Green Coffee Extract: Get Lean With the Bean

It’s the latest fat-loss miracle, touted even by Dr. Oz: green coffee extract. According to the December ’12 Health, Oz tested green coffee extract on 100 overweight women in his audience. He gave the supplement to half the group and a placebo to the other half. All were instructed not to change their eating or exercise habits. They took one pill 30 minutes before each meal for two weeks.

Results? The green-coffee-extract group lost two pounds on average in two weeks while the placebo group only lost one pound. That’s a doubling of weight-loss results. Good stuff!

Plus, it may help you keep the weight off—even after you stop taking the supplement. In a recent study published in Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy, 14 of 15 subjects had not regained any of the weight they lost four months after they stopped taking the supplement. Lead author of the study, Joe Vinson, Ph.D., said the reason may be that the supplement helps “reset your body mechanisms” that affect metabolism.

Apparently, weight loss initially occurs as a result of the polyphenols in green coffee extract, which slow the absorption of carbohydrates, sugar and possibly fats in the digestive system. “They also inhibit an enzyme used by the liver to form blood sugar,” meaning you get less insulin release and subsequent fat storage.

If you want to try it, research suggests that about 400 milligrams taken three times a day—30 minutes before breakfast, lunch and dinner—produces the best results. And, no, you don’t get it from drinking coffee. Unfortunately, the key polyphenol, chlorogenic acid, is destroyed in regular coffee beans during the roasting process.