Green Coffee Helps You Lose Weight: is That True?

Everyone knows coffee as a drink. However, green coffee has been in vogue for some time and has a reputation for helping you lose weight. What is it and how meaningful are the studies?

Green coffee – what is it exactly?

Green coffee is nothing more than unripe and unroasted, i.e. raw coffee.

• In contrast to the usual ripe and roasted coffee, the green bean tastes sour.
• Green coffee is not suitable as a hot drink because of its taste. Therefore, the extract is usually offered.
• Green coffee is commercially available either as an addition to snacks or beverages or as an infusion powder similar to tea. However, the most common dosage form is in capsules as a dietary supplement.

Study on the effect of green coffee capsules – not serious

A study by the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, USA, and the MVJ Medical College and Research Hospital in Bangalore, India, concluded that taking a concentrated extract of green coffee – more precisely the ingredient chlorogenic acid – reduces body weight and body fat percentage.

• Eight overweight women and eight overweight men received varying doses of chlorogenic acid for 22 weeks and a placebo for some time.
• Both body weight and body fat percentage were reduced when taking the substance. This was offset by weight gain during the period of placebo administration.
• However, with only 16 participants, the study is not considered representative. In addition, it has now been revoked due to data manipulation.
• Other short-term studies come to a similar result, but these are also not considered reliable because the results differ greatly.
• A representative long-term study on the effect of green coffee on weight is not yet available.
• A study in mice even concluded that taking chlorogenic acid in conjunction with a high-fat diet can be harmful: some animals developed symptoms suggestive of diabetes and fatty liver.

Green coffee – what does it do?

So far, green coffee has not been proven to have a positive effect on weight loss. However, the green bean is said to have other positive effects.

• The ingredient chlorogenic acid reduces the absorption of glucose from the intestine into the blood, thus lowering the blood sugar level. Reason enough for naturopaths to believe that drinking green coffee after meals can prevent diabetes.
• Animal and cell studies are said to suggest that green coffee protects the genome. In addition, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease should be reduced.
• However, the results of studies are sometimes contradictory. In addition, there are no long-term studies on this either.