Hi everyone,
This particular supplement has been getting rave reviews from renown fitness experts such as Dr. Oz (inserting strong irony here), regarding its fat loss properties.
What is it? It is actually an old dog in new clothes. The older readers (such as me), might remember a supplement called Citri Max. The main ingredient is HCA, Hydroxycitric Acid, which is supposed to help with storing fewer carbs as fat and therefore, you supposedly lose body fat. Well, it didn’t work in the 90s and it does not work now, here is why…
Hydroxycitric acid (HCA) is a principle constituent (10-30%) of the dried fruit rind of Garcinia Cambogia, a plant native to South-East Asia. The dried rind has been used for centuries throughout South-East Asia as a food preservative and flavoring agent.
The proper mechanisms of HCA are still not fully understood. The actual ingredient is used in South-East Asia to make meals more filling which sounds interesting, but does not make for a fat loss agent.
Fat loss is achieved by substances that case a mild stimulatory effect in the body in the central nervous system (releasing more cAMP) or work directly as a beta antagonist, which is why the old ephedrine caffeine combo worked so well.
HCA has none of these properties. Additionally, the only studies that have shown any weight loss have been completed on rats, which does not tell us much about how the substance would work in humans, unless you have rats in your family.
In some cases, the rats did lose weight but the doses were either given via injection or were so massive, that an oral application could cause liver damage in humans.
As for real people, there have been a few randomized controlled trials which were completed on 135 obese patients over a 12 week period, but the results showed no noticeable difference in terms of weight loss between the placebo and the actual HCA supplement.
At least Dr Oz stays true to himself and delivers another EPIC FAIL!
Finally, a big shout out to my brother Jan, who started training two members of the German national Basketball team. Way to go!
Maik