The global obesity epidemic has received so much press in recent years, the statistics are now all-too familiar. Worldwide, 400 million adults are obese, while another 1.6 billion are overweight (WHO, 2006). Americans are notoriously large, with one third of the population officially obese and another third overweight (CDC, 2009). Even countries long associated with thinness are seeing the waistlines of their citizenry expand. Over the last ten years, for example, the percentage of overweight Chinese women has doubled, while the percentage of overweight Chinese men has nearly quadrupled (Penn, 2007).
At its core, weight loss is a simple proposition: energy expended, in the form of calories burned, must surpass energy ingested, in the form of food. However, as any dieter can attest, reversing a positive energy balance is easier said than done, especially since metabolic rate slows as calorie intake declines. Additionally, new research is showing that exercise alone does little to promote weight loss, since it increases appetite and therefore causes a subsequent increase in calorie consumption (Cloud, 2009). Clearly, a new strategy for weight management is needed, and numerous studies suggest it could lie in a food that has been a dietary staple for hundreds of years: capsicum, or red hot peppers.
For decades, scientists have known about the weight-management and sports nutrition potential of red hot peppers, also known as capsicum. Capsaicinoids are a group of compounds which cause the “heat” found in hot peppers. In fact, over the past 30 years, studies including animal and human subjects prove the enormous potential of red hot capsicum and capsaicinoids as as a safe, effective ingredient to support weight management and sports nutrition.
Benefits of Capsicum and Capsaicinoids in animal and human studies have shown that it:helps manage appetite*, supports healthy metabolism to burn calories*, helps induce thermogenesis* i.e. an increase in energy expenditure in the body*
Benefits of Capsicum
New Developments in Capsicum Technology |
