WEIGHT LOSS PILL TYPE: An essential fatty acid that acts as a metabolic stimulator. It has a crucial function in the production of hormone like substances called prostaglandins, which carry out a variety of important functions in the body.
SOLD AS: GLA is found”in evening primrose oil, borage oil, and black currant oil, all of which are available in capsules or softgels. Evening primrose oil is the most common of the three oils. When choosing evening primrose oil based products, product that has 35 to 40 mg GLA per 500-mg capsule.
BACKGROUND/RESEARCH: A number of scientific studies propose that GLA encourages weight loss in people who have not lost weight even after subsequent suitable reduced-calorie plans. But in a 12-week, double-blind research of seventy-four obese women, experts discovered that those women who took evening primrose oil did not lose considerably more weight than the women who were given a placebo.
WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO DO There is a type of fat called brown fat.which is important in the conversion of food into energy. There is a hypothesis that when people take in extreme amounts of food, an immediate conversion of brown fat happens so as to stabilize an overproduction of white fat, helping to make up the greater part of fat on your body. Some specialists think that this conversion process is jeopardized in some people and contributes to obesity. Thus, they suggest that supplementing with GLA will help promote brown-fat activity, therefore raising fat metabolism.
According to Dr. Elson M. Haas, author of Staying Healthy with Nutrition, in principle GLA improves cell metabolism and assists in maintaining the water and electrolyte balance in the body.
HOW TO TAKE IT: Experts say the advisable daily doses of GLA can be carried out if you take either of the following 2 to 3 times per day: 500 to 1,000 mg of borage oil or evening primrose oil, or 100 to 200 mg of black currant oil.
SIDE EFFECTS: No side effects have been reported when GLA is used as directed.
PRECAUTIONS: No precautions have been allotted to GLA.