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 with Phenylephrine for Weight Loss, Journal of Medicinal Food, 9(4): 572-578).

Not only that, but Bitter Orange also has similar health risks to Ephedra, including spikes in blood pressure. In a study done at the University of California, 10 volunteers that took the supplement Xenadrine EFX, which contains bitter orange and caffeine, experienced an increase in blood pressure of between 7% and 12%.

Tomorrow: Weight Loss Supplements Part 7 - Hoodia

Previous - Phentermine

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

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 meta-analysis didn’t measure how much fat was lost as opposed to lean muscle tissue, which is a concern. A bigger concern are the possible side effects, which can include blurred vision, constipation, dry mouth, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, irritability, and insomnia.

According to the meta-analysis, the number of people who experienced significant side effects from taking Phentremine was about 15 out of 1000.

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

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 lot. A reasonable expectation might be to lose 3 pounds a year by taking Alli.

How does Alli work? It interferes with the ability of your intestines to absorb dietary fat. What does that mean to you? Well, it means you might soil your underpants with the fat that doesn’t get absorbed by your intestines. Other charming side effects include flatulence, “accidents” (break out the adult diapers!), frequent bowel movements, and diarrhea.

Still interested?

Well, there’s one more dandy aspect to Alli. Because it reduces absorption of dietary fat, it also reduces absorption of the GOOD fat, the essential fatty acids. In other words, taking Alli will cause loss of vital nutrients.

Wonderful.

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

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% and the older men 9.5%.

So, you say, sounds great! I’ve got to start drinking coffee. Not so fast.

In a recent study, the long-term effects of caffeine on weight were examined over a 12 year period (Changes in caffeine intake and long-term weight change in men and women, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 83, No. 3, 674-680). It was found that long-term consumers of caffeine weighed about 1 pound less after 12 years.

Not so great. And considering the health risks of drinking coffee (increased blood pressure, increased cholesterol, increased heart rate, rapid, irregular heartbeat), it’s not a fair trade-off.

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

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 in Kitakyushu, Japan, it was found that although the BMI (body mass index) of heavy smokers increased markedly immediately after quitting smoking, it leveled out to the level of nonsmokers within 8 to 10 years after quitting (Body mass decrease after initial gain following smoking cessation., Int J Epidemiol. 1998 Dec;27(6):984-8). In other words, over the long haul, cigarettes have no effect on BMI.

And considering that cigarettes aren’t helpful in weight management, smoking them comes at a very high cost, both financial and physical.

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

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 nutrients from our food, so we need supplements to make sure we get enough nutrients. That use of nutrients is simply helping the body to do what it does naturally. (For a more thorough discussion of why people take nutritional supplements, see my post Why People Need to Take Nutritional Supplements.)

On the other hand, a drug or supplement that, if you take it, supposedly makes you lose weight is usually attempting to somehow outwit the body’s chemistry to get a desired result. That gives me pause. Even if these supplements work, they can have unintended consequences.

So why bother? Isn’t it better to just lose weight the natural way, through diet, exercise, and nutritional supplements? That would be my normal inclination, but it ain’t necessarily so.

Here’s why. The higher ratio of lean muscle you have to fat, the higher your metabolism will be, and the easier it will be to reduce adipose tissue (fat). In other words, those who have fat, will get more fat, and those who have less fat, even what they do have will be taken away from them.

What I mean by that is, if you can take a supplement or drug that makes you lose fat without losing lean muscle mass, then it will make it easier to lose more fat or stay slender. However, you want to make sure that the weight loss aid you choose doesn’t have side effects that are worse than the problem you started with.

But won’t that mean that you’ll be forced to take the weight loss aid pretty much forever to stay slim? Not really. Remember, if you increase your lean muscle mass to fat ratio, your metabolism will improve. It’s just a temporary measure. Besides, you are planning to develop positive lifestyle habits, like regular exercise, and avoiding saturated fats, refined carbohydrates, and sugar. Right?

In this series of posts starting today, I’m going to run down a list of popular weight loss supplements and examine the merits of each, starting with some of the worst and working backwards.

Next - Cigarettes

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

According to a study by Massachusetts General Hospital, smoking can lead to premature ovarian failure (early menopause). The authors of the study were able to trace the cause to the exposure of a class of chemicals present in tobacco smoke that accelerate the death of egg cells in the ovaries (Massachusetts General Hospital (2001, July 16). New Study Tightens The Link Between Smoking And Early Menopause. ScienceDaily).

HEARING LOSS

According to a Japanese study, smoking is highly associated with development of high-frequency hearing impairment in Japanese male office workers (J Occup Environ Med. 2000 Nov;42(11):1045-9). The study was done on 1554 non-hearing-impaired workers between the ages of 30 and 59 over a 5 year period.

Previous - Slower Wound Healing

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

The American Heart Association lists smoking as one of the six major independent risk factors for coronary heart disease, the others being diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, and obesity.

DEGENERATIVE DISC DISEASE

Researchers who followed 1337 doctors who graduated from John Hopkins University between 1948 and 1964, found out that smokers, as well as those with coronary artery disease and hypertension were more likely to have degenerative disc disease. Since smoking, coronary artery disease, and hypertension are also associated with atherosclerosis (blockage of the arteries), the researchers theorize that atherosclerosis causes degenerative disc disease.

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

A review of the existing studies on the relationship between smoking and wound healing done by the University Medical Center Utrecht show that, should smokers experience a bone fracture, they will need a significantly longer time to heal than non-smokers.

If surgery involving a network of blood vessels in which the blood vessels are a maximum of 100 microns in diameter is performed, smoking increases the percentage of postoperative complications. Wound infection, partial flap necrosis (death of tissue pulled aside for the purposes of surgery), and skin graft loss are the most common complications (Unfallchirurg. 2002 Jan;105(1):76-81).

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!

Drinking coffee increases both diastolic and systolic blood pressure. These effects can sometimes last until the next day (Caffeine consumption and blood pressure: an epidemiological study. International Journal of Epidemiology. 17(1):90-7). Such a situation could be especially harmful for those who suffer from hypertension. High blood pressure is also a contributing factor in developing cardiovascular disease.

GASTROESOPHOGEAL PRESSURE

Drinking coffee increases gastroesophogeal pressure, which increases the likelihood of acid reflux and heartburn (Relationships between the acidity and osmolality of Popular Beverages and reported Postprandial Heartburn. Gastroenterology. 108(1): 125-31).

Previous - Memory Problems

If you found this post helpful, share it by clicking on one of these icons!