Acute effect on satiety, resting energy expenditure, respiratory quotient, glucagon-like peptide-1, free fatty acids, and glycerol following consumption of a combination of bioactive food ingredients in overweight subjects.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Glucagon, published as a randomized controlled trial.

A combination of bioactive food ingredients (capsaicinoids, epigallocatechin gallate, piperin, and l-carnitine, CBFI) may promote satiety and thermogenesis.

The study was conducted in order to assess whether there is any effect on satiety, resting energy expenditure (REE), respiratory quotient, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), free fatty acids (FFA) and glycerol release, following a standardized mixed meal with or without single consumption of a CBFI.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 14 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Thirty-seven overweight adults (body mass index [BMI]: 25-35).

Nineteen overweight subjects were included in the supplemented group (14 women, 5 men; age 46.4 ± 6.4; BMI: 30.5 ± 3.3) and 18 in the placebo group (13 women, 5 men; age 40.8 ± 11.5; BMI: 30.1 ± 2.6).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Glucagon and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the women nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Glucagon, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Glucagon could be set against what happens without it.

An 8-week randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

Dietetic and Metabolic Unit, Azienda di Servizi alla Persona, University of Pavia and "Villa delle Querce" Clinical Rehabilitation Institute, Rome, Italy.

Satiety was assessed using 100-mm visual analogue scales (VAS) and the area under the curve was calculated.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alkaloids, Area Under Curve, Basal Metabolism, Benzodioxoles, Capsaicin, Carnitine and Catechin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Glucagon in 14 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2013 (Journal of the American College of Nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Glucagon compound page, all human trials.