What Is Green Coffee Bean Extract, Really? Does It Help You Lose Weight?

Truth be told, I am always a little skeptical of anything I see on Dr. Oz. It's not that Dr. Oz doesn't know what he's talking about. But by the time the show gets edited and a whole army of internet marketers start hawking products as "as recommended by Dr. Oz," I am just not inclined to listen.

But give me your product for free and I'll give it a try, provided it's basically safe — which, of course, I always make sure to check first. That's what in this case. The owner of the company that puts out a product called Nutraphysics Green Coffee Bean Extract with GCA (they're not an advertiser on this site, by the way, and they aren't paying me to write this article) sent me a bottle with the expectation that I'd probably write a favorable review on Amazon, where they sell it. I didn't, of course, because I hadn't even taken it, but I have now, and I know that it works.

Read More: Do Dr. Oz's Nine Favorite Home Remedies Really Work?

Well, I think it works. I have both increased my consumption of coffee from zero cups to one or two cups a day and taken their product, and I've lost 22 pounds. It could be the coffee, or it could be the product, or more likely it's both. But here's what I know about green coffee extract from the literature and my own recent experience.

What Is Green Coffee Bean Extract?

An extract is, in this case, essentially the residue left by grinding up the beans, mixing them with hot water, and letting the liquid evaporate. Most "natural" products are turned into extracts with some very unnatural methods, such as boiling them in hexane and hoping the toxic solvent evaporates (it sometimes doesn't) from the extract it is used to make.

But green coffee bean extract is basically brewed green coffee in a capsule. Manufacturers standardize the amount of chlorogenic acid in the product in a step that requires mixing the ground coffee with ethanol, the alcohol in alcoholic beverages, which is boiled off from the mix as it is dried so it can be encapsulated.

What's Special About Green Coffee Bean Extract?

It's notoriously hard to grow coffee plants from seed. Even under the most favorable conditions, it takes about two months to get a tiny coffee bush to sprout from a green coffee bean. (Roasted beans, of course, won't germinate; they're dead.) The green bean breaks down its tough coat with the help of an enzyme called proteinase.

Scientists have only known since 2012 that the proteinase in green coffee actually gets into your system when you drink (not recommended) coffee made with green coffee beans or take a supplement. And green coffee bean extract is also a source of a weight loss related compound called chlorogenic acid.

More Questions and Answers About Green Coffee Bean Extract

How does chlorogenic acid aid weight loss?

In human beings, the digestive process transforms complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. In a coffee bean, the growth process transforms simple sugars into complex carbohydrates. Chlorogenic acid (aka CGA) is one of the key compounds that makes this happen.

When you get chlorogenic acid into your own digestive process, it slows down the rate at which pancreatic enzymes can break down starches into glucose. That doesn't burn fat. It just slows down the release of sugar. This allows the pancreas to regulate blood sugar levels with the release of smaller amounts of insulin. And because insulin "turns off" fat burning and "turns on" fat storage, combined with caloric restriction, chlorogenic acid seems to help people lose weight.

Read More: The Good And Bad Of Coffee

Wait, "Seems to?"

In 2012, chemists at the University of Scranton in University tested green coffee bean extract with CGA (a commercial formulation used by the makers of the Nutraphysics product) on 16 volunteers. The results were pretty remarkable:

• 16 out of 16 volunteers lost weight,

• 16 out of 16 volunteers lost body fat,

• 12 out of 16 volunteers had a slower resting heart rate after taking the product,

• 5 out of 16 volunteers had lower diastolic blood pressure (the second number) after taking the product, and

• 3 out of 16 volunteers had lower systolic blood pressure (the first number) after taking the product.

That's what you want a weight loss product to help you do. That's what all the scammy weight loss products promise you — success without having to work for it. But it's premature to say as a matter of settled scientific fact that green coffee bean helps all people everywhere lose weight. It just seems to work extremely well. It seems to have worked just fine for me, too.

Again, "Seems to?"

I really don't know for sure and certain that it was taking this product that helped me lose 22 pounds. Correlation doesn't equal causation, after all, and that's something we'd all do well to remember. My housemate was constantly nagging me to eat to candy and cookies. I didn't always resist. The fact that I lost weight (and didn't have a new problem with blood sugar control) is a very strong indication that green coffee bean extract helped me lose weight without counting calories.

However, I have also been making the transition to a paleo diet (despite the candy and cookies) and I get lots of exercise. Just as I wouldn't generalize to the whole world from 16 participants in one clinical trial, I certainly wouldn't generalize to the whole world from myself. The product certainly seems to be worth a try, though. Even if it was first brought to the attention of the American public on the Dr. Oz show.

Incidentally, you can also get the weight loss effect by drinking coffee, because there's also chlorogenic acid in roasted coffee, just not as much. You would need to drink 10 cups of coffee a day to get the benefits of taking 1050 mg of green coffee bean extract. I love coffee, and I think it has other health benefits, but if you're just looking for something that helps you lose weight without making drastic changes in your diet, try green coffee bean extract.

The push from Dr. Oz seems to have had one particularly beneficial effect. I'm a formulator of natural products, and all of the green coffee bean extract products seem to be manufactured well. I had good results with the Nutraphysics brand. 

As an update, green coffee bean extract is now incorporated into numerous weight loss and preworkout products, and new research from 2020 even suggests that green coffee bean extract can reduce your total cholesterol levels and LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels. By now, green coffee bean extract has been shown to be effective for weight loss. However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't focus on a healthy diet and regular exercise, too, if you use it.