Weight loss pills helps support weight loss through a variety of methods, including appetite suppression and improved energy expenditure.
While most weight loss pills are generally considered safe, there have been some health concerns in the past – which is why it’s imperative to buy from a reputable and trusted brand.
With weight loss pills, it’s important to know:
- Weight loss pills should include scientifically proven ingredients to work on one of the 3 main weight loss pathways: energy expenditure, motivation, and appetite suppression.
- Weight loss pills should only contain a moderate amount of stimulants to avoid complications.
- Weight loss pills should only be used to supplement a healthy diet and exercise routine – not replace it.
Below, you’ll find BestHealth.org’s top weight loss pills, ranked and reviewed by our expert health team.
Our Winners
Best overall weight loss pill: Leanbean
Best weight loss pill for women: Leanbean
Best weight loss pill for men: PhenQ
Best natural weight loss pill: Leanbean
Rankings
1. Leanbean
Leanbean’s phenomenal weight loss pills are both simplistic and effective, containing no artificial ingredients or dangerous stimulants.
It took the top spot because it’s made with 100% natural ingredients that have been clinically validated to help you slim down, burn energy, and suppress your appetite – all at the same time.
2. PhenQ
PhenQ’s powerful ingredient formulation targets all 5 pathways of fat loss, and can provide certain ancillary benefits, such as mood enhancement and appetite suppression.
3. Phoenix Fat Burner By Legion Athletics
Legion makes plenty of weight loss and fitness supplements, and this particular fat burning pill does a great job of accelerating your metabolism to help melt fat.
It’s a great choice because it can reduce your hunger and includes caffeine in its formula for better energy throughout your workout.
4. Nobi Nutrition Premium Fat Burner for Women
Nobi Nutrition’s natural fat burning pills contain several key ingredients, specific to women, to help burn fat and improve workout performance.
5. Forge Pre-Workout Fat Burner By Legion Athletics
Forge can speed up your metabolism and weight loss, but without suppressing your appetite – allowing you to build muscle and burn fat at the same time.
6. Tevare Premium Water Pills
Tervare Premium Water Pills can help you balance your water and sodium levels – helping to enhance fat burning and limit water retention and bloating – a common issue in women.
7. Nutriana Keto Detox Weight Loss Pills
These scientifically-based detox pills can help your body flush away toxins, especially when you’re on a keto diet. This helps to reduce systemic inflammation and promote healthy weight loss.
8. Nature’s Craft Apple Cider Vinegar Pills
Nature’s Craft ACV pills help suppress your appetite and support digestion. With only natural ingredients, it’s one of the purest weight loss options on the market.
9. Nutriflair ACV Keto+ Pills
Nutriflair’s weight loss pills are made with premium natural ingredients that can also help you induce ketosis: a great benefit if you’re considering a keto diet.
10. Mav Nutrition Night Time Fat Burner
Mav Nutrition’s weight loss pills are specially formulated to boost your metabolism and increase your caloric burn rate while at rest.
Best Weight Loss Pill for Women
1. LeanBean
Leanbean is the best weight loss pill for women since it features specific ingredients that are designed for women’s metabolisms.
It take stop spot as the best weight loss pill for women for providing a clean and effective formula, without the use of dangerous stimulants.
Best Weight Loss Pill for Men
1. PhenQ
PhenQ helps men shed unwanted pounds in the quickest and most efficient way possible, targeting the 5 different pathways of weight loss.
It take stop spot as the best weight loss pill for men for including high doses of clinically backed ingredients to support male specific fat loss.
Best Natural Weight Loss Pill
1. Leanbean
Leanbean is made with 100% natural ingredients, and combines powerful fat burning with several essential vitamins and minerals to help you remain in peak health as you slim down.
It takes the top spot as the best natural weight loss pill for including only natural ingredients, with no synthetic stimulants or fillers.
Who Should Take Weight Loss Pills?
Weight loss pills should only be taken by people looking to lose weight. A doctor may only recommend weight loss pills in certain situations, namely when your BMI, or body mass index is over 30 or if your BMI is over 27 and you have an additional serious medical problem that’s directly related to your obesity.
Weight loss pills cannot magically make you lose weight by themselves. Instead, they are better understood as supplements to be used in conjunction with dieting and exercise. They can help you lose weight by unstacking a deck against you, like offsetting genetic or thyroid factors.
Additionally, weight loss pills perform better if you actually need to lose a significant amount of weight. If you’re only a little heavier than you’d like, dieting or exercise is the way to go.
Special populations such as diabetics, pregnant women, nursing women, and children should not use weight loss pills. People who are sensitive to stimulants should be careful about using them, as many of them contain a high dose of caffeine.
Methodology
Energy boosting ingredients: One of the best ways to burn off extra body fat is to increase the number of calories burned. This can be done through exercise, but also through certain ingredients. Stimulants, such as caffeine, are common in many fat burners for this reason.
Other stimulants such as synephrine and yohimbine work along similar pathways, helping to increase adrenaline in the body to mobilize adipose cells. Products that combined these, like Phoenix, ranked highly on our list.
Appetite suppressants: Another way to help burn fat is by decreasing the amount of energy you consume in the form of food. This is where high-quality appetite suppressants come in. Appetite suppressants help improve satiety by enhancing certain neurochemicals in the brain.
Specifically, we looked for products that supported serotonin production, like 5-HTP; the main reason why Leanbean ranked so highly on our list.
Mood enhancers: One of the most difficult aspects of weight loss is maintaining a good outlook over the long haul. This is because not only does it take some time to lose weight, but it also requires a lot of will power. To make matters worse, the constant deprivation from pleasurable food also nags on your mood every day.
Weight loss pills that included potent mood enhancers were ranked well since they helped to combat this issue.
Clean formula: In the past, there have been issues with weight loss pills containing illegal and dangerous ingredients – such as ephedrine, which is from the same family as crystal meth. Not only is this extremely dangerous in the short term, but it can cause addiction and dependence, leading to a whole host of issues down the road.
We decided only to include products on our list that used clinically backed ingredients that were formulated in GMP and FDA certified facilities. Bonus points were given to companies who made sure to have 3rd party lab testing done.
Benefits
Weight loss pills can help inhibit certain fat producing enzymes. Garcinia cambogia, which was only recently discovered, inhibits an enzyme in the body and can sometimes increase levels of serotonin throughout the body. This can perform a dual purpose of reducing cravings and preventing an individual from gaining fat as effectively as before.
A 2002 review of several studies and biological evidence found that Garcinia Cambogia was effective at reducing weight gain in both humans and rats. Furthermore, there was some evidence to suggest that toxicity levels were low or non-threatening in most cases (1).
Weight loss pills can increase your metabolic rate and help with energy. Caffeine is a compound that can inhibit certain brain receptors that signal fatigue, while also boosting metabolism. This has a compounding effect by helping your body to burn through fat and other fuel stores more quickly while also giving you the energy to complete a workout.
Several studies have found that single doses of caffeine can increase resting metabolic rates in lean and obese humans for two hours or more. It can also improve the effects of thermogenesis induced by dieting in post-obese subjects (2).
Another study in 2005 found that high caffeine intake was positively associated with weight loss, specifically through thermogenesis and fat oxidation. In other words, it helped women lose weight even if they didn’t change their lifestyles. The researchers still noted the importance of diet and exercise but suggested caffeine as a significant supplement to help individuals on their way to health (3).
Weight loss pills can help reduce systemic inflammation. Systemic inflammation is often a result of a continuous bombardment of food and chemicals that upset the natural homeostasis of your body. Unfortunately, the Western world contains a lot of inflammatory foods and chemicals.
To make matters worse, excess fat also induces total systemic inflammation. By helping to eliminate fat cells in the body, weight loss pills can help reduce systemic inflammation, bringing the body back to natural homeostasis.
Weight loss pills can block fat absorption. Orlistat is a known anti-obesity agent that promotes weight loss rather than burning fat. It does this by suppressing appetite and changing hormone levels throughout the body. It can also block the absorption of fat, helping you essentially poop it out faster.
A 2004 review of studies involving double-blind and randomized controlled trials of obese adults found that Orlistat was very effective at promoting weight loss. However, the researchers did note that this interpretation was limited thanks to the high attrition rate that available studies have suffered so far (4).
Another potential benefit of Orlistat is that it may lower blood pressure slightly. This is not necessarily a direct cause for weight gain, nor is it indicative of weight loss. But high blood pressure is often positively associated with obese individuals, so any additional positive side effect is welcome. A meta-analysis investigating the effects on blood pressure from Orlistat and other anti-obesity drugs found that there was a measurable effect in studies from 1990 to February 2009 (5).
Weight loss pills can help enhance ketone levels. Ketones are naturally produced by the body when it enters a state of ketosis, which causes the body to burn fat instead of carbohydrates for fuel. This is the entire point of the keto diet, so consuming these can potentially boost your weight loss efforts.
Several studies involving rats and other real-life measurements from humans in a ketosis state support the supposition that ketones are viable compounds to induce the body into a fat-burning state. Ketones cannot be taken constantly, nor can they be taken in great amounts. But when supported by a keto diet, they can be very effective (6).
Weight loss pills can help improve satiety. Glucomannan is a popular weight loss pill ingredient that absorbs water and becomes a gel-like substance. Much like bread expanding, glucomannan can make you feel fuller than you actually are, which can reduce your appetite and help you stick to a diet more resolutely.
Some studies have suggested that glucomannan, when combined with a healthy diet, can help you lose between 8 and 10 pounds in about a month. This is true for most other fiber supplements, but glucomannan is uniquely suited for consuming with a weight loss pill (7).
Furthermore, glucomannan has been linked to positive bacteria growth in the intestine. As a fiber, it’s one of the natural food sources for bacteria that produce healthy gut biomes and can reduce cravings for unhealthy food (8).
Glucomannan has been linked to several other healthy side effects like low blood sugar, blood cholesterol, and triglycerides. In effect, it can help negate several of the other negative health effects that obese people already suffer when trying to lose weight (9).
Another popular weight loss pill ingredient called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA may have positive effects when it comes to losing weight. This ingredient has been known to reduce the appetite and boost the metabolism of those subjects who take it, along with stimulating the body’s breaking down of fat. It provides three separate possible benefits, making it one of the most versatile weight loss pill ingredients on the market.
A 2009 review of available literature found that CLA was responsible for anti-obesity effects in both humans and animals. The efficacy of the compound heavily depended on the species, the dosage used, and the age of the subject. This suggests that CLA may be more effective for some people than others (10).
Weight loss pills, without stimulants, may improve sleep. Weight loss pills contain a variety of benefits that can help improve sleep. One of the main benefits is improving the feeling of fullness. This helps with sleep because it helps the body release relaxation hormones, and switch into a parasympathetic state.
Weight loss pills may also help with sleep apnea, which is a major sleep thief. Sleep apnea stops airflow during sleep, causing the individual to temporarily suffocate. According to research, sleep apnea can be reduced and even eliminated with just some mild weight loss – a key reason why weight loss pills can help inadvertently improve sleep (11).
Weight loss pills can decrease fat cell replication. A newer weight loss pill ingredient called Meratrim may have positive effects when it comes to losing weight by making it more difficult for fat cells to multiply or spread through the body. Though the exact effects aren’t fully known, Meratrim may make it easier for the body to burn stored fat and prevent the body from storing new fat as effectively as before.
A 2012 study of 100 obese people had them placed on a 2000 calorie diet. Participants were either given a dummy pill and a pill with Meratrim, depending on their group. The Meratrim group had significantly better weight loss results after eight weeks, in addition to ancillary health benefits like lower blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol (12).
Weight loss pills may be an effective treatment for binge eating disorder. Binge eating disorder affects millions of people and is a large culprit behind mental health issues surrounding weight loss. While it can’t be cured, from a clinical standpoint, it can be effectively managed with the right tools. One study showed that topiramate reduced binge-eating episodes compared to a placebo (13).
Weight loss pills can increase fat-burning hormones, such as norepinephrine (14). Green tea extract is well-tolerated in most people and can provide a small dose of caffeine.
A 2008 study, involving 60 people, was undertaken to investigate the effects of green tea on weight reduction. At the end of 8 and 12-week marking points, those who were given green tea extract via green tea reported significantly better weight loss results, better energy, and several other ancillary health benefits (15).
Weight loss pills can improve your cardiovascular health. Weight gain has detrimental effects on cardiovascular health, causing high triglycerides, abnormal blood pressure, and general cardiovascular strain on the body. Thankfully, only a small amount of weight loss (5-10%) is necessary to start to see a reduction in these negative health issues (16).
One study even showed that some weight loss pills could help reduce bad cholesterol levels, improving the HDL to LDL ratio (17).
Weight loss pills can improve serotonin levels. Certain ingredients found in some weight loss pills help stimulate the area of the brain that helps to reduce hunger, also known as the hypothalamus. By stimulating the release of certain neurochemicals, weight loss pills can help reduce cravings and appetite. In the long run, this often helps people consume less food and calories, resulting in weight loss.
In one 56 week study, regarding the prescription medication Contrave, participants lost up to 4x more weight than with just exercise or diet (18).
Another study showed that certain prescription weight loss pills can help flip on the fullness switch in the brain, while still eating less food (19).
Weight loss pills may be able to improve bowel movements and digestive health. Many weight loss pills contain soluble fiber as an active appetite suppressant. Besides this benefit, fiber acts as a prebiotic – helping to fuel the growth of healthy bacteria in your gut (20). This helps your body push out inflammatory toxins while improving the absorption of minerals and vitamins. Another study showed that prebiotics could help decrease obesity in overweight children (21).
Prebiotics can help treat chronic digestive disorders and inflammatory bowel disease. This is because the soluble fiber helps stabilize the gut and reduce inflation, which in turn helps minimize the digestive issues (22).
Prebiotics can also help with diarrhea by creating more bulk in the stool and absorbing excess water (23). When combined with probiotics, it can help cure antibiotic-induced diarrhea (24).
Recap
Weight loss pills can help people stick with their diets and see better weight loss results over time. They mainly help by increasing satiety, burning more energy, keeping energy levels high, and improving sleep and recovery.
When taken at the correct dosage, they tend to have minimal side effects. If you are sensitive to stimulants, you should be aware of how many stimulants are included in the weight loss pill you choose to consume – as this will help to avoid any unpleasant side effects.
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