Fat burners are very tempting dietary supplements, which is why new products are constantly appearing on the market. The choice is huge, so naturally, we look for hints in the form of fat burners rankings. What ingredients for weight loss really work? Check out the most powerful natural fat burners.
Effective fat burners - ranking of substances with proven slimming effects
Fat burners are among some of the most demanded dietary supplements. After all, as the name suggests, they promise to burn fat after swallowing a pill. Who doesn't dream of such miracle solutions? Exactly... The more miraculous the solution, the more careful and sceptical you have to be while looking for a good product. Every online shop with dietary supplements has its own ranking of fat burners. They differ depending on what a given shop has to offer. It is known that you do not advertise your competitors.
However, we know that you are looking for reliable information on which fat burners can effectively help you in the fight against weight excess. Therefore, we have prepared a ranking of not ready-made products, but a list of natural fat burners, substances that show thermogenic effects and promote weight loss. We will also give you the effective doses suggested by scientific research. Which fat burners really work?
Recommended products to support fat burning
Berberine
Berberine has very high potential as a fat burner as it apparently inhibits the processes of adipogenesis, lipogenesis, fat cell differentiation and lipolysis acceleration. Research studies use from 900 to 1,500 mg of berberine daily for at least 12 weeks. Meta-analyses show a positive effect of berberine on many factors associated with faster weight loss, and the average decrease in fat mass up to 3.5%.
Curcumin
As a fat burner, curcumin works in several fields - it inhibits one of the processes of adipogenesis, it is an inhibitor of the enzyme JAK, which plays a key role in the formation of obesity, and reduces the secretion of cortisol, which promotes overweight. Curcumin appears to have a long-term effect. Supplementation has shown promising results when taken at doses above 1,500 mg per day for 6 to 9 months, and during this time can result in an average weight loss of 3%.
Caffeine
Caffeine has a short-term thermogenic effect. The basal metabolism (the amount of calories consumed by the body for vital processes, without any movement) increases by 3-4% for about 150 minutes after caffeine intake in a dose from 150 to 500 mg. This effect may be related to an increase in fat and carbohydrate oxidation. Caffeine is the best-studied fat burner. Its effect is not spectacular, but it is confirmed.
Green tea extract
Taking green tea extracts has a positive impact on weight loss with continuous, long-term use of more than 12 weeks. Green tea catechins are much more effective fat burners among people who do not consume caffeine. It seems that their reciprocal effects cancel each other or caffeine acts stronger than catechins. A meta-analysis of 11 studies found that consumption of green tea extracts at a dose of about 100 to about 600 mg per day results in an additional 1.31 kg of weight loss over 12 weeks. Green tea extracts have the potential to accelerate fat metabolism at rest and during exercise
African mango seed extract
African mango seed extract is a potentially effective fat burner. A 2020 meta-analysis revealed that taking the extract in doses ranging from 300 to 1,050 mg daily resulted in an average weight loss of 8.71% compared to a control group for 4 to 10 weeks of supplementation. However, the authors stress that higher-quality studies are needed to conclusively confirm the benefits of African mango seed extract as a fat burner.
Conjugated linoleic acid CLA
The effect of linoleic acid as a fat burner has been confirmed on animals. Studies on humans seem to be less promising, but an effect in changing body composition is still achieved. During long-term supplementation (6 to 12 months) with CLA fatty acids at a dose of 3.2 g daily, an additional weight loss of 0.05 kg per week is obtained.
How to choose the best fat burner?
It is not easy to choose the best fat burner. There are plenty of them on the market, or rather, there are plenty of products that promise to burn fat. However, after looking into the ingredients and the quality of the ingredients, you can easily find out that it will only end in empty words. While looking for the strongest and safest fat burners, you should not be guided by rankings from online shops (and certainly not by TV commercials), but by the content of standardised extracts and their concentration in a single dose. How to buy the best fat burner?
- Check the ingredient list forsubstances that have been scientifically proven to help burn fat.
- Compare the concentration of these substances in the fat burner with effective concentrations in scientific studies.
- Combinations of different substances in high concentrations may be more effective than single-ingredient preparations (they may or may not be; products sold as fat burners are not medicines, so there are no clinical trials to directly assess their effectiveness; when analysing the effectiveness of fat burners, we rely on the demonstrated effectiveness of their ingredients).
- Check whether the fat burner contains standardised plant extracts or isolated chemical compounds, e.g. curcumin instead of powdered turmeric rhizome, green tea polyphenols rather than powdered green tea. Powdered plants contain very small amounts of active ingredients.
- Pay attention to how many tablets there are per dose of the product. More than 3? You probably won't take them all.
- It is important not to overdose on caffeinewhen taking fat burners. A safe dose is considered to be 400-500 mg of caffeine per day. Fat burners very often contain it, so you need to limit your coffee intake.
Do not buy fat burners of unknown origin, suspect and not officially approved for sale in the European Union. They can contain anything, very often not what is declared in the list of ingredients on the box. Such tablets can be very harmful to health, addictive and even deadly.
Reliable fat burner ranking
On the internet, you can find as many rankings of fat burners as you can imagine. Should we follow such rankings? In my subjective opinion, no. The vast majority of fat burner rankings cannot be taken into account because their purpose is purely marketing - selling the product. Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule. If the fat burner ranking is prepared by an independent body that does not make any profit from sales or carefully analyses the composition of the products and their potential, instead of repeating phrases about how this product will stimulate burning in the "best and fastest" way, support effortless weight loss or make you stop having sweets because it contains chromium.
Are there reliable rankings of fat burners? Yes, rarely, but they exist. Is it worth suggesting scientific data and your own head while choosing the most powerful fat burners? Absolutely yes. Remember, there is no weight loss without effort, change of diet and a dose of exercise. No fat burner, even the best one, will slim you down just by taking pills. It will support the slimming process, but it will not work like a magic wand.
Data based on:
- Fat burners: nutrition supplements that increase fat metabolism, Obesity Reviews, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00908.x
- The Effects of Irvingia gabonensis Seed Extract Supplementation on Anthropometric and Cardiovascular Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Journal of The American College of Nutrition, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07315724.2019.1691956
- The Effect of Curcumin Supplementation on Anthropometric Measures among Overweight or Obese Adults, Nutrients, https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/2/680