The Mean Green Coffee Bean

Dr. Oz and his wildly popular show have recently promoted yet another miracle fat loss pill.  This one even has a now popular scientific study to back the effectiveness of the product.  In the study, over 22 weeks it was reported to have helped participants lose an average of 17 pounds or 10% of their body weight.  This royal fat burner has very common origins, the green (or unroasted) coffee bean.  I just picked some up, but before I did, I wanted to do some research.  When you hear the word miracle, you should instantly be skeptical, but with a bit of research you can evaluate the odds of the bet you are making with your money.  I set out to understand the mechanism that is believed to be responsible for the weight loss, see the consensus with the reviews found on various websites and then see if there are any reasons that I should avoid green coffee bean extract.

Whenever I take a new product that is supposed to have a specific effect on me, I like to do research to see how this supposed effect will take place in my body.  Doing this gives me the information that I need to determine if this is something that I want to subject my body to.  For instance, if a supplement accelerates your heart and leaves a waste product for your liver to process, the results that you see may not be worth the damage that is caused to your body.  So what about green coffee bean extract?  What is it, how does it work? 

When they take an extract from the green coffee beans, the main component that they want is called chlorogenic acid.  Most green coffee bean extracts are “standardized to 50% chlorogenic acid,” or half of the extract is made up of chlorogenic acid.  Chlorogenic acid has been known as an antioxidant for years, but recently it has been touted for its ability to slow the release of glucose into the bloodstream (blood sugar) after a meal.  What is happening is that it inhibits the action of an enzyme in the body that breaks glycogen into glucose, thereby reducing the amount of glucose available to release into the bloodstream.  When the blood is starved of glucose, so are the cells in your body and glucose is their primary source of energy.  Oh but the body was created magnificently and it has a way around times like this.  When the cells are starved of glucose, insulin levels drop and your body initiates a process called ketosis.  This process basically switches your body over from using carbohydrates as energy to using fatty acids and ketones (in the case of the heart and brain), which are broken down from your body fat.  The result is clear; you lose body fat by breaking it down and using it as energy instead of carbohydrates. 
So essentially, green coffee bean extract works to decrease the glycemic index of the foods that you consume.  Glycemic index diets guide you to eat low carb diets or foods with carbohydrates that release glucose slowly into the bloodstream, preventing a hyperglycemic spike (elevated blood sugar levels).  The theory that controlling blood sugar will help you control your weight is the basis for diets like the South Beach Diet, Nutrisystem, Zone, Sugar Busters and Atkins.  There is no question that these diets do help people lose weight, when used properly, so this adds promise to the effects of green coffee bean extract.  The studies on this product will continue to accelerate as the product grows in popularity, but in the mean time we do have this limited knowledge on the mechanisms that may make this product effective.  We also have customer reviews and testimonials; what are they saying and can they be trusted?

When you search through online ads, you really have to be careful.  Several of the reviews that you find out there are really just cheap advertisements either placed or commissioned by one of the companies that make money off of the product.  If it sounds a little more like a commercial than an amateur personal review, be wary of the motives of the review.  There is, of course, the other side of the spectrum; you will find reviews that sound like the reviewer has a personal vendetta against the product.  I don’t usually pay much attention to these reviews either because it can be hard to tell what the person is actually angry about.  Often you will realize that it was the customer service experience that is causing the person to slander the product that they purchased.  When I was looking for reviews on green coffee bean extract, I definitely came across examples of both of these, but after digging through the weeds, I was able to find some that seem trustworthy. 

As the product’s reputation grows, so do the number of people who review the product, which gives you far more real reviews to look at.  There is a consensus on most websites that the product does work and most people see results fairly quickly.  There are some reviews from people that sounded perfectly honest, but the people did not lose any weight.  I believe that both of these reviews are valid.  The thing is that diet and exercise will have a huge effect on the results you see.  If you continue with a high calorie diet with processed foods, large amounts of alcohol and you never go to the gym, it really would be a miracle pill if it helps you lose weight under those circumstances.  It appears that in the vast majority of the more honest sounding testimonials, people did see some decrease in weight and an increase in energy.  After the short amount of time that I have been taking them, I can attest to an unquestionable increase in energy.  Another thing you will commonly see are reviews trying to drive you to very specific products.  Many say that Dr. Oz promoted PURE green coffee bean extract, with no other ingredients at all besides the capsule.  After doing some research, most of the other additional ingredients commonly found in green coffee bean extract don’t decrease the effectiveness of the extract.  Is there any reason one would want to avoid green coffee bean extract?

Though green coffee bean extract has not been studied on its own very thoroughly at this point, coffee has.  This is a natural extract from the coffee bean and there are no known side effects.  All of the research on green coffee bean extract and its major component, chlorogenic acid, show that you can safely take green coffee bean extract worry-free.  Seeing that there is no reason to not give it a try, if you are considering it, why not?

I wish I had invested in the green coffee bean extract market just before Dr. Oz put it on his show.  Since then, it is very difficult to find around town, sold out almost everywhere in Los Angeles.  But it looks like this stuff may be one of the more effective weight loss supplements to emerge recently.  People are spending on it and saying good things about it, which are two good signs.  Understanding how the product may work as far as weight loss shows promise as well.  It works to do what low glycemic diets do for the body and these diets have been time tested and do work for fat loss.  And with no side effects, I can’t see any reason to not give it a try!  If nothing else, it definitely gives you energy, but I will update this with my fat loss results soon.  Until then, if you have tried it, I would love to hear what you think.