What Is Green Coffee Bean Extract?
Green coffee bean extract is a substance used as a weight loss ingredient obtained from the seeds (beans) of the Coffea fruits before roasting as would be done to produce coffee, the beverage. By using the beans before they are roasted, it preserves the highest amount of chlorogenic acid, a naturally occurring chemical that is thought to offer a range of different health benefits. This may include helping to reduce high blood pressure due to its impact on blood vessels.
How Is Green Coffee Bean Extract Used for Weight Loss?
Green coffee bean extract has seen attention in the weight loss supplement marketplace after having been praised by Dr. Oz on his show in 2012. The daytime television show host referred to this ingredient as “The green coffee bean that burns fat fast.” He claimed that it would accomplish this goal without the need for any exercise or dietary changes. That last claim may not necessarily have been all that true, but research has been pointing to some very promising results from this substance.
The reason that research is suggesting that green coffee bean extract may be helpful to dieters is in the way it influences the body’s metabolism and blood glucose levels. One study, published in the BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine journal indicated that this ingredient creates a type of barrier against the body’s ability to accumulate fat and gain weight. This is by no means an impenetrable barrier, but it is one that may prove helpful when combined with healthy eating and exercising. The reason is that the chlorogenic acid in this substance functions within the body for dietary fat absorption inhibition. At the same time, it may stop the liver from metabolizing some of the dietary fat it would usually process. Instead, it just sends some of the fat through undigested.
In a 2013 review of green coffee bean extract in the Evidence Based Complementary Alternative Medicine journal the researchers indicated that the chlorogenic acid in this substance may help to reduce blood sugar levels, lowering insulin spikes through digestive tract carbohydrate absorption reductions. This, combined with the fat metabolism decreases and that it improves hormone levels related to obesity suggest that it has substantial potential when used in a diet pill supporting healthy lifestyle habits such as diet changes and regular exercise.
What Other Impacts Does This Ingredient Have on the Body?
Aside from weight loss support, green coffee bean extract is also suspected to have a number of other potential health benefits. Among them include improvements in blood pressures and cholesterol levels. Still, it’s important to note that research is ongoing in those areas and this substance should not be used for medicinal reasons without a doctor’s guidance.
Green Coffee Bean Extract Research and Studies
Another study, this one published in the Journal of Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, and Obesity, showed that subjects using this substance saw a measurable body weight, BMI and body fat percentage reduction, even though they did not make any notable changes to what they were eating prior to the study. Average heart rates also decreased in a measurable way. It is important to note that this was a small study, but it suggests that further research is warranted to know precisely how this ingredient works in the body and what precisely it is capable of accomplishing.
There were six participants in that study and despite the fact that they all started within the pre-obesity range, they were all able to reduce their weight to the normal range. These findings were quite similar to a broad spectrum of animal studies conducted on this substance.
* Hiroshi Shimoda, Emi Seki and Michio Aitani. “Inhibitory effect of green coffee bean extract on fat accumulation and body weight gain in mice”. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2006. Volume 6, Issue 9.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/6/9?fmt_math=yes&fmt_math_check=on
** Joe A Vinson, Bryan R Burnham, and Mysore V Nagendran. “Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, linear dose, crossover study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of green coffee bean extract in overweight subjects.” Journal of Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, and Obesity. 2012. Volume 5, pages 21-27.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267522/
