Physical Wellness

Dr. Oz’s Miracle Green Coffee Does Not Help with Weight Loss, Study Reports

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Jun 17, 2013 02:56 PM EDT

Famous and highly popular television doctor, Dr. Mehmet Oz once reported that he found a "miracle fat burner." The miracle that the heart surgeon was touting is the latest weight loss pill made from coffee extract, green coffee beans. Although Dr. Oz called it "one of the most important discoveries made" so far for weight loss, a new study found that these pills were not effective in helping overweight and obese mice lose weight.

The pills are made with chlorogenic acid, which is an antioxidant extracted from coffee. The antioxidants are extracted when unroasted coffee beans are grounded up and then soaked in alcohol. In a 12-week long study, researchers from the University of Western Australia concluded that these weight-loss miracle pills were similar to a lot of other weight loss pills and concoctions: they are ineffective. The researchers administered the pill to obese mice. They discovered that the compound led to more pre-diabetic symptoms in the group of mice that received the pill as opposed to the group of obese mice that did not get the pill. On top of that, the researchers found that the group receiving the antioxidant were less sensitive to insulin and had higher blood-sugar levels. The obese mice failed to lose weight.

Although the researchers' found that the pills were ineffective in mouse models, they believe that their findings could hint to the fact that these pills are not effective in humans as well. Dr. Oz's recent mini experiment did not find that much evidence of weight loss either. Dr. Oz had asked half of 100 of his female audience to take the green coffee pill while the other half took a placebo. They participants were all asked to keep a weight loss diary. He found that the group that took the green pill lost two pounds while the other group lost one pound.

"We found that that taking green coffee extract doubles your weight loss," Dr. Oz had said on his show last year. Researchers who are not sold on this new weight loss pill stressed that keeping a diet diary promotes weight loss and thus, the weight loss experienced by all participants could have been due to this diary and not the pill. Despite praising the pill, even Dr. Oz admitted that a food journal could have helped with weight loss.

"I know $30 a day [for the pill] costs a lot. If that's too much for you, the free option is a food journal."

The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

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