Decaslim Slimming Pill Review: Another Weight Loss & Acne Miracle?
The Decaslim story is getting a bit old. You know the one—some unnamed individual innocently “discovers” 10 “super foods”, eats them for a month, experiences near miraculous results (weight loss, increased energy, the reduction of lines, wrinkles and acne, etc) and then in the ultimate magnanimous gesture, formulates the Decaslim product so you too can enjoy the “miracle.”
Uh-huh.
Amazing how Leptovox, Lipovox and the Orovo fat burner were discovered in almost exactly the same manner. Coincidence? Great minds thinking alike? Or the same company creating four almost-exactly-the-same products? Because how many “everyday” people have the financial means and ability to bring a nutritional supplement to market and promote it effectively?
Also worth mentioning is the total anonymity—in the cases of all the products mentioned here—of the ingenious inventor. Heck, if I inadvertently stumbled upon a miracle of the magnitude of Decaslim, you can bet I’d want the whole world to know what I’d accomplished. Think of the opportunities it would offer!
I also find it curious that even though this mysterious inventor obviously went to the pains of conducting an experiment that required him (or her?) to eat these “superfoods” for a month, s/he never thought to document any of the “amazing” results with before and after pictures, blood work and cholesterol profiles from his/her doctor—anything at all that would validate ANY of the claims made about this product.
It seems to be an incredible oversight from an otherwise meticulous individual. All we have for “proof” is his (or her) assertion that friends and family were “shocked and amazed!”
Uh-huh.
But what about the formula?
What about these 10 superfoods? Don’t they offer any value?
Sure they do.
And so do potent doses of many of the ingredients found in Decaslim.
But this product is a different story altogether—it contains insignificant amounts of the core ingredients. To demonstrate this, let’s look at…
CLA from safflower oil. If you read the sales page, you’ll read all about wondrous fat burning powers of CLA, and how its fat burning characteristics have been validated by clinical studies.
Guess what?
It’s true. CLA has been shown to be helpful for weight loss. And yes, there are real, peer-reviewed clinical studies that confirm this (click here for the full CLA review, which includes links to these studies).
Here’s the thing though; these studies were performed with multi-gram doses of CLA. In fact, the optimal dose of CLA seems to be slightly over 3,000 mg daily. Decaslim’s twice-daily serving only provides 1500 mg… and it contains 9 other ingredients.
In other words, if Decaslim contained nothing but CLA, it would take over two day’s worth of pills to provide you with the dosage of CLA shown to be helpful in the clinical studies.
How much CLA are you actually getting? Since this is a proprietary blend, it’s hard to tell. It could be as much as a tenth of the critical 3,000 mg amount. Or it could be a lot less. It’s impossible to tell. Either way, you are not getting anywhere near enough.
Green tea is also hyped on the DecaSlim sales page. I’m of the opinion it is probably included at a decent dosage (again, it’s impossible to tell with a “proprietary blend”) simply because it is standardized for caffeine (this is what will provide you with “energy” in this formula).
Since the key to successful product sales is creating a product people can “feel”, it makes sense to include plenty of caffeine so your audience receives a bit of a boost from your product. This means Decaslim will probably contain between 200-400mg of green tea per serving (delivering 100-200mg of caffeine—anything less, and the average coffee drinker will not notice the effect).
Again, with a 750 mg ingredient dose per capsule, this basically renders almost everything else as “label dressing”. In other words, it looks good on the label, but it is present in the formula at a dose too low to elicit any response.
Green tea also has value as a fat burner, but it is the blend of polypenols, catechins and caffeine that are largely responsible for those benefits. This formula’s green tea does not appear to be standardized for these critical elements.
As such, it’s likely the fat burning benefits of green tea in this formula are largely attributable to it’s caffeine content only (caffeine is a well known and proven thermogenic—see Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Jan;49(1):44-50, Am J Clin Nutr. 1980 May;33(5):989-97).
At the end of the day, what are you left with?
Complete absence of credible clinical evidence to validate any of the miraculous product claims made by this retailer. The regurgitation of the “bystander-discovers-miracle-food” fable. Green tea standardized for caffeine, plus 9 other ingredients included in dosages much too tiny to elicit any effect.
Bottom line?
Decaslim is not “valueless.” But it is certainly not “good value.” Buying some high quality green tea and popping a couple of 200 mg caffeine tablets would provide you greater benefit at a fraction of the price.
