Weight is a heavy topic (pun intended) in more ways than one. Obesity is
climbing the health condition ladder and is threatening the lives of many
Americans. It is an epidemic that is dangerously taboo in social circles but
largely addressed in magazines, doctor’s offices and the media in general. It’s
oddly impolite to tell someone they need to lose weight, yet putting up “No
Smoking” signs in restaurants that serve 1,000-calorie burgers is never
considered rude or judgmental; in reality, both overeating and smoking are
detrimental and damaging to the body. Consider the public benefit to applying
the same crusading efforts against smoking to educating staff, customers,
friends and family on the urgency of weight control.
Weight is a touchy subject. No one wants to be told they need to lose weight
OR gain weight. There are social pressures for women to be paper thin and when
women conform, they are scrutinized and publicly flogged because they are now
too thin. Weight is a juggling act, and it’s not an easy act to keep up.
However, at the base of the issue it’s a simple equation. “A healthy weight
control program must include a sensible diet and exercise program,” said Mitch
Skop, director of new product development, Pharmachem Laboratories Inc. “The
ratio of calories in, calories expended must be followed. In addition, we also
believe if people look at food as ‘nutrients versus anti-nutrients’ they will
also achieve a more vibrant state of health and well-being.”
Dr. Denise Lamothe, Bach resident psychologist, clinical psychologist and
author, noted: “To manage weight we have to first understand there is much more
to weight management than merely counting calories and exercising. We need to
first address the emotional issues that send us running to the refrigerator or
bakery for relief before we can progress to taking loving care of ourselves and
feeding ourselves well.”
Sunil Kohli, chief operating officer, Health Plus Inc., agreed, adding: “A
healthy weight starts with a healthy outlook and determination, as well as a
healthy commitment to one’s long-term health. There is no other way. The mindset
must be there. Second, we advocate a healthy diet abundant in fruits,
vegetables, whole grains, seeds, legumes, lean meat, and plenty of water. Many
sedentary folks are averse to ‘exercise’ and dragging themselves to a regimented
gym class. Playing games outdoors with the grandkids regularly is exercise!
Taking tango or tap dance lessons is exercise. Walking from end to end in the
mall in winter is exercise. Just move!”
Also on the lifestyle bandwagon is Jay Robb, founder and CEO, Jay Robb Corp.
“Exercise is important but should not be relied upon for losing weight,” he
said. “What one eats primarily determines if they will lose or gain weight, but
staying active to burn more calories can help. One must also practice the art of
‘under eating’ slightly at each meal because no matter what diet a person is
following, excess calories can cause weight gain.” Robb also encourages drinking
water and avoiding stimulants like caffeine.
Supplement Your Baking
As a retailer, the weight management section may seem like a difficult aisle
to approach; but, addressing weight management as a lifestyle change may soften
it. “Natural products retailers are in the business of promoting a well-rounded
healthy and stable lifestyle,” Skop said. “We cannot stress enough the
importance of a healthy diet, a ‘diet’ that is not synonymous with starving.”
Consumers need to be equipped with smart cooking tips in order to approach a
healthy diet effectively. From bread to pasta, all-natural, whole-wheat flour is
a better alternative to processed white flour. It also provides fiber, which can
increase the length of fullness due to its satiety effects.
There are also new functional foods and beverages designed to deliver
satiety-enhancing fiber. For example, Peter Hayes, president, NuVitae, offers a
sparkling beverage that provides 12.5 g of fiber per 12-oz. can. “Additionally,
each NuVitae provides 15 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium,
vitamin D3, and others,” he said.
Health Plus also lauds fiber as a weight management supplement, and supplies
several products, including Pat’s Psyllium Slim, designed for long-term weight
loss along with diet and exercise. “Psyllium is truly the ‘colon cleanse’
natural fiber,” said Kohli. “Its character is to bulk up and swell in the
digestive tract, which causes satiety. In addition to satiety, regular ingestion
of psyllium has also been shown to promote a healthy cholesterol ratio.”
In addition to enhancing fiber intake, consumers can also benefit from
swapping out straight white sugar with natural options such as stevia, brown
rice syrup, agave and luo han guo, which have low to no calories and a low
glycemic index. Simple swaps such as applesauce for vegetable oil deliver quick
and easy low-fat options as well.
SoLo Gi® Low Glycemic Nutrition Bars have a low glycemic index profile that
combats weight gain. “We feel the key to weight management is through proper
blood sugar management and SoLo’s low glycemic profile effectively keeps blood
sugar in a narrow range, thereby assisting with hunger management, enhanced
satiety and nutritional support—all key elements associated with positive and
successful weight management,” said Carla Poirier, marketing communications
director for Solo GI Nutrition. “The low glycemic profile and nutritional
balance in SoLo Bars provide a slow and steady release of glucose into the
blood, contributing to enhanced satiety and effective hunger management.”
Low-carb diets have a popular history in the diet sector, but controlling
carbs is different than eliminating them. The good carbs, complex carbohydrates,
are essential for energy. A method consumers can use to control carbs is
incorporating carb blockers as dietary supplements or in foods. Pharmachem
developed Phase 2 Carb Controller ® (also known as StarchLite), a proprietary
extract of white kidney bean that can delay digestion and absorption of
carbohydrates; it has been clinically studied for its ability to control glucose
and aid in weight loss.1
To support consumer ease of use, the company developed a line of “functional
seasonings” that incorporate Phase 2. “Use the DietSpice Functional Seasonings
just like salt and pepper directly on starchy foods,” Skop said. Pharmachem’s
spokesperson, Chef Gerard Viverito, has also added the contents of Phase 2
supplements directly to recipes, without affecting taste or texture.
While controlling carbs, many consumers turn to protein to fill the plate.
“Protein is a key nutrient needed to stabilize blood sugar levels,” Robb noted.
The company offers a range of functional protein powders that are free of fat,
sugar and gluten. “They are ideal for making low-carb protein shakes, or they
can be added to hot cereals and other foods to increase the protein content
while decreasing the carbohydrate content,” Robb said. Jay Robb also includes
menus and recipes in its protein powders and weight loss books making it easier
for consumers to incorporate protein and healthy choices into their diet and
equipping retailers with “How To” menus and recipes.
Combining healthy carbs and protein can enhance satiety, particularly when
used to fill in gaps in the diet. For example, PeaceWorks Holding LLC created
KIND Fruit + Nut Delight Bars with whole nuts, dried fruits and honey. “Our bars
have been shown to promote weight loss in medical studies because they are more
naturally filling and satiating, so individuals are less tempted to consume
unhealthy snacks often filled with hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn
syrup,” said Philip Walotsky, director of communications at PeaceWorks. An
unpublished pilot study at The Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center fed 20
overweight adults two KIND Fruit + Nut Delight Bars per day for eight weeks
along with their habitual diet. The group experienced an average weight loss of
0.6 pounds, and a reduction of 0.2 in their body mass index (BMI), along with
lowered blood pressure (-3.6 systolic and -1.7 diastolic).
“Snacking can add calories to the diet and cause weight gain,” said David L.
Katz, M.D., MPH, FACPM, FACP, the principal investigator and director of Yale
University’s Prevention Research Center. “But snacking on wholesome foods can
help control appetite and weight, while providing excellent nutrition and
displacing less filling foods that contribute empty calories. We were gratified
to see preliminary data support the hypothesis that such bars may offer health
and weight benefits when consumed routinely. We are now eager to conduct an
expanded study and generate more definitive results.”
Fatten Up!
Absolutely! Fats high in mono- and polyunsaturated fats are great for the
body and studies have shown diets high in these fats, like the Mediterranean
diet, support weight loss.2 Consider stocking pamphlets and shelf talkers at
point-of-purchase explaining the benefits of fats found in nuts, olive oil,
avocados, etc., as many consumers are misinformed about fats. “So many consumers
have an unhealthy opinion when it comes to fats,” said Jason Dewberry, vice
president of marketing at Garden of Life. “They tend to lump all fats together
as ‘bad’ and something to completely avoid when looking at a weight management
program.” Garden of Life has an Extra Virgin Coconut Oil high in medium-chain
triglycerides. “When coconut oil replaces some or all of the hydrogenated or
processed vegetable oils in your cooking and baking, the body gets a source of
fat that is more quickly converted to energy,” Dewberry added.
A Different Approach
Beyond the diet and exercise path, there are some innovative offerings that
are designed to augment weight loss efforts. Better Living Naturals offers a
patch called The Weight is Over with fucoxanthin, hoodia and pomegranate. The
patch is worn daily while eating a balanced diet. “There have been recent
studies in both humans and animals that showed taking fucoxanthin supplements
helps to reduce body weight as well as significant losses in visceral fat,
decrease in liver and abdominal fat and an increase in energy expenditure,” said
Lynn Schrum, president of Better Living Distributors.
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Or help consumers deal with the emotional reasons behind overeating by
offering products that work on those levels, such as the Emotional Eating
Support kit from Bach® Original Flower Remedies. “This kit contains three
remedies that are easy to take and help with the major barriers to successful
weight loss or management,” Lamothe explained. “The first is crab apple, which
helps one to accept and appreciate their body. Next is cherry plum, which helps
to regain or remain in control of eating; and the final remedy is chestnut bud,
which helps you to learn from mistakes so you don’t repeat the old patterns of
dieting and overeating which has done nothing in the past other than foster more
self-depreciation resulting in weight gain.”
A Jumpstart
While the ephedra media coverage painted weight loss supplements with a
negative brush, the concept behind enhancing fat burning holds credence. “Many
products in the overall weight loss category have historically received bad
press and skepticism due to their stimulant nature,” Dewberry said. “Some
experts consider this stimulant effect to be artificial or ‘unnatural’
stimulation of the body’s standard processes and functions. Any herb or compound
that ‘coerces’ the body into increasing heart rate and thereby body temperature
to burn fat is an example of many of the product concepts that have defined the
weight management category over the last two decades.”
Garden of Life has approached the weight management sector by encouraging the
body to perform body functions the way it was intended to. Dewberry added: “Our
weight management solutions support the body’s natural weight control mechanisms
while causing as little ‘collateral damage’ as possible. For instance, fucoTHIN
is wildly popular because of its demonstrated clinical efficacy in burning fat
without stimulating the central nervous system. We term this mechanism of
action—intra-cellular thermogenesis. This illustrates the capability of fucoTHIN
to increase the fat burning capacity of the body without undesirable side
effects such as jitters, nervousness, or lost sleep.”
To Go Brands Inc. has a natural Green Tea Energy Fusion for boosting
metabolism and suppressing appetite. “Green Tea Energy Fusion is made of
100-percent natural ingredients, which combine for effective weight management,”
said Vincent Duprat, director of quality assurance and product development, To
Go Brands. “Healthful teas, organic Japanese green tea and South American yerba
mate are believed to increase the breakdown of sugars and fats in the body into
energy.” Duprat noted Green Tea Energy Fusion has 100 mg epigallocatechin
gallate (EGCG) found in green tea that is known to increase metabolism in
addition to Super CitriMax® from Interhealth Nutraceuticals, a patented from (-)hydroxycitric
acid (HCA), a natural plant extract shown to reduce appetite and inhibit fat
production.
A popular natural approach to induce thermogenesis is the extract bitter
orange, particularly as the clinically studied version from Nutratech. “Advantra
Z® is a proprietary bitter orange extract,” said Bob Green, president of
Nutratech Inc. “Unlike generic bitter orange, it contains all five of the potent
adrenergic amines that occur naturally in bitter orange. Together, these amines
are responsible for optimal thermogenic activity.” Green noted Advantra Z is
patent-protected for stimulating thermogenesis, reducing weight, increasing the
percentage of lean muscle in relation to total body mass, improving athletic
performance and suppressing appetite.
Products such as ABB Speed Stack, Nature’s Way Bitter Orange and Twinlab Diet
Fuel all contain Advantra Z. TheAmerican Journal of Medicine
reported: “Ephedra-free weight loss supplements have significant cardiovascular
stimulant actions, similar to ephedra. These effects are not likely caused by C.
aurantium alone, because an eightfold higher dose of synephrine (Advantra Z) had
no effect on blood pressure, but may be attributable to caffeine and other
stimulants in the multi-component formulation.” Advantra Z has also been shown
to increase resting metabolic rate (RMR)3 and was found to improved exercise
intolerance 83 percent of the time following the use of a performance-enhancing
dietary supplement containing Advantra Z.4
Supplementing Your Way Down
Supplementing diet and exercise with weight-loss boosting ingredients can
help vamp-up the often tedious task of losing weight. Several companies have
clinically tested ingredients that support natural weight loss. Nutra Bridge is
a finished product containing 3-Acetyl-7-Oxo-Dehydroepiandrosterone (7-oxo-DHEA)
as 7-Keto® (from Humanetics). “7-Keto is a non-stimulant, thermogenic fat burner
that effectively allows the body to burn fat more efficiently; specifically,
7-Keto increases the activity of key fat burning enzymes by a factor 3-10 times
normal levels,” said Scott Steil, president of Nutra Bridge. “Typically, a
person loses about 50 percent of their endogenous 7-Keto levels by age 40. This
results in our bodies’ inability to burn fat like it used to when we were
younger.”
Steil noted 7-Keto can assist weight loss by helping consumers lose 200
percent more weight than just dieting and exercising. A study conducted out of
New York found 7-oxo-DHEA “combined with moderate exercise and a reduced-calorie
diet significantly reduces body weight and body fat compared with exercise and a
reduced-calorie diet alone.”5 Additionally, a study published in Current
Therapeutic Research found 7-Keto Nuturalean™ coupled with a reduced-calorie
diet and an exercise program significantly reduced weight-loss compared to diet
and exercise alone.6
“Retailers need to become educated on what ingredients truly produce
significant weight loss (focus should be on asking for published clinical
studies with statistically significant results versus placebo),” Steil added.
“Nutra Bridge and Humanetics have worked hard to educate many retailers that
deal with end user of weight loss products, on the benefits of 7-Keto and what
it will and will not do. I firmly believe retailers should act as a filter to
products that over promise and do not have any solid backing behind their
claims. At the end of the day, these products will cause a poor consumer
experience and hurt future product sales.”
Sabinsa Corp. has also developed several weight-loss ingredients that can be
seen in finished weight management supplements. “In the early 1990s, Sabinsa
pioneered hydroxycitric acid (HCA), an extract from fruits of Garcinia
gambogia, under the Citrin® brand,” said Vladimir Badmaev, M.D., Ph.D., vice
president of medical and scientific affairs, Sabinsa. “Citrin was further
developed into Garcitrin®, a more bioavailable form of HCA. HCA alone is poorly
absorbed and bioavailable into the cell to inhibit the citrate lyase, a target
enzyme in fatty acid production. This critical issue of HCA absorption and
bioavailability has been addressed in Garcitrin by combining HCA with garcinol (polyisoprenylated
benzophenone).” In an open-field study, patients given Citrin lost an
average of 5 pounds after four weeks and around 10 pounds after eight weeks, in
addition to beneficial effects on cholesterol and coronary heart disease risk.7
“LeanGard® is a botanical formula composed of hydroxycitric acid, garcinol,
diterpene forskolin and alkaloid piperine (a pungent principle extracted from
fruits of Piper nigrum),” Badmaev said. LeanGard has been recently incorporated
into a dark chocolate for the Japanese market and Citrin was used in yogurt
covered nutritional bars.
Clarinol™ CLA is Lipid Nutrition’s branded form of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
Long-term supplementation of CLA reduces body fat mass.8 “Clarinol CLA has been
shown to inhibit the activity of lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme involved in the
uptake of fat into fat cells and thus may prevent the accumulation of body fat,”
said Patrick Luchsinger, marketing manager North America, Lipid Nutrition. “The
most exciting results are in the area of weight management and body composition
as several short-term studies have demonstrated that CLA can positively affect
body composition and has a beneficial effect on lean muscle mass.” Jamba Juice
includes Clarinol CLA in its Weight Burner™ Super Boost and the Fit n’ Fruitful
smoothie contains 3.5 g of the ingredient as well. It is also part of its
Functional Boost Line.
Cognis also has a branded form of CLA, Tonalin® CLA that has shown positive
affects on fat oxidation and energy expenditure during sleep.9 It has also
prevented weight gain and reduced body fat mass often gained during the winter
months.10
Gencor Pacific has a Caralluma Fimbriata compound, Slimaluma™, which showed
fat loss and appetite suppressant activity in an Indian trial.11 It was also the
recent recipient of the 2008 Frost & Sullivan Global Appetite Suppressant and
Satiety Ingredients Product Innovation of the Year Award for successfully
creating an effective appetite suppressant ingredient for the global weight
management market.
The weight management sector is hefty and, at times, overwhelming. But
clinically backed research on ingredients and products makes a stronger case and
enables deciphering among the many products a little easier. Weight is not
managed by a quick fix; weight is a way of life. And, depending on the way you
choose, either you control your weight or it will control you.
1. E Thom. “A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Trial of a New
Weight-reducing Agent of Natural Origin” J Internatio Med Res.
2000;28:229-33.
2. Joaquin Perez-Guisado, Andres Munoz-Serrano and Angeles Alonso-Moraga.
“Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean diet: a healthy cardiovascular diet for
weight loss” Nutr. J 2008;7:30 DOI:10.1186/1475-2891-7-30
4. Haller CA et al. “Human pharmacology of a performance-enhancing dietary
supplement under resting and exercise conditions” Br J Clin Pharmacol.
2008;65(6):833-40. Epub 2008 Mar 13
5. Douglas S. Kalman et al. “A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled
Study of 3-Acetyl-7-Oxo-Dehydroepiandrosterone in Healthy Overweight Adults”
Cur Therapeu Res. 2000;61(7)
6. John L. Zenk M.D. et al. “The Effect of 7-keto Nuturalean™ on Weight
Loss: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial” Cur Therapeu
Res. 2002;63(4)
7. Vladimir Badmaev et al. “Open field, physician controlled clinical
evaluation of a botanical weight loss formula based on Garcinia cambogia
derived (-) hydroxycitric acid” NutraCos. January/February 2002
8. Jean-Michel Gaullier et al. “Conjugated linoleic acid supplementation for
1 y reduces body fat mass in healthy overweight humans1–3” Am J Clin Nutr.
2004;79:1118 –25.
9. Rachel N Closeet al. “Conjugated linoleic acid supplementation
alters the 6-mo change in fat oxidation during sleep 1,2,3” Am J Clin
Nutr. 2007;86(3):797-804
10. A C Watras et al. “The role of conjugated linoleic acid in reducing body
fat and preventing holiday weight gain” Inter J Obesity. 2007;31,
481–487. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0803437; published online 22 August 2006
11. Kuriyan R et al. "Effect of Caralluma fimbriata extract on appetite, food
intake and anthropometry in adult Indian men and women." Appetite.
2007;48(3):338-44
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