Quite possibly, one of the most pointless experiments I chronicled on this site brings me a good portion of my traffic: Irvingia.

Three years ago, I heard about this stuff just as it was being marketed, and like most other fat folks, wanted a  ’magic bullet’ that would melt the weight off.

I wrote probably a dozen posts on the stuff, and even set up a special page on the site for people to post their own experiences.

And boy, did they.

But that was, as I said, three years ago. I’ve since come to conclude that there is no ‘magic bullet’ – and even if there was – we would probably pay some price in terms of our health simply because the process of human nutrition and digestion is so complicated that it is, at the present time, for all intents and purposes, unknowable.

Maybe you don’t care what I think. Maybe you don’t care about potential health effects. Fine.

If you’d like to pour through all the posts and all the comments, be my guest, but I’ll sum it up here to save you time if you’re in a rush.

• Irvingia didn’t work for me, perhaps because I discovered information that stated it doesn’t really work in conjunction with low carb diets, so I stopped
• Lots of people posted their optimistic beginnings with the stuff, but I can’t recall anyone writing to say they lost a lot of weight on the stuff
• After 3 years, if the stuff really melted off the pounds, wouldn’t you think that it would be on the front page of every newspaper (what an anachronistic phrase!) by now instead of just another weight loss herb?

For me, Irvigina represents another false hope thrown in front of desperate fat people, willing to try anything new because so much has failed them before.

There’s no good guys and bad guys here. The history of mankind is the history of weight loss remedies going back to the ancient Greeks. The manufacturers had some research that showed it might work. The laws on supplements in the US allow them to sell the stuff. And there is a marketplace where people are willing to pay to take a chance it might work on them.

That’s capitalism, folks.

And for all of you coming here because you’ve heard about Irvingia, you are doing the right thing: a little independent research. Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware.

If you want more info, the posts are still here. I have toyed with the notion of taking them down, but haven’t come to any conclusions on this yet.

Hope all this helps clear things up a bit.

Irvingia – this subject took position 1,2,3,5,6 and 9. Jeez Louise! I suppose that I became something of a hub of info on this supplement that was touted so highly as a powerful weight loss aid in 2009. I suppose that this is because I was one of the first people to hear about it and try it.

It didn’t do a darn thing for me, nor many of the people who posted their experiences – and it came out that even if it did work, it didn’t work with low carb diets.

I suppose that this is indicative of just how many people are looking for some magic bullet to weight loss. Sorry to say, I don’t think you’ll find it in a supplement at present.

# 4 – Atkins Induction – Observations On My First Few Days – I wrote this one in July of 2007 and it appears to be a big fave. I’ve even referenced it myself on those occasion where I had been carbing out for a while and decided to back to low carb full bore.

# 7 - Recipe – World’s Easiest Low Carb Crock Pot Chicken – OK – this recipe *is* pretty good, but its relative popularity is strange. Why is there such a burning desire for low carb crock pot chicken? Another one from 2007 that seems to never lose it’s popularity.

#8 - The Alcohol Stall – Does Liquor Really Impede Low Carb Weight Loss? – This was not written by me, but by Megamas, the nom de plume of a fellow who wrote a number of articles for this blog in 2008. Atkins and alcohol is apparently a popular subject – most likely because a low carb diet is the only diet that even entertains the possibility that you can lose weight and still drink. Sadly, for those of you who like to put a few back, all evidence points to the fact that alcohol does stall you. Most people report being able to maintain existing weight loss, but they can’t peel off the pounds when tossing back a few.

Now having said that, this comment on the post does hold out a shred of hope – and I myself had written about The Drinking Man’s Diet (#19 on the top posts for 2009) that he references – a low carb diet from the early 1960s. I’ve never read the book, though it might be worth buying if only to add to my low carb reference library. As I stated in my post, I don’t think it would work for me. The fellow who wrote the book, the famous photographer Robert Cameron died in 2009 at the age of 98. He certainly must have buried a lot of the doctors that told him his diet was dangerous.

His book had been re-released a few years ago when I wrote the post, but it seems gone from Amazon. Shame. There’s another by the same name but with different authors, which confuses the Hell out of me at present, but I will resist the urge to investigate further.

#9 - How You Feel When Starting Atkins Induction – I’d call this a good companion piece to #4 listed above. Bookends for the first-time low carber.

#10 – Recipe- Chocolate Ricotta Dessert – It’s somewhat of a travesty when I use the term ‘recipe’ for some of the concoctions I come up with, so I am always surprised when one of these concoctions becomes popular. I suppose this one became so because it’s sweet, easy and tasty.

As always, I am shocked and amazed that anyone would bother reading this stuff that I write in the wee hours of the morning, but it does help make it worth the while.

Thanks.

Since then, the overall quality of content of the Internet rose considerably, but now I’m back to bring the average down.

This morning I’m 208.0.

It was tough – I seemed to be in a stubborn stall, and I needed to take a long look at what I was doing and come up with some new approaches – and rethink my assumptions, since they weren’t helping things.

First, in March I gave up the wine as I had looked through my writings and found no evidence that I could have sustainable weight loss with it. I certainly can maintain while drinking alcohol, but I can’t lose. So I committed to having a glass of wine only when I reach 180. In March, I was close to 222, so I’m about a quarter of the way there. At this rate, I’ll be having a glass of vino next March. Sigh.

Next, I gave up my high-octane lifestyle consisting of a pot of coffee before work, and another during the day. Now I still have a pot of coffee (with cream), but the coffee is 2 scoops of the full octane stuff and 3 scoops of the decaf. I think I miss the go-go juice more than the wine, but I must say, in general, my stomach feels better.

I had also read that, to accelerate weight loss, it helps to go easy on the liver. Here’s what Dr. Michael Eads has to say about this (slightly redacted and emphasis mine):

Another reason people have difficulty losing as they get older is that their livers don’t function as well. As we get older we tend to have more aches and pains, and we take more Tylenol and Advil and similar OTC medications for them. These drugs are metabolized in the liver, and, consequently, they consume some of the liver’s capacity. Same goes for coffee. No one likes coffee more than I. But when I want to pick up my weight loss after I’ve gone off the wagon for a while, I cut back on my coffee. Why? Because caffeine is metabolized in the liver just like the above drugs. It also consumes some of the liver’s capacity. I switch to decaf for a few days whenever I’m getting back on the straight and narrow.

Finally, as we age, we tend to drink more. Most people drink like fish during college, then slack off. They start to pick it back up (never to college levels, though, thank God) as they drift into middle age. Alcohol is detoxified in the liver just like caffeine and OTC pain relievers. All these things add up to put quite a load on the liver. And if you’ve regained weight, you’ve probably got some fatty accumulation in your liver and it’s not working at peak levels anyway. All these added substances that compromise the liver even more don’t help.

Insulin stays in the circulation because it is put there by the pancreas and because it isn’t metabolized in the liver. A liver that isn’t functioning up to snuff won’t break down insulin as rapidly as it should. Consequently, higher levels of insulin mean more difficulty in losing weight. Plus, since the liver is the major organ involved in the entire metabolic process, it works a whole lot better to stabilize everything when it is unhindered by having to detoxify a lot of unnecessary stuff. Which is why you need to baby your liver when you restart your low-carb diet.

I never heard this before – interesting if it’s true.

If I look at my weigh charts, I was dancing in a narrow 5 lb window between 215 and 220 for 2 months despite this change – then in May, my weight started trending lower. I remember reading something Dr. Schwartzbein mentioned about the body needing time to recover from such abuses – might it be that my liver, after a spa vacation of 2 months (mostly) free from the consumption of these 2 items, is feeling refreshed and reinvigorated and ready to get back to the job of mopping up that extra insulin?

I also began taking blood glucose measurements. Not that my doctor recommended this – I’m trying to understand my blood sugar more, and thought it would be interesting to monitor for a while. It is. Long story short: it appears that my diet can influence my fasting blood glucose by almost 30 points.

Does anyone point this out to diabetics?

I also also had an opportunity to listen to some hypnosis tapes by Dr. Roberta Temes. I found it an interesting experiment because I listened to them one time in March, and there was a suggestion in the tapes about eating more vegetables – and since that day I’ve had fresh vegetables every day, which was something I tended to skip a lot prior.

I had a problem with the tapes – Dr. Temes tries to create a program that will work with any diet, but a few of the things she mentions are from the low-fat school of thought. From what we know about hypnosis, a hypnotic subject will not do anything not in alignment with their values, and hearing this in what I guess was some sort of hypnotic state was especially off-putting – more so than if I was just reading something in a normal state.

Nevertheless, I do feel that there was something there, and if you want to check it out, here’s the link. I corresponded with the president of the company, and he seems a nice fellow who appears to be trying to sell science-based hypnosis rather than some quack tapes – at least that’s my impression. I’ll probably be returning to these tapes in the future and explore this avenue more.

Lastly, I have continued my experimentation with the Commit nicotine lozenges (see this post) and the result are amazing. I use these lozenges after a meal to prevent overeating, and it makes the appetite disappear in a minute or two. I place the lozenge in my cheek, like I imagine people who chew tobacco might, and it lasts over an hour, providing a small trickle of nicotine all the while.

There have been times where I was really hungry – to the point of food fantasies – imagining what was in the fridge. It’s a powerful type of hunger for me, and hard to resist. I take a lozenge and the feeling dissipates in an instant.

There’s some side effects: it can upset my stomach, so I try to only take them after a meal. At times, they can also provide something of a mild buzz – at least mild now - when I began this, they were much more a shock to the system and took a little getting used to. I my blood pressure is fine now, even though I’m taking a bit more than when I started – I have about 4, and usually keep the lozenge in until it totally dissolves, rather than just the 15 minutes.

I also noticed a mild…how can I say it? A state of well-being. I found this odd – then I read research on nicotine that stated that it had a remarkable ability to increase stimulation when low, and reduce stimulation when it’s high – evening out the rats that the testers used.

Yeah – that kinda fits.

So I found an appetite suppressant that works for me – and provides a state of well-being as well. And it works almost every time.

Before you tsk…tsk me on this, remember: nicotine is not smoking. When you tell me all the nasty facts about smoking, you are talking about inhaling smoke with 1000 other compounds other than nicotine.

Research nicotine itself, and it doesn’t sound all that bad.

Lastly, I have NOT been exercising. I stopped that in February. I got sick, didn’t go for a few days, and lost the mojo. Now this might sound heretical, but I was analyzing my weight charts over the last year or so a month or two back, and the sudden and surprising weight gain I had last year coincided exactly with the time I was exercising.

Does exercise make you fat, as I stated somewhat tongue-in-cheek in a post from long ago? This time period also coincided with my experimentation with irvingia and the shortening of the days, which might indicate Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – a disorder that sounds as crackpot as they come – except that even my doctor said it was real (though I still am skeptical).

So perhaps there are other reasons for the weight gain than exercise. I’d still like to exercise – I was beginning to enjoy it, but I think I’m going to focus on just weight loss now – I find I’m more drawn to exercise as I lose more weight.

So here I am, seemingly on the way down again. Ketosis is a breeze lately, and cravings for the cookies downstairs are almost nonexistent – though occasionally, I do give in and have a high-carb blowout. But I’ve found some interesting results from this: occasionally, the administration of some carbs seems to help my diet. I haven’t figured out the pattern just yet, but there are times when, after a while in ketosis, I have a moderate amount of carbs, and the next day my weight more or less ramins the same, but my blood glucose is lower. Then jumping back on the wagon, I seem to have an easier time of continuing my weight loss.

This seems to indicate that some of the things regarding ‘carb cycling’ might work. Here’s a link to a fellow who’s done some empirical research on himself using this method:

I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.

He seems to have drawn his conclusions. For me, more research is needed.

If you never saw the surveys, or would like to take it yourself, I request that you have been on Irvingia for at least 8 weeks.

Click Here to Take the Survey for Males

Click Here to Take the Survey for Females

Remembering that this is NOT a scientific survey in ANY sense of the word, here’s some quick stats as it stands now:

1. 7 guys and 11 gals took the survey
2. The guys age skewed a bit lower -early 30s to early 50s
3. The gals age skewed higher by about 10 years
4. Gals reported more side effects than guys
5. Guys noticed more appetite supression than the gals
6. Guys, on average, lost weight – around 10 lbs
7. Gals, on the other hand, gained weight – around 5 lbs.
8. Guys bloodwork improved
9. Gals bloodwork got worse
10. 90% of the gals said they weren’t satisified with Irvingia
11. 100% of the guys said they WERE satisified with Irvingia

Maddening, isn’t it? The results are just a tease. So many questions come from these answers, and I’m no more clear on the results from the stuff – the sample too small, that self-reporting aspect of the survey impacts the neutrality of the results, and why guys and gals are at opposite poles regarding satisifaction.

I think that low carb effectiveness will decrease over time because the body builds a tolerance to the approach. Heck, if you’ve been doing low carb for five years then try to go even lower carb, you are not going to get the same effect that you would if you went low carb coming from a diet of cookies, coke and pizza.

I am also beginning to think that hormonal balance has something to do with it, and as we age, some of these hormones decrease (thyroid and testosterone are 2 I’m considering more research on) and this will make low carb less effective over the long run.

I’ve learned a lot from the people posting on the Irvingia Field Reports – even if you are not interested in the supplement, there’s plenty of other interesting stuff surrounding the challenge of weight loss that might be of help.

Younger folks just starting out on low carb have the best chance of dramatic weight loss. This happened to me in my early 40s – it’s my mid-40s where I’m not seeing the same result. I think this means that – if you succeed in losing weight low carb, NEVER LET IT COME BACK! Don’t think that if you let your weight creep up, you’ll be able to lose it as easily next time – it will be incrementally harder the next time.

And you will probably find that as time goes on, even if you don’t let it creep back, and keep the same habits, the weight will begin to increase anyway as you age and your body becomes more finely tuned to low carb. Let’s face it – all of us here are swimming upstream – we’re meant to be fat – it is the state our bodies want to be in. When you disagree with your body, expect it to fight you all the way.

My hypothesis is that, once we’ve trashed our bodies on high-carb crap for 20 years, it is impossible to totally recover from this. Like smokers who quit, you can reverse a lot of the damage, but not all. So you can never be totally like a true paleo – he never ate a bag of Cheeze Doodles while watching Australian Rules Football.

(By the way – I don’t like sports – but I LOVE Australian Rules Football. They used to show it in the US years ago – I was addicted. American football players are wimps compared to these guys.)

So – is it hopeless? Of course not. What it might mean is that you have to change your tactics as time goes on, while you stick to the same strategy.

Check out the links at the top of the Irvingia Field Reports page for more info.

Yep…here we are again. Back from a great vacation that, unfortunately included a lot of good, carb-laden food. 

French cuisine cannot be surpassed in it’s ability to turn out a heavenly croissant, a lobster bisque with a hint of tarragon, topped with baked filo dough, or a simple baguette that convinces me that Americans will eat complete crap – if packaged attractively and maybe it comes with a toy.

One singular moment, when I was enjoying a croissant, looking out over the bay as the sun rose, I thought: If I were to know I was to die this day, just give me a pile of these croissants, some butter and some jam, and I’d be content.

Alas, I did not die – until I arrived home and saw the scale number for the first time in 8 days: 220.2.

No regrets, however. I might have felt great guilt if I swelled up on cafeteria mac & cheese, or some such nonsense, but it was a great, mind-clearing, soul-cleansing vacation where I actually did get in 2 workouts at the gym – not as much as I wanted, but maybe more than I really expected from myself.

So here I am…again. 

I’m not particularly discouraged because of one thing: I am beginning to like to exercise. Now don’t go all crazy on me – I didn’t say I loved it, or even liked it – I’m just beginning to notice that I kinda dread not doing it, like how I feel afterward, and have definitely noted all these bumps on my chest, arms and shoulders that must be my long-slumbering muscles awakening for the first time.

My thinking as of late is: with the habit of exercise comes wellness – in body, mind and spirit.

And with wellness comes weight loss.

Remember, muscles that are being weight-trained bump up you metabolism for more than a day after the workout – and muscles burn calories even while you sit on your ass and do nothing.

All of this has given me a bit more patience with myself, and with my weight goals.

One thing about the Irvingia field reports I see in a lot of the posts is a total lack of patience. Actually, a lack of patience is the Great American Disease.

Sometimes we must work and wait and prepare and fail and try again, and again, and again to get what we want.

I know that’s how it’s panning out for me – no zippity-zip fast weight loss for this guy.

I’m just some sucker plugging away, day after day, fighting an aging metabolism and a body so tuned to low carb that the great benefits of the Atkins diet are lost to me now. 

I envy you folks just starting low carb – you’ll notice some real quick results if you are like I was.

But I’m further down the road, and need to redouble my efforts.

But that’s OK – the only real failure is giving up, right?

Eats

So as I mentioned, I started again at 220.2 – my highest weight in some time.

First Day back from vac was a hit-the-ground running day, so I skipped the actual running to unpack.

Had my morning coffee – without cream. I think I can’t get away with the Atkins newbie fat-feasting I used to do, so I have to cut carbs and calories. 

It was Chinese New Year and I was offered dumplings before I ran out the door. It’s good luck to have dumplings on Chinese New Years, so it’s hard to turn one down. 

I grabbed one and put it in my mouth – then spit it out before I left the house, thus ruining my luck for the coming year and avoiding conflict over a dumpling.

I didn’t eat until after 1pm when I grabbed a hard-boiled egg. I had a case of the ‘traveler’s trots’ near the end of my vacation – noting too severe – but it did quash my appetite. And meeting after meeting. 

On the way home I remembered that I didn’t really eat all day and had an Atkins bar.

When I got home, I weighed myself – I was down to 215.6 – almost 5 lb difference from the morning. 

I think when you are a long-term low carber, you can really pack on the water weight – I was happy to see the loss, but it was no great surprise.

For dinner I had 4 or 5 store-bought spicy Italian sausages – were these the American Crap Food I described above? Maybe…I’m really rethinking my food choices.

I also sauteed some fresh Brussels Sprouts with some shallots in butter and olive oil with just salt and pepper. To me, the secret of this recipe is that you need to cook the sprouts until some are browned, or even burnt – it lends such a great flavor to them. 

Not crap food, most decidedly.

My younger daughter wanted to be held, so I held her in my right arm while cooking with my left – easier now that I’ve been working out.

That was a great dish…could have used a bit more butter as I only had a tablespoon left of the stuff.

I quaffed down glass after glass of the 4C drink mix – yet more American Crap Food. 

My wife came home with cake and ice cream – Chinese New Year, you know – have to have cake. 

I didn’t – and she didn’t push me – she saw me weigh myself that morning – and saw me struggle to stuff my blubber into a pair of pants.

Went to bed about 9:30 – tomorrow’s going to be a busy day at work and I want to get up early to exercise.

I arrived home from my vacation around 9pm last night, and am still unpacking – physically and mentally. I’ve recently been  wondering if we sometimes disappear into our habits. 

In other words: if we were to change our habits completely, would many of us just disappear?

Are we just the sum of out habits?

I say this because I am at this very moment living in this middle space between a world where all my habits changed, and the world of habits – the thousands of habits – that surround my ordinary life. 

I haven’t let them all creep in just yet – I’m waiting for 9am, at my desk in work, before I let them hit with full force. This might be unwise – we’ll see.

My wife anxiously checked her work email last night from home to check for any ‘crisis’. I asked her if it made her feel any better.

She didn’t quite answer, but I think the non-answer was ‘no’.

Sorry to those of you who left comments that didn’t appear until now. They should be up there.

Irvingia

It appears that the Irvingia posts have become an absolute mess. Anyone trying to glean some simple facts from this will get lost in at least 50 highly interesting digressions and probably come away more confused than anything else.

To this end, I think a survey is in order.

Your task, those of you interested in the Irvingia supplement, is to suggest 10 questions that I can put to the the people taking the stuff.

Please leave comments on this post as to what those questions should be.

I’ll try to select the best 10 and survey the group – maybe it will help us all make some sense of it all.

Here is the letter sent by the Life Extension Foundation to people who purchased their Irvingia, known as Integra-Lean:

Integra-Lean Letter from LEF.pdf

I do recommend that if you didn’t get the letter that you read the entire thing, but here’s a really short summary of what I took away from it after a quick read:

• William Falloon, the author of the original article in LEF, used the product on himself and got amazing results, in his estimation. This is why his article was so breathless in it’s praise.
• The product takes at least a month for the onset of action, so carping about it prior to that is unfair – folks should stay on it for the full 10 weeks.
• The product is NOT for people on low carb diets, since it works by altering carbohydrate metabolism. It’s described as working optimally for high-carbohydrate diets low in saturated fat.
• Anyone who is is not satisfied can get a full refund by calling 1-800-544-4440.

I, for one, am satisfied with this response.

I think the letter provides an honest explanation, provides necessary clarification, restates their belief in their product through personal testimony, and guarantees satisfaction by offering you your money back.

This is a ‘stand-up’ response to an honest mistake. I’m not going to act like a 6-year-old and respond: “But you promised!”

Gimme a break – a mistake was made, and they are making good on it, like an adult.

Now – the part about not working on low carb diets – that’s a problem for me. It’s not like I went on Atkins yesterday – I’ve been living low carb for over 5 years. I could reason that – hey, go on a higher-carb diet and lose the weight, but there’s a lot of behaviors surrounding a low carb diet that I’d have to change – and the fact is – I did high carb diets twice in my life and lost a lot of weight – then gained it all back in a year both times.

In September – 9 months from now, I will have maintained a 50-lb weight loss for over 5 years. The odds of this are approximately 1 in 5.

And while the last few months of blogging have been little more than a day-by-day exercise in frustration as I struggled to lose weight but didn’t, the fact remains that I am the EXACT same weight I was at this time last year.

I’d be a dope to walk away from those results without some deep consideration.

So here’s what I think I’m going to do:

• I am going to stop taking Irvingia. While there might be some chance it does work on me, I did go to the doctor and my blood pressure was 140/90 – that’s pretty high for me, but I didn’t think much of it until one poster commented that it drove his blood pressure up. It might not be connected, but since it might – combined with the slim chance of working on a low carber – has made me come to this decision.
• I’m going to return the product.
• I’m going to join Life Extension and try using their online advisor staff to help me with my weight loss goals for this year based on my low carb lifestyle. I know a little about customer service, and their response strikes me as about one of the best responses I’ve ever seen. I have a new and renewed respect for Life Extension, and I should perhaps give membership another try.
• If – even after the addition of exercise and other strategies to get my low carb weight loss working again, I still can’t get the weight off, I might consider altering my diet to a higher-carb level – maybe more Paleo – and trying the Irvinga again. I’d still have to ferret out if there’s a connection between the high blood pressure reading and the irvingia, but it is something I would consider. I don’t think carbs are evil – they just make me fat and hungry. If there was a way I could eat bananas and I didn’t get fat and hungry – and lost weight, I’d eat them.

So I’m still pretty interested in the field reports you folks out there are reporting. We’re getting to the interesting part as a lot of people are approaching the first month on the product.

Here – at the end of my experiment with it, I’m up about 6-7 lbs. That’s a little over a month. If it wasn’t for the blood pressure issue, I’d probably continue and see what happens.

Instead, I’m going to continue my integration of exercise – for the first time in maybe 25 years – into my lifestyle and see if that, in combo with low carb – and maybe some supplement adjustments with the help of LEF – can help me lose the weight I want to this year.

Good luck to all of you still on the product – and keep your reports coming in. If you aren’t low carbing, I have a renewed faith, based on the belief (backed with a money-back guarantee) that LEF has in their product, that the darn stuff might actually work.

Here’s his response, as well as an email response to him from Life Extension. He gave me permission to publish this in it’s entirety. – LCC

Hello LCC.  I have lost 7 pounds so far.  Not as much as I have hoped, but better than nothing.  I don’t have my doctor appt until January for the blood work, but I will let you know then.  In working with the Life Extension doctors, here is all the research I can muster up on Integra Lean.  I hope this can clear up many of the questions & concerns you have.  Thanks for checking in!

Unpublished Study – Abstract (this abstract can be sent but we can not release the full study until it is published). This is the study referencing the 28lbs in 10 weeks and we discussed the highlights of this study in the SuperSale 2008 magazine.

IMPORTANT POINT

This impressive clinical data was reviewed, evaluated, and validated by the scientific panel associated with the 5^th International Conference on Functional Foods for Chronic Diseases, and Dr. Oben was then granted approval for scientific conference presentation on October 17^th, 2008.

The scientific panel:

http://www.functionalfoodscenter.net/1486177.html

The conference program:

http://www.functionalfoodscenter.net/Conference_Program.html

Abstract

The use of Irvingia gabonensis extract (IGOB131) in the management of metabolic syndrome in Cameroon

Judith L Ngondi, Rosane Matsinkou and Julius E Oben*

Laboratory of Nutrition and Nutritional Biochemistry, Department of Biochemistry,

BP 812, Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon.

Aim: Metabolic syndrome, like many other obesity-related conditions, is on the rise in Cameroon and other parts of the world. The purpose of this study is to assess the possibility of IGOB131, an extract of the West African plant, Irvingia gabonensis, as a treatment for metabolic syndrome.

Methods: The study was a 10 week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design involving 102 healthy, overweight and obese participants (53% male, 47% female, ages 19–50; mean age = 34). The subjects were randomly divided into two equal groups—placebo and IGOB131 treatment, and all received one 150 mg capsule containing placebo or extract twice a day before meals. A total of 9 anthropomorphic and serological measurements were taken at baseline and at 4, 8, and 10 weeks.

Results: Compared to the placebo group, the IGOB131 group showed a statistically significant different on all 9 variables by week 10. These included the three anthropomorphic variables (body weight, body fat, waist size) and the 6 measures of serological levels (plasma total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, blood glucose, C-reactive protein, adiponectin, and leptin).

Conclusion: Serum leptin levels were lower in the IGOB131 group while their serum adiponectin level was higher. These results, combined with those on the other 7 variables, suggest that the Irvingia gabonensis extract, IGOB131, may be used to manage metabolic syndrome through control of obesity and lipid profile.

Published studies (Indexed on PubMed)

There are several published studies on Irvingia, a few of which have the full text article for free via PubMed. Ctrl + click to go right to the abstract on PubMed.

Inhibition of Irvingia gabonensis seed extract (OB131) on adipogenesis as mediated via down regulation of the PPARgamma and Leptin genes and up-regulation of the adiponectin gene.

Oben JE, Ngondi JL, Blum K.

Lipids Health Dis. 2008 Nov 13;7:44.

Note: Kenneth Blum is from the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA. This is especially important for customers who want to see US studies.

“RESULTS: The IGOB131 significantly inhibited adipogenesis in adipocytes. The effect appears to be mediated through the down-regulated expression of adipogenic transcription factors (PPAR gamma) [P less than 0.05] and adipocyte-specific proteins (leptin) [P less than 0.05], and by up-regulated expression of adiponectin [P less than 0.05]. CONCLUSION: IGOB131 may play an important multifaceted role in the control of adipogenesis and have further implications in in-vivo anti obesity effects by targeting the PPAR gamma gene, a known contributory factor to obesity in humans.”

The use of a Cissus quadrangularis/Irvingia gabonensis combination in the management of weight loss: a double-blind placebo-controlled study.

Oben JE, Ngondi JL, Momo CN, Agbor GA, Sobgui CS.

Lipids Health Dis. 2008 Mar 31;7:12.

The effect of Irvingia gabonensis seeds on body weight and blood lipids of obese subjects in Cameroon.

Ngondi JL, Oben JE, Minka SR.

Lipids Health Dis. 2005 May 25;4:12.

Note: this study used a crude extract so the dosage was higher than the most recent study which used a much more concentrated 2^nd generation extract that allowed for similar effects but at a significant lower dosage (since it is more potent).

Phytochemical and antimicrobial activities of the wild mango-Irvingia gabonensis extracts and fractions.

Fadare DA, Ajaiyeoba EO.

Afr J Med Med Sci. 2008 Jun;37(2):119-24.

Effect of aqueous leaf extract of Irvingia gabonensis on gastrointestinal tract in rodents.

Abdulrahman F, Inyang IS, Abbah J, Binda L, Amos S, Gamaniel K.

Indian J Exp Biol. 2004 Aug;42(8):787-91.

Antioxidant capacity of some herbs/spices from cameroon: a comparative study of two methods.

Agbor GA, Oben JE, Ngogang JY, Xinxing C, Vinson JA.

J Agric Food Chem. 2005 Aug 24;53(17):6819-24.

Note: “Irvingia gabonensis tops the FRAP free antioxidant list…”

Additional Published Studies

The following are additional published studies on Irvingia in peer reviewed journals – but these are not indexed on PubMed so they will not show up on a PubMed search. These two are preclinical studies on Irvingia.

African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2006, pp. 94-101

GLYCAEMIC VARIATIONS AFTER ADMINISTRATION OF IRVINGIA GABONENSIS SEEDS FRACTIONS IN NORMOGLYCEMIC RATS

Judith Laure Ngondi , Zephyrin Fossouo, Emile Joachim Djiotsa, Julius Oben

Department of Biochemistry, P.O. BOX 812, Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. Email: jlngondi@yahoo.com, Tel: +237 767 13 75, Fax:+237 220 83 56

Abstract (Full Text – http://www.bioline.org.br/request?tc06056)

The action of Irvingia gabonensis seed fractions in reducing or slowing down the intestinal absorption of glucose was evaluated in normoglycaemic rats. The  crude seeds (CS), the defatted seeds (DS) and the  protein fraction (PF) were administered at  dose of 400mg/ kg body weight  to normoglycemic rats submitted to oral glucose test (OGTT) with glucose (2g/kg body weight). The results obtained show a significant reduction of the postprandial glucose level after a glucose load of (2g/kg body weight) as well as fasting blood glucose levels with the three fractions.

Afr. J. Trad. CAM (2006) 3 (4): 74 – 77

GABONENSIS SEEDS ON STREPTOZOTOCIN DIABETIC RATS.

Judith Laure Ngondi , Emile Joachim Djiotsa, Zephyrin Fossouo, Julius Oben

Department of Biochemistry, P.O. BOX 812, Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon.

Abstract

The hypoglycaemic effect of the methanol extract of Irvingia gabonensis seeds (Irvingiaceae) was examined in streptozotocin-diabetic rats. A single oral administration of the methanol extract at doses of 150 and 250mg/kg significantly (P < 0.001) lowered the plasma glucose levels in diabetic rats two hours after treatment.

Journal of Food Technology 3 (4): 592-594, 2005 (Africa)

Effect of Irvingia gabonensis Kernel Oil on Blood and Liver Lipids on Lean and Overweight Rats

Ngondi Judith L, Mbouobda Hermann D, S. Etame and Oben Julius

Many studies suggest oils with a high medium chain saturated fatty acids content are responsible for the cholesterol-raising effect of saturated fat The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the Irvingia gabonensis kernel oil on plasma lipoproteins, blood glucose and liver lipids in rats. A feeding experiment was carried out in which rats were fed to a normal diet and the received a daily administration of oil 1 mL of Irvingia oil or desionised water water (controls). After 4 weeks, blood lipids, blood glucose liver and fecal lipids were mesured using standard methods. After 4 weeks the plasma HDL cholesterol (p<0.01) and triglyceride levels (0.01) were higher in Irvingia oil group. There was no difference in plasma cholesterol and LDL cholesterol level but LDL:HDL and total cholesterol:HDL ratios (p<0.01) were significantly lower after the administration of the Irvingia oil. The Blood glucose level (p<0.01) of animals receiving Irvingia oil was also lower compare to controls.The liver cholesterol (p<0.01) and triglyceride levels (P<0.002) were significantly higher in Irvingia oil group. Although the Irvingia oil has a myristic acid and lauric acid values of 39.2 and 51.1%, respectively, the hypocholesterolemic effect can be explain by high the Vitamin A, $- carotene and may be phytosterols levels.