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Forskolin: Magic bullet or fat-loss flop?

In recent months there's been renewed interest in the dietary supplement forskolin - an extract from the roots of the Coleus forskohlii plant - following a study showing that the herbal extract helped a group of men lose almost 10 pounds of fat while gaining over 8 pounds of muscle over a 12-week period.

A perennial herb with fleshy fibrous roots, Coleus forskohlii is a member of the mint family of plants. It grows in the wild in warm temperate areas such as India, Burma, and Thailand.

Although Coleus forskohlii has been used for several hundred years as a pickle or food spice in Indian diets, research into the medicinal value of extracted forskolin began in the 1980's. It was used primarily to help a number of conditions linked with cardiovascular disease.

The popularity of forskolin for fat loss comes from its effect on a process called lipolysis (pronounced lie-pol-a-sis).

What does this mean?

If you could take a slice of fat from your body and look at it under a microscope, you'd see lots of tiny fat cells. Your body has billions of these fat cells. They expand to many times their original size in order to store fat. They also shrink when they release stored fat.

Fat is stored inside these fat cells as triglycerides. A triglyceride contains three fatty acids. That's where the tri- in triglyceride comes from. To lose fat, these triglycerides must be broken down - a process known as lipolysis.

In short, lipolysis describes the process of stored fat being broken down and prepared for use by the body. The fat is then transported to the working muscle, where it's used to provide energy.

One of the ways caffeine stimulates lipolysis, for example, is by increasing the release of a family of "fight-or flight" hormones called catecholamines (pronounced cat-a-coal-a-meens) [6]. The major catecholamines are dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine (also known as adrenalin).

Forskolin, on the other hand, appears to do the same thing without affecting catecholamine levels [6].

As a cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) stimulator, forskolin increases production of the active form of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL). HSL is directly involved in the mobilization of triglyceride stores that release free fatty acids to be used for fuel within the body.

Forskolin is said to have a number of benefits over other compounds designed to aid fat loss.

Firstly, because it doesn't interact with adrenergic receptors, forskolin won't raise blood pressure. Also, because forskolin is a postreceptor agent, its effects should not diminish over time. Because of this, forskolin can be used for long periods of time with no reduction in effectiveness.

That's the theory, anyway. How well does it work in practice?

There are several studies that have examined the effects of forskolin on body composition, primarily in...

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