Thursday, June 18, 2015

Garcinia Cambogia - neither effective nor safe

Weight loss supplements are many and varied.  The idea of just consuming a pill or a drink, appeals more to prospective dieters than counting calories or points and/or exercising.


One supplement I often see advertised, is Garcinia Cambogia, whose advocates are all over blogs like this one.  Whenever I post a blog here, whether about weight loss surgery or some other diet craze, I almost, invaribly, get a comment or two advocating Garcinia Cambogia and so I decided to research it a bit.

In investigating it, I found that there were concerns about how safe it was to use as well as not being effective for what they are pushing it for ... weight loss. The active ingredient in Garcinia Cambogia which supposedly causes weight loss, is hydroxycitric acid, or HCA = this is also included in other weight loss supplements.

In one study, the average weight loss in folks taking Garcinia Cambogia, was 2 lbs and the researchers couldn't really say if it was the lowered calories or the supplement that caused the weight loss, but they concluded it was likely the lower calorie intake of the cohort that caused the weight loss.

Garcinia Cambogia is apparently a tropical fruit which resembles grapefruit - people who have eaten it, say it tastes good but the medical profession does not feel it's a good weight loss supplement. As for the claims of lowering the blood sugar levels in diabetics, this, again, is unproven.

One article advocates a person wishing to lose weight would be better off, buying an exercise DVD than investing in Garcinia Cambogia.  I agree there.  Although convincing people to buy Garcinia Cambogia might be a cash cow for those selling it, it appears to be a waste of time for those wanting to lose weight or control diabetes. 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

if its a good, tasty fruit, i'd just eat that!!

Sue Joan said...

Purecambo6 wrote:

Thank you for the helpful information. I am very happy and grateful that you shared this with us. Thanks for sharing and please keep us informed with new informtion when possible.

Sue Joan said...

This was left by Asian gal... In German...does that mean my blog is read all over the world? She wrote...
"Groß Informationen! Ausgezeichnete Schreiben. Ich bin sicher, dass ich diese Site bald wieder besuchen.
Ich habe einige relevante Informationen, die Sie unten überprüfen können
abnehmen mit Pure Asian Garcinia (gave link to buy this stuff which I really don't care to share$. :)

Sue Joan said...

Ivan D. suggests a clinic which advertises "quick weight loss" using prescription meds but the small print says that 80% of their patients who count their calories at 1500 or so and exercise frequently, keep off the weight - that's about 5% of dieters. Well, thanks for the comment, Ivan, but I think we all knew this already! :)