at the studies actually being cited.
Leanbean Testimonial and Success Story
But let’s forget about the theory for a second. We don’t need to look at studies, right? This is a product used by thousands of people. Does it work or not? Leanbean connected us with one of their customers who had significant success on the product so we could ask her what actually happened.
Margarita Nguyen is an Australian chaplain based in Melbourne who was struggling to lose her pregnancy weight. In an interview with us, she said that Leanbean helped her lose almost 19 pounds over two months.
First she went to her doctor and got some blood tests to make sure the supplement was safe for her and her hypothyroidism — and checking with your physician before taking this is a great idea even if you don’t have any preexisting medical conditions.
“I actually went down two kilos in two weeks and I dropped down two sizes in my dress size from the work I’ve been doing,” she says. “I wasn’t full crazy gymming, I was just doing those interval running exercises on the treadmill for about twenty minutes.”
It’s important to note that during this period of taking Leanbean she was doing intermittent fasting (only eating during an 8-hour window) and was consuming 1,200 calories per day. And she only restricted her calories down this much once she started taking Leanbean. So could it have just been the calorie restriction? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean Leanbean didn’t help.
“The fasting could only happen because I was using that Leanbean supplement,” Nguyen says. “Normally when I fast I find it really really difficult but when I started taking Leanbean I found it was really easy to fast for 16 hours when normally I would struggle really badly.”
It’s hard to know how much the supplement helped her “burn more fat” and it’s always tough to work out how strong the placebo effect is, it does seem that in this instance it helped to curb her appetite.
While Leanbean doesn’t contain stimulants, she also felt that she was better able to maintain energy levels, although she did report she was thirstier than usual, an effect that may have been caused by the Glucomannan.
So, when people ask her if they can just lose weight with a fat burner, what does she say?
“When someone asks you a question like that you have to reframe it for them,” says Nguyen. “You can’t just take a fat burning supplement and expect to lose weight when you’re still having like ten Snickers a day and lounging on the couch all day, it doesn’t work like that. I had to do the exercise, and I had to work on the nutrition, and I had to take a fat burner that was safe for me, the safest on the market. And for me that was Leanbean.”
Leanbean Price
Prices can change a lot, but on average a bottle will cost you between $50 and $70 for a month’s supply, so that comes to roughly $2 per day. You can also get a discount if you order 3 or more bottles.
This fat burner includes multiple ingredients to promote fullness and increase fat burning, such as garcinia cabogia, turmeric, and much more.
It’s hard to compare that price with different fat burners because they vary so much in their ingredients. For example, very few have of their competitors contain glucomannan, which might be the most effective ingredient here.
If you’re looking at websites that sell fat burners, most top sellers are closer to a dollar per day so it’s fair to say that Leanbean is relatively pricy, but most of the top sellers focus more on stimulants and cayenne pepper than the kind of ingredients you get in Leanbean.
The Takeaway
So is Leanbean an effective supplement for weight loss? Let’s recap some of the basics outlined by the research and user experiences.
Leanbean Pros
Vegetarian friendly, no artificial ingredients
One pill per serving
Seems effective at blocking appetite
Black pepper for absorption
Money back guarantee
Leanbean Cons
Some reports of slight, short-term stomach discomfort after taking it
Some ingredients might be a bit low, like the raspberry ketones
You might need to increase water intake
A little pricier than other fat burners
No calories on label
Leanbean definitely has some interesting research supporting its fat burning properties. It’s still important to keep in mind that if you’re eating more calories than you burn, it’s not likely to make a huge difference. What this product appears to do, though, is potentially reduce your appetite and maintain energy levels to make calorie restriction an easier feat to accomplish.
You still need to put in work as far as calorie control and exercise goes. Here is where Leanbean may help you succeed.
References
1. Kumar S, et al. Intermittent fasting dietary restriction regimen negatively influences reproduction in young rats: a study of hypothalamo-hypophysial-gonadal axis. PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e52416. 2. Wang GJ, et al. Evidence of gender differences in the ability to inhibit brain activation elicited by food stimulation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Jan 27;106(4):1249-54. 3. Walsh DE, et al. Effect of glucomannan on obese patients: a clinical study. Int J Obes. 1984;8(4):289-93. 4. Janssens PL, et al. Capsaicin increases sensation of fullness in energy balance, and decreases desire to eat after dinner in negative energy balance. Appetite. 2014 Jun;77:44-9. 5. Ohia SE, et al. Safety and mechanism of appetite suppression by a novel hydroxycitric acid extract (HCA-SX). Mol Cell Biochem. 2002 Sep;238(1-2):89-103. 6. Jurgens T, et al. Can green tea preparations help with weight loss? Can Pharm J (Ott). 2014 May;147(3):159-60. 7. Kim JE, et al. Does Glycine max leaves or Garcinia Cambogia promote weight-loss or lower plasma cholesterol in overweight individuals: a randomized control trial. Nutr J. 2011 Sep 21;10:94. 8. Chaiyata P, et al. Effect of chili pepper (Capsicum frutescens) ingestion on plasma glucose response and metabolic rate in Thai women. J Med Assoc Thai. 2003 Sep;86(9):854-60. 9. Galgani JE, et al. Effect of dihydrocapsiate on resting metabolic rate in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Nov;92(5):1089-93. 10. Hayamizu K, et al. Effects of garcinia cambogia (Hydroxycitric Acid) on visceral fat accumulation: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Curr Ther Res Clin Exp. 2003 Sep;64(8):551-67 11. Heymsfield SB, et al. Garcinia cambogia (hydroxycitric acid) as a potential antiobesity agent: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 1998 Nov 11;280(18):1596-600. 12. Park KS. Raspberry ketone increases both lipolysis and fatty acid oxidation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Planta Med. 2010 Oct;76(15):1654-8. 13. Thom E. The effect of chlorogenic acid enriched coffee on glucose absorption in healthy volunteers and its effect on body mass when used long-term in overweight and obese people. J Int Med Res. 2007 Nov-Dec;35(6):900-8.
