The pursuit of weight loss has led many to explore various avenues, including the use of fat burners. These dietary supplements are marketed as aids to boost metabolism, reduce fat absorption, or enhance fat burning for energy. While manufacturers often tout them as quick fixes, a closer look reveals a more complex reality.
Understanding Fat Burners
Fat burners are dietary supplements that claim to increase your metabolism, reduce fat absorption, or help your body burn more fat for fuel. These supplements often contain a mix of natural and artificial compounds, appealing to individuals seeking a convenient way to manage their weight. Over-the-counter fat burners are attractive to patients who desire a magical treatment for obesity and believe that their benefits outweigh the risks.
How Fat Burners Claim to Work
Fat burners are said to work by increasing your resting metabolic rate, with the active ingredients helping to eliminate body fat. They claim to block fat or carbohydrate absorption, curb your appetite, or speed up your metabolism. By elevating blood pressure and increasing overall energy expenditure, fat burners may lead to weight loss over time.
In theory, fat burners work by:
- Increasing your metabolism
- Reducing the amount of fat your body absorbs
- Suppressing your appetite
However, the effectiveness of fat burner supplements is still in question. Though they’re commonly used for weight loss, there’s not a lot of evidence that they work.
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Common Ingredients in Fat Burners
Fat burner supplements typically come in tablet or capsule form and contain a range of ingredients:
- Caffeine: A common ingredient that stimulates the nervous system and potentially helps burn calories. Supplements may contain more caffeine than your typical coffee, tea, or chocolate.
- Green tea extract: Another common ingredient that may help burn calories and reduce the fat you absorb from food.
- Carnitine: A compound that boosts your metabolism and gives you energy. It can be found in meat and dairy products, and it’s made naturally by your liver and kidneys. However, its weight-loss benefits are questionable.
- Yohimbe: A plant compound that comes from the bark of an evergreen tree. It’s common in fat burner supplements but can cause negative effects.
- Soluble fiber: This ingredient isn’t found in all fat burners, but you can find some with high amounts of fiber. Fiber helps control your appetite, and soluble fiber can help prevent your body from absorbing fat from food.
Many supplements contain a lot of different ingredients, typically more than what’s beneficial for your health. These unknown ingredients can cause fat burners to react unpredictably with your body.
The Reality of Fat Burner Effectiveness
Despite their allure, fat burners are often ineffective and may even be harmful. A 2011 study indicated that there is no miracle pill for weight loss, and even “natural supplements” cannot guarantee fat loss. The effectiveness of fat burner supplements is still in question. Though they’re commonly used for weight loss, there’s not a lot of evidence that they work.
Studies have shown that fat burner supplements might not work the way you want them to. They don’t make your fat cells magically disappear.
The Risks and Safety Concerns
Fat burner supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA. Because of this, you may be taking a health risk by taking them. First, you don’t always get a complete picture of what is in the supplement. Some studies on these supplements have found ingredients inside that aren’t listed on the bottle. Second, just because a supplement calls itself “natural” doesn’t mean that it’s safe. Some fat burner supplements have been linked to problems like liver damage. Some herbs, like ephedra, that were once used in fat burners are now banned by the FDA because they cause high blood pressure, mood change, irregular heart rate, stroke, seizures, and heart attacks.
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Fat-burning supplements do not need to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration before they can be sold on the market. Instead, it’s the manufacturer’s responsibility to ensure that their supplements are tested for safety and effectiveness. And many fat-burning supplements have been pulled off the market because they were tainted with harmful ingredients. There have even been cases in which contaminated supplements caused dangerous side effects like high blood pressure, strokes, seizures, and even death.
Some specific ingredients also carry risks:
- Yohimbe: Can cause headaches, anxiety, agitation, increased blood pressure, heart problems, and kidney failure.
- Caffeine: Too much caffeine can cause nervousness, jitteriness, insomnia - and even a dangerously high heart rate.
- Carnitine: Too much carnitine can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and a fishy body odor.
Natural Alternatives and Strategies for Fat Burning
The most effective way to lose weight is through regular sleep, decreased stress, regular exercise, and eating a nutrient-rich, healthy diet. However, plenty of natural solutions can help you burn more fat when combined with a health-promoting lifestyle that includes eating a nutrient-rich diet and exercising.
Here are some natural solutions that may help you burn more fat:
Caffeine
Caffeine is a substance commonly found in coffee, green tea, and cocoa beans. It’s also a popular ingredient in commercial fat-burning supplements - and for good reason. A 2021 review of studies suggests that the caffeine in coffee can prevent and reduce fat stores in the body. It can also boost your metabolism and help your body burn additional fat. A 2024 study found that caffeine can boost basal metabolic rates by increasing systemic catecholamine levels. Catecholamines are molecules that act as neurotransmitters and hormones; they include dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and epinephrine (adrenaline).
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To reap the benefits of caffeine, you don’t need to take a dietary supplement. You can try drinking strong coffee, which is an excellent source of caffeine with many health benefits. That said, these health benefits are only temporary. Plus, it’s important to note that caffeine can interfere with quality sleep, which has negative effects on weight management.
Green Tea Extract
Green tea extract is simply a concentrated form of green tea. It provides all the benefits of green tea in a convenient powder or capsule form. In addition, these two compounds complement each other and can help you burn fat through a process called thermogenesis. In simple terms, thermogenesis is a process in which your body burns calories to produce heat. For instance, an analysis of six studies found that taking a combination of green tea extract and caffeine helped people burn 16% more fat than a placebo.
In an earlier study, scientists compared the effects of a placebo, caffeine, and a combination of green tea extract and caffeine on burning fat. They discovered that the combination of green tea and caffeine burned roughly 65 more calories per day than caffeine alone and 80 more calories than the placebo.
Keep in mind that participants in these studies took green tea extract in combination with additional caffeine. Therefore, this does not definitively show that green tea extract alone has these same effects. Studies have shown that while no detrimental effects have been reported from green tea itself, excess consumption may prove to be harmful to the liver, particularly if taken on an empty stomach. Do not exceed the recommended dosage.
Protein
Protein is incredibly important for burning fat. A high protein intake can help you burn fat by boosting your metabolism and curbing your appetite. It also helps your body preserve muscle mass. Research has also shown that protein-enriched diets can lead to greater weight loss and improvements in metabolic biomarkers. Protein can also curb your appetite by increasing the levels of fullness hormones like GLP-1, CCK, and PYY while reducing levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin.
While you can get all the protein you need from protein-rich foods, many people still find it challenging to eat enough protein daily. Protein powder supplements are a convenient way to increase your protein intake. Options include whey, casein, soy, egg, and hemp protein powders. However, it’s important to choose a protein supplement that’s low in sugar and additives, especially if you’re trying to lose weight.
Keep in mind that calories are still important. Protein supplements should replace snacks or be part of a meal rather than an extra addition to your diet. This is especially true if you’re trying to lose weight by maintaining a calorie deficit. If you’re finding it difficult to eat enough protein, try taking 1 to 2 scoops (25 to 50 grams) of protein powder per day. The recommended daily intake of protein will vary based on your activity levels, age, sex, weight, height, etc. That said, the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
Soluble Fiber
There are two different types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Interestingly, studies have shown that soluble fiber can help you burn fat by curbing your appetite. In addition, soluble fiber helps slow down the delivery of nutrients to the gut. When this happens, your body takes more time to digest and absorb nutrients, which can leave you feeling full for longer. What’s more, soluble fiber may also help you burn fat by reducing how many calories you absorb from food.
While you can get all the soluble fiber you need from food, many people find this challenging. If that’s the case for you, try taking a soluble fiber supplement such as glucomannan or psyllium husk.
Yohimbine
Yohimbine is a substance found in the bark of Pausinystalia yohimbe, a tree found in Central and Western Africa. It’s commonly used as an aphrodisiac, but it also has properties that may help you burn fat. Yohimbine works by blocking receptors called alpha-2 adrenergic receptors. These receptors normally bind adrenaline to suppress its effects, one of which is encouraging the body to burn fat for fuel. Since yohimbine blocks these receptors, it can prolong adrenaline’s effects and promote the breakdown of fat for fuel.
A 2006 study involving 20 elite soccer players found that taking 10 mg of yohimbine twice daily helped them shed 2.2% of their body fat, on average, in only 3 weeks. Keep in mind that these athletes were already quite lean, so a 2.2% reduction in body fat is significant. A more recent 2024 study also found therapeutic potential in yohimbe for weight loss. However, researchers expressed concern about potential toxic effects, particularly at higher doses.
Because yohimbine keeps your adrenaline levels elevated, it may cause side effects like:
- Nausea
- Anxiety
- Panic attacks
- High blood pressure
Yohimbe can also interact with common medications for blood pressure and depression. If you take medications for these conditions or have anxiety, you might want to avoid yohimbine. More clinical research is needed on yohimbine before it can be recommended as a go-to fat-burning supplement.
The Importance of a Holistic Approach
Remember that a supplement cannot replace health-promoting activities like exercising and eating a balanced, nutrient-rich diet. Talk with a doctor if you’re interested in developing a healthy program that can help you manage your weight.