The African Mango Scam: What You REALLY Need To Know!

Posted By Paul on Dec 2, 2012 | 1 comment

How can African Mango (also called Irvingia gabonesis) be a scam?

After all, even Dr. Oz went on and on about African Mango on his TV show, back in September 2010.

That’s true.

And while African Mango isn’t exactly a scam, there are some things you should know about it—things the retailers of African Mango related weight loss products won’t tell you—to prevent you from being scammed.

Let’s get started…

The African Mango Clinical Studies

Everyone and their dog is talking up the fact that African Mango’s weight loss effects are validated by clinical studies (have a look for yourself; Lipids Health Dis. 2005 May 25;4:12, Lipids Health Dis. 2009 Mar 2;8:7, Lipids Health Dis. 2008 Nov 13;7:44).

But what no one is mentioning is that the lead author in all three of these studies, Julius Oben, has a patent on African Mango / Irvingia gabonesis.

What does that mean?

The person who conducted the study has a LOT to gain financially from a positive outcome.

That’s called a financial conflict of interest.

Given what we know about human nature, it also means we have to view the study results with skepticism, until we receive independent confirmation of the results. To date, there isn’t any.

Dr. Oz dropped the ball on this one.

African Mango: How It Works

African Mango works as a fiber supplement. Fiber supplements fill you up without adding calories, and help you feel full for longer.

Soluble fiber also provides additional benefits, like lowering your blood lipids, blood sugar levels and cholesterol levels.

What’s important about this?

All sources of soluble fiber work essentially in the SAME manner.

The question to ask then, is not, “does African Mango offer benefits for weight loss?”, but “does African Mango offer weight loss benefits superior to more readily available and much cheaper fiber supplements?”

Why would you spend an outrageous amount of money for an effective dose of African Mango, when $10 worth of glucomannan will do the same thing?

And I do mean outrageous.

If you read the study extracts referenced above, you will notice study participants took three 350 mg capsules of African Mango before each meal (for a total of 3.15 grams every day).

One product I found at iHerb.com, Life Extension’s Integra-Lean Irvingia contains sixty 150 mg capsules and costs just over $25 (incidentally, this same product costs over $50 at GNC).

To replicate the dose used in the positive studies (and since all the retailers are trumpeting these results, you would have to, if you expect to see similar results), you would need to take exactly 7 capsules prior to each of your 3 main meals.

That means a single bottle will last you 3 days.

And if 3 days worth of product costs $25, than a month’s worth will set you back a whopping $250!

Is it worth it to spend $250 for a month’s worth of African mango, when you can experiment with a fiber supplement with demonstrated weight loss effects, like glucomannan—at the appropriate dosage—for $10?

African Mango: What’s In The Bottle?

Most of the retailers selling African mango online via flashy sales pages and unsubstantiated hype do not reveal the potency of their products.

In other words, they don’t tell you how much ingredient is included in each capsule.

However, as you just saw, Irvingia products are very expensive indeed, so…

If a retailer does not reveal the potency of their product, you can bet your bottom dollar it is not because it contains an effective dose.

It’s because they don’t want you to know what it will really cost to take the product at the dose found useful in the questionable clinical studies.

So what’s the bottom line here? Is African Mango really a scam? Consider…

• Clinical study results must be viewed with skepticism, given the financial conflict of interest, and the fact that they have not been independently verified.
• Taken at the appropriate dose, products are extremely expensive and show no definite benefit over other, less expensive and exotic forms of fiber.
• Most “sold on the Internet” products do not reveal the dose they contain.

So no, African Mango isn’t really a scam when you know the truth. But there are definitely people out there who are trying to scam you into buying some on false pretences. Because whatever it is, it’s not a miracle!

And now you know the truth!