BITTER ORANGE
Commonly viewed as a replacement for Ephedra, which was banned by the FDA because of it’s health risks, Bitter Orange to date has not proven effective for weight loss. In one study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food, the 10 participants actually gained weight over a period of 8 weeks (Dietary Herbal Supplements […]

PHENTERMINE
Phentermine is a drug that suppresses appetite.
In a meta-analysis of studies available from 1975 to 1999 published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors found that Phentremine did in fact cause an average weight loss of roughly 8 pounds compared to a placebo (Meta-analysis: Pharmacologic treatment of obesity. Annals of Internal Medicine, 142(7): 532–546).
The […]

ALLI
Alli must work, right? After all, it’s an over the counter version of orlistat (Xenical), a drug prescribed to treat obesity. And sure enough, it does work, kind of.
The studies that have been done so far are on orlistat, not Alli per se. By taking orlistat, you can lose 6 pounds a year. Not a […]

COFFEE
How about coffee? Doesn’t coffee speed up the metabolism? Yes, it does. In a study by the University of Maryland, 10 men between the ages of 65-80 and 10 men between the ages of 19-26 were tested for the metabolic effect of drinking coffee. After drinking coffee, the metabolism of the younger men increased 11% […]

CIGARETTES
Cigarettes are not really a weight loss supplement, but sometimes people, usually young people like teenagers, start smoking with the idea that it will help them control their weight. This is not a completely ridiculous idea. Smoking cigarettes does in fact decrease appetite.
However, in a study done at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health […]

ARE THEY WORTH IT?
In general, I’m not a big fan of drugs or supplements that are supposed to DO something to you. In general, I think that supplements should basically assist the body in doing what it does naturally.
For example, due to pollution, substance abuse, soil depletion, and other problems, we may not get enough […]

GARLIC & CHOLESTEROL
Believe it or not, garlic has a substantial effect on cholesterol levels, but you would need between 1 to 4 cloves of fresh garlic a day to achieve a significant therapeutic result. Fortunately, the compounds in garlic responsible for its therapeutic benefit can be isolated in pill form.
However, in order to be effective, […]

GUGULIPID & CHOLESTEROL
Gugulipid is extracted from the mukul myrrh tree, which is native to India. It appears to get it’s cholesterol lowering effects from increasing the liver’s metabolism of LDL (the bad cholesterol).
In a double blind study of 125 patients comparing the effect of gugulipid with the cholesterol lowering drug clofibrate over a period of […]

VITAMIN C & CHOLESTEROL
If you have read my post Anti-Aging Supplementation Options post, you may very well already be taking 2000 mg of vitamin C a day. That should be plenty for cholesterol control purposes.
It has been shown that the higher the level of vitamin C in the blood, the lower the total cholesterol count […]

OTHER OPTIONS
Given inositol hexaniacinate’s effectiveness, that’s probably a good choice to try first. However, if you cannot tolerate inositol hexaniacinate, there are more options you can try.
PANTETHINE
Pantethine, a stable form of vitamin B5, inhibits the production of cholesterol by the liver. In a one-year clinical trial conducted with 24 patients, pantethine was shown to decrease […]