Understanding The Ingredients in most Thermogenics - BodybuildingForYou

fadi · #1 (**permalink**) 04-01-2004, 04:35 PM

This is a copy of Progue's post on another forum where he copied it from another forum from BabsieGirl.

OK, the easiest thing to do here is to describe what each ingredient does. This will make the best combination obvious.

Norephedrine – Isomer of ephedrine. It is a mirror copy of the ephedrine molecule and occurs naturally in all ephedra-based products. It is less effective than ephedrine as a sympathomimetic.

Norephedrine is no longer made and is banned for sale in the US. Any source selling norephedrine at this time should be highly suspect

MaHuang – This is another name for ephedra. It is the whole herb containing many ephedra alkoloids including ephedrine, norephedrine (phenyproponalanine), psuedoephedrine, etc.

Synephrine – This is a molecule similar to yohimbine in it mechanism of action. It will increase sympathetic activity but it does so more as an alpha-2 antagonist rather than a beta-2 agonist.

Correction by Dante

quote:
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Synephrine is an A1 agonist A1 agonism increases leptin sensitivity, and can enhance beta adrenergic thermogensis.
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Caffeine – Caffeine is a methyxanthine. It acts as a phosphodiesterase inhibitor and as an adenosine inhibitor. All by itself it will increase norepinephrine as well as epinephrine levels and thus sympathetic activity and lipolysis. It also has potent effects on the sodium/potassium pump and intracellular calcium ion kinetics, making it a very useful ergogentic aid.

Yohimbine – Yohimbe acts as a specific alpha-2 adrenergic antagonist. As such, it prevents the "presynaptic" negative feeback signal from noradrenaline on the nerve terminal that releases it. There is some question as to its "post synaptic" effects on fat cells. This might explain its lackluster performance as a lower body fat reducer.

Green Tea – Green tea contains caffeine and other xanthines similar to caffeine. Because of this it elicits may of the same effects as caffeine. Green tea is also unique in that it contains many tea catechins that have been shown to posses anti-cancer properties.

Guggulsterones – Contrary to popular belief, guggulsterones do not increase thyroid gland activity. Research has shown that gugguls act as antioxidants, able to inhibit lipid peroxidation in the liver. This antiperoxidaitive property helps to maintain the cell memebranes in the liver. Membrane integrity directly effects the conversion of T4 to T3. So, gugguls increase T3 levels by optimizing the conversion of inactive T4 into the active T3 in the liver.

Phosphates – Phosphates have been shown to prevent the reduction in thyroid levels with caloric restriction. It isn’t clear how phosphates accomplish this.

Forskohlii – Forshohlii inceases intracellular cAMP levels. Increased cAMP levels are necessary for an increase in lipolysis. Forskohlii is used in laboratory setting as an "in-vitro" agent. It has not been used in-vivo (i.e. with live animals or people). No body can really say whether it is an effective fat loss agent when taken orally until it can be shown to work in controlled experiments.

Tyrosine – Tyrosine is an amino acid. It is a substrate for the production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine. Some research exists showing supplemental tyrosine may increase the effectiveness of sympathomimetics such as ephedrine hydrochloride.

Quercetin – Quercitin is a flavonoid with little or no effect on lipolysis. It is recommended however if you are at risk of breast cancer.

Naringin – Naringin, found in grapefruit juice, acts by selective post-translational down regulation of cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) expression in the intestinal wall. Several components of grapefruit juice, including naringin, naringenin, limonin and obacunone, also showed inhibitory effects in human microsomes. Hydrophobic components other than flavonoids, probably coumarin derivatives, are responsible for the effects of grapefruit juice on drug metabolism.

D-pinitol – D-pinitol is an insulin agonist. It would have no discernable effect on fat loss.

Colosolic Acid (Banaba) – Corosolic acid, like d-pinitol, is an insulin agonist and should have no discernable effect on fat loss.

Lipoic acid – Lipoic acid is an antioxidant. In high doses it has been shown to enhance insulin sensitivity. This would have no discernable effects on fat loss in normal individuals.

Obviously ALA has some very positive nutrient partioning effects, but does not directly influence on lipolysis

It should be clear from the above information that ephedrine (ephedrine HCl) combined with caffeine in a ratio of 1:10 respectively, would be the best thermogenic combination. In fact, there is ample research demonstrating the effectiveness of this combination for both short term and long term weight loss. The addition of insulin sensitizers as "thermogenics" is simply an industry trend started by individuals with a reduced understanding of human physiology and nutritional science.

One final note, any products containing norephedrine are now off the shelves or soon will be so enquiring about them is almost a mute point. Keep in mind that because norephedrine and ephedrine occur naturally together in all ephedra based herbal products you can’t remove one without removing the other. It could very well be that ephedra is on its way out…