If you are trying to lose weight, try the tarty and citrusy kokum fruit that is said to liven up any curry or dal. A favourite among the Konkans, it is majorly found in the Malabar regions of India. Regionally known as Sol Kadi, kokum is a delicious fruit that works as a natural weight loss aid and is fast becoming one of the favourites among health enthusiasts. Kokum also comes with a range of health benefits. The presence of vitamin C in it may help boost immunity; the garcinol it contains has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-allergenic properties. But what has brought kokum into the spotlight is the presence of hydroxyl citric acid (HCA) in it, which is said to shrink appetite and reduce fat in the body, further helping you lose weight, the healthy way. Let’s look at how kokum helps in losing weight and how to use it in your daily diet.
Kokum for weight loss | Kokum to lose weight and burn body fat
Kokum or the herb of garcinia cambogia is said to lead to significant loss in weight and in the fat accumulated in the body. Here are some reasons that make it great for weight loss.
Kokum is said to be great for your digestion, and is known to fight conditions like flatulence, acidity and constipation. A good digestive system is the key to lose weight efficiently.
It contains hydroxyl acid (HCA), which is known to be an appetite suppressant, further preventing you from cravings and untimely hunger pangs.
According to a study published in the Journal Nutrition, HCA is also attributed to not just weight loss, but also fat loss, thereby helping you stay healthy.
Inflammation in the body can cause conditions like obesity. The presence of an active compound called garcinol has anti-inflammatory properties that prevent inflammation in the body.
Kokum is known to reduce the conversion of food into fat. Therefore, the synthesis of fatty acids is inhibited to a great extent, thus preventing the build-up of fats in the body.
Kokum has the tendency to convert most calories in our body into glycogen.
The antioxidant vitamin C present in kokum prevents the growth of cell damaging free radicals in the body. Free radicals tend to cause oxidative stress, which further ups the chances of health conditions like diabetes and obesity.
How to use kokum to lose weight | How to use kokum for weight loss
Also a popular fruit among South Indians, kokum is generally available in powder form, and can be consumed by adding some water to it. If you have whole kokum, you can simply soak it in water overnight, extract the juice and store it for consumption for the next few days. You could also use kokum as a souring agent in most of your curries and dals and extract the benefits it has to offer.
Go on and enjoy the beautiful red and purple tarty fruit and lose weight, the healthy way. Make sure you consume a healthy and balanced diet and engage in exercises to stay fit.
You may have seen a much-circulated story, allegedly posted on CNN’s website, in which a Cornell University student claims to have lost 37 pounds through a diet regimen consisting of apple cider vinegar and supplements of Garcinia cambogia, a type of tropical fruit.
If it is not immediately obvious to you, this is an internet ad for weight loss supplements, not a CNN story. The woman interviewed in the story doesn’t exist. Apple cider vinegar and Garcinia cambogia do not do what the ad claims they do, and can in fact be harmful when taken as suggested.
Everything about this ad is a lie. It lies about big things that could hurt people’s health and it lies about stupid little things like celebrity diets. It is a lie smothered in lies and served open-faced on a bed of lies. Let’s unpack this.
Claim: The story is from “CNN Nutrition”
Fact: A good way to tell where a story is from is to look at where the story is from. If I were to write, “This story you are reading on www.gov.uk represents official UK policy on phony diet ads,” you could look at the top of your browser and see that you are in fact on qz.com and I am lying. CNN’s URL is cnn.com, not independant-research.com, and that is not how “independent” is spelled.
Claim: “By Suzanne Pischner”
Fact: There is no Suzanne Pischner on LinkedIn or Twitter. Her byline appears only on other fishy-looking weight loss ads, including one purporting to be from TMZ posted under the URL trompe l’oeil tmzf.itness.co. Suzanne, if you are real and reading this, please send a notarized birth certificate to hi@qz.com.
Claim: “Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 37lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money.”
This is not Amanda Haughman.
There is no Amanda Haughman in Cornell’s current student or alumni directories. In December, a nearly identical ad for a product called “Premiere Garcinia Cambogia” labeled a completely different woman’s photo as “Cornell student Amanda Haughman.” A lifestyle blogger pointed out that the photo was in fact of a Scottish woman named Seana Forbes, and was taken from a YouTube ad for a fitness app.
Claim: “Since the study, Amanda shared the TrimGenesis Garcinia and apple cider vinegar combination with her close friend, Mark, who had also been struggling with his weight.”
Yes, this is Mark, but not that Mark.
Fact: The image of the man identified as Mark was lifted from a 2015 story in the Daily Star, a UK daily tabloid, about a man named Mark Smithers. Here a pellet of truth is dropped in the rabbit hutch of lies: there is a Mark and he did lose weight. But he did not use this product and is not a close friend of Amanda, who is not real.
Claim: “We sat down with Amanda”
Fact: Amanda can’t sit. She has no lower extremities. She doesn’t exist.
Claim: “I was able to find a radio interview where [Melissa] McCarthy credited her entire weight loss to combining TrimGenesis Garcinia with apple cider vinegar.”
Right person, wrong dates.
Fact: The photo labeled “2016” is from 2015; the one labeled “2015” is from 2014. No such interview with McCarthy exists. In actual interviews, McCarthy has politely rebuffed repeated requests to talk about if or how she may have lost weight, for the same reason US speaker of the house Paul Ryan has never released his colonoscopy reports—it’s nobody’s business and it’s a kind of weird thing to ask about in the first place.
Claim: “TrimGenesis Garcinia contains the naturally occurring ingredient, hydroxycitcric acid, which boosts weight loss by blocking excess body fat production while increasing resting metabolism by more than 130%.”
This is where TrimGenesis’s claims go from absurd to potentially dangerous. Hydroxycitric acid (not “hydroxycitcric,” as above) is a type of citric acid found in many tropical plants, including Garcinia cambogia. In the world of unregulated supplements, “natural” is an often-abused term that has no bearing on how safe or effective a product is. Arsenic is naturally occurring. Mercury is naturally occurring. Nature makes a lot of stuff. Humans aren’t supposed to eat it all.
A 1998 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found no significant difference in weight loss between participants who took Garcinia cambogia and those who took a placebo. A 2011 meta-review in the Journal of Obesity found that while there was some evidence of short-term weight loss in patients using the supplement, those that took it were also twice as likely to have bad gastrointestinal side effects. Another 2013 review of 17 studies deemed Garcinia cambogia safe for human consumption, but concluded that its effect on weight loss was unclear.
The unproven benefits of Garcinia cambogia have not stopped assorted hucksters from pushing it as a weight loss wonder drug; television personality Mehmet Oz called it “a revolutionary fat buster” on a 2012 show.
“I don’t get why you need to say this stuff ‘cause you know it’s not true,” Claire McCaskill, a Democratic senator from Missouri, said at a 2014 Senate hearing on Oz’s false claims (quoted in this actual CNN story).
“I do personally believe in the items that I talk about on my show. I passionately study them,” Oz, a trained surgeon, responded. This is an acceptable defense for an amateur Bigfoot hunter, but not a scientist.
Claim: “TrimGenesis Garcinia with apple cider vinegar has been clinically proven to…”
Fact: Several claims follow; they are all bogus. There have been zero clinical studies on the effects of apple cider vinegar combined with Garcinia cambogia.
The ad never discusses the supposed benefits of drinking the apple cider vinegar, though here “Suzanne Pischner” may be relying readers’ previous familiarity with the subject. A long-time favorite of health food advocates, apple cider vinegar is increasingly popular as a home remedy for maladies including sore throats, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, acne, and jellyfish stings.
“There is ample scientific evidence” that vinegar does in fact help control blood sugar, if taken as one tablespoon diluted in a cup of water at the start of a meal, says Carol Johnston, a professor and associate director at Arizona State University’s School of Nutrition and Health Promotion. “The evidence on weight loss is meager but there are hints of this—particularly in the rat model,” she added. “If vinegar impacts body weight, it is very subtle and not what most have in mind when they start a weight loss trial.”
The active ingredient in apple cider vinegar that helps control blood sugar (and possibly weight) is acetic acid, which is found in all vinegar. And while drinking one to two teaspoons in water as recommended by Cornell/Harvard/MSU/National University of Singapore grad Amanda Haughman probably isn’t harmful to most people, it’s worth remembering that vinegar is an acid, and drinking acid straight can be dangerous.
Ultimately, the ad serves apple cider vinegar as a folksy side dish to a weight loss supplement that could have harmful side effects. The US Food and Drug Administration says weight loss supplements, including those purporting to contain Garciniacambogia, often contain undisclosed ingredients, including active drugs.
The danger of weight-loss related fake news is that—like their political counterparts—they make ridiculous claims that can distract from the fact that they are still lies masquerading as the truth, and could end up hurting someone.
In memory of Amanda Haughman (1995-2017), a victim of the Bowling Green Massacre.
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.
