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.
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.