By Jordin Rubin
People's reaction to the phrase "Fat Burners" elicits almost always the same reaction: they roll their eyes. After
all, there are hundreds of products that tout their ability to burn
fat or raise your metabolism. The vast majority of them don’t work
or are extremely dangerous. Maybe you have had that experience
yourself? I have researched all of
the ingredients used in these products, and frankly I found that
they didn’t meet my standards or the standards of the doctors and
scientists that I collaborate with. While the market for weight
management products blew up, I was happy to not be a part of it.
I felt that most of the products were unsafe (and indeed products
containing ephedra proved to be deadly) or ineffective.
The Russian Doctor
Dr. Zakir Ramazanov was a good friend of mine. More than
anything we shared a passion for finding whole food ingredients
that promoted vibrant health. Dr. Ramazanov was a classically
trained biochemist and plant physiologist who graduated from
university in Russia at the top of his class. After a stint in the
Russian army, he served as the Head Engineer at the Institute
of Solar Energy of the Soviet Union. It was there that he began
experimenting with solar bioreactors and how they affected the
cultivation of certain marine vegetables and algae, including
spirulina and chlorella. As his career advanced and eventually
took him to the United States, Dr. Ramazanov continued
to develop cultivation methods that allowed for the human
consumption of sea vegetables
more commonly known as seaweed.
Why seaweed? Why not look at beets, or cherries or apples?
Dr. Ramazanov focused on seaweed based upon epidemiological
data from some of the longest lived and healthiest cultures on
the planet. Scientists have found compelling data that links the
consumption of seaweed to the long-term health of many Asian
cultures, most notably the Japanese.
It is amazing to me how often we ignore data like this. Instead
of following the health secrets of the longest lived people in the
world, we opt for convenience foods such as greasy fries and
mocha lattes and then wonder why we are getting fatter and
sicker. We even feel hopeless as to why. The answers are right in
front of us! Dr. Ramazanov understood that key components of the Asian diet, namely seaweed, contributed
to their extraordinary health.
He was determined to bring this message to the
world.
Eventually, Dr. Ramazanov would move
to the Canary Islands where he would serve
as the Director of Science for the Institute
of Technology and Marine Sciences. It
was there that Dr. Ramazanov would learn
about fucoxanthin, the main ingredient in
FücoTHIN, and its ability to burn fat.†
Fucoxanthin Discovered
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that fat
burners are in such high demand. 66% of all
American adults are overweight. Total health
care costs associated with being overweight are
over $90 billion a year. 59% of Americans do
not exercise at all. Only 9% of Americans eat
the recommended 5 – 9 servings of fruits and
vegetables a day. In 1970, the average person
consumed only 2 calories a day from high
fructose corn syrup. In 2005, that number
was 200 calories a day.
We don’t exercise enough. We overeat.
We eat more of the foods that are horribly
unhealthy, and we are getting fatter because
of it.
As a result, we have seen the proliferation
of unsafe and unhealthy products designed
to aid weight management and burn fat.
Unscrupulous companies tout the benefits
of their “magic pills” that supposedly help you shed pounds without even trying. As I
mentioned before, most of these products
are completely ineffective. Worse still, many
of them contain chemicals that have very
dangerous side affects and can even cause
death. What is needed is a completely
natural product that is clinically proven
to work.
That is where FücoTHIN comes in.
Fucoxanthin, contained in FücoTHIN, is a
compound that is found in several different
types of seaweed. Fucoxanthin is a carotenoid
(like lutein and lycopene), which is a powerful
antioxidant that protects cells from free-radical
damage.† It is the pigment that gives brown
seaweed its characteristic color and also
participates in photosynthesis (the conversion of light into energy). While all of that makes
fucoxanthin interesting, when fucoxanthin was
studied in the laboratory, it revealed a quality
that makes it unique.
Fucoxanthin contained in
FücoTHIN actually burns fat.†
But it gets even better. Most fat-burning
products work by creating a thermogenic
effect in the body. This is almost always
done by stimulating the central nervous
system. Creating a thermogenic effect is
good. Thermogenesis is the process by
which the body generates heat (energy) by
increasing the metabolism above normal.
While thermogenesis is good, creating this
effect by boosting the central nervous system
can be incredibly dangerous, even deadly.
Fucoxanthin is unique because it creates a
thermogenic effect WITHOUT STIMULATING
THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.†
Fucoxanthin actually boosts your metabolism,
specifically metabolizing fat in the white
adipose tissue†, like the kind found around
the belly, without giving you the jitters or
causing you to lose sleep (or worse). Instead
of the shotgun (and dangerous) approach
of boosting your metabolism by stimulating
the central nervous system fucoxanthin
specifically works on the deeper fat within the
abdominal region.†
While the discovery of the fat-burning
potential of fucoxanthin was ground-breaking,
there was still one rather huge problem. In
order to get the right amount of fucoxanthin to
effectively burn fat, you would need to eat an
outrageous amount of brown seaweed.
Weighty Issues
Dr. Ramazanov’s dedication to finding a way to make fucoxanthin available to everybody is
nothing short of inspirational. He was so excited
about the implications of the laboratory studies
that he would spend the next seven years figuring
out how to solve the problem at hand.
As mentioned before the problem was two-fold,
the first problem was one of access. Very few of us
have tons of edible seaweed in our backyard, and
while I like a seaweed salad as much as anyone,
who wants to eat one at every meal?
The first step in finding a way to cultivate and
extract fucoxanthin from edible seaweed was
to choose the right seaweed. Dr. Ramazanov
experimented with hundreds of different seed
stock before finally settling on two specific
strains, Undaria (Wakame) and Laminaria
(Kombu). Once selected, he moved on to
the next issue.
The reality is that to extract enough
fucoxanthin from the seaweed, you would
need to grow miles and miles of seaweed just to have enough to answer the demand
created by this unique product. Thankfully,
Dr. Ramazanov’s work with photo-bioreactors
provided the answer. By controlling the
amount of sunlight and using large cultivation
tanks filled with pristine deep sea water, he
was able to perfect a process that greatly
concentrated (200 – 500 times) the
amount of fucoxanthin from the seaweed.
Finally, Dr. Ramazanov created a proprietary
process used to extract the fucoxanthin and
make it available for human consumption.
FücoTHIN had arrived.
There is a sad note to the story.
Dr. Ramazanov died before he could see
fucoxanthin made available for mass
consumption. Fucoxanthin is his legacy,
and I am here to carry that on.
One More Step
For most manufacturers the story
would wrap up soon thereafter. After all there
are laboratory studies that prove the method by
which fucoxanthin works. Why not make the
product available and start seeing returns on
the 7 year time investment?
For me, the answer comes from our
competition. The trail of weight management
products is littered with broken promises. If I
was going to put Garden of Life and my name
behind a fat burner, I needed more than just
studies done in a lab. I needed human clinical
trials.
This is, of course, a gigantic risk.
After seven years of development, what if
you take the product to clinical trials and
it doesn’t prove effective? What if the lab
results aren’t mirrored in humans? All the
time and money spent on development
would be wasted. This is the reason so
many of our competitors don’t perform the
human clinical trials. They are afraid of the
results.
At the end of the day though, you only
have your name. People need to trust
that name. If FücoTHIN failed in human
clinical studies, so be it. We decided to put
FücoTHIN to the test.
But of course you know by now that
it didn’t fail. In fact, it succeeded far
beyond our expectations.
The Skinny on FücoTHIN
In two separate double-blind placebo
controlled clinical trials, a total of 150
overweight female subjects were put on
FücoTHIN, the Garden of Life product that
contains the concentrated fucoxanthin,
developed by Dr. Ramazanov. Participants
were put on an 1800 calorie diet and
monitored over 16 weeks.
The results? In the first trial, the group
that used FücoTHIN lost an average of 14.5
pounds. The placebo group lost an average of
3 pounds. Simply put, the FücoTHIN group
lost 450% more weight than the group that
DID NOT use FücoTHIN!
In the second clinical trial study
participants who used FücoTHIN experienced
an average metabolic rate of 18.2% higher
than with diet alone and without stimulating
the central nervous system or negative side
effects.
In short, there was a 450% increase in weight loss, an 18.2% increase in metabolic
rate - all without losing sleep, or getting
the jitters.
BETTER HEALTH NEWS - PAGE: ONE
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