Acai Berry – The Quick Weight Loss Scam

 Will Acai Berry help you lose weight quick?

Simple answer…No.

Every weight loss or health website I go to I see acai berry everywhere. Because of all this mass marketing going on, people are believing that it has some special power or something. It’s really making me sick to see all of these spammers trying to sell you the next greatest thing.

So what do we know about it?

Answer: Not much

Yes, I know it was on Oprah so it must be legit then…or is it?

Now normally I just ignore all the hyped up marketing campaigns for the new in thing but I have been asked so many times about the health benefits of acai berry and if it is legit. I decided to do a little research to see what I could find out about it.

Here are a few excerpts from the scientific literature.

“This study demonstrated that açai offers a rich source of bioactive polyphenolics and confirmed the importance of investigating whole food systems when evaluating the potential health benefits of individual phytochemical compounds.”

J. Agric. Food Chem., 2006, 54 (4), pp 1222–1229

“The fruit of Euterpe oleraceae, commonly known as acai, has been demonstrated to exhibit significantly high antioxidant capacity in vitro, especially for superoxide and peroxyl scavenging, and, therefore, may have possible health benefits.”

J. Agric. Food Chem., 2006, 54 (22), pp 8604–8610

“The ac¸ai berry is the fruit of the acai palm and is traditionally consumed in Brazil but has gained popularity abroad as a food and functional ingredient, yet little information exists on its health effect in humans.”

J. Agric. Food Chem., 2008, 56 (17), pp 7796–7802

At first glance you might think hey this is some great stuff. It’s been on Oprah and Rachel Ray and it even has scientific articles.

Do the health benefits of acai berry have potential…absolutely.

Problem is the hype doesn’t equal the research. I only found 4 articles when doing a search of scientific journals. The bottom line is there is very little research out there to support all the claims.

Bottom line is there is very little. It may have some really good antioxidant benefits but its not going to be some miracle weight loss cure. I couldn’t even find a research article on weight loss for it.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the head researcher Dr. Talcott.

“A lot of claims are being made, but most of them haven’t been tested scientifically,” Talcott said. “We are just beginning to understand the complexity of the acai berry and its health-promoting effects.”

Let me ask you this; do you want to lose weight quick?

Well there are no quick weight loss potions out there. If you want to burn fat, lose weight quick, and look good, you have to work at it.

You can lose weight quickly if you do it right.

Are you going to lose 10 pounds in 3 days?

No, but you can lose a couple of pounds a week and you can really start improving the way you look in a couple of weeks. Your body cannot burn that much fat in that short of time. All that you are losing is water and maybe muscle.

So what do you do?

Well, you can start by reading through the articles on this site.

If you follow the tips here, you will lose weight.