How Does an Appetite Suppressant Work?

Authored by: Eric Venn-Watson, MD

Summary:

• Appetite suppressants are short-term options that work to essentially stop your brain from telling you you’re hungry. 
• Better alternatives to prescription appetite suppressants include working toward a healthy diet and exercise regimen that includes metabolism-healthy nutrients like C15:0, which can also decrease snacking between meals.
• C15:0 is available in some foods, but most of these foods also contain much higher levels of unhealthy fats. A healthier option is a daily C15:0 supplement designed to support your health for the long-run.

Most of us have goals of shedding a few pounds or even making some serious lifestyle changes in order to get healthier and feel better. It goes without saying: losing weight is a challenge. If there’s a way to make it a little easier, we’re all for it. 

What makes losing weight so darn difficult? For most of us, it’s twofold: 

1. Finding time and energy in our day to devote to getting in some exercise; and
2. Eating healthier food in smaller portions.

While there may not be an “easy out” for exercise, appetite suppressants may offer a shortcut for taking in less calories. If you aren’t as hungry, you’ll eat less food. If you eat less food, you’ll lose weight, right? 

Let’s take a look at appetite suppressants, how they work and if they’re effective and safe. 

What is an Appetite Suppressant?

Appetite suppressants are capable of reducing or eliminating your appetite for a period of time. Some natural substances can have an appetite suppressing effect. For instance, there’s been research on the appetite suppressing effects your morning coffee may have on your body. 

Taking a pill to curb your hunger and help you eat less sounds like just the thing to help you lose a few pounds. It also sounds a little too good to be true. The problem with most appetite suppressants is usually their ineffectiveness to help work long term. Let’s look at how they work.

How Does an Appetite Suppressant Work?

Appetite suppressants work by affecting the part of your brain that controls hunger. 

Depending on the compound, there are essentially three ways that appetite suppressants control and decrease your appetite:

• Fiber. Some appetite suppressants use fiber as a means of making you feel full. Fiber makes you feel full by filling your stomach and signaling your brain that you are full. 
• Blocking hunger signals. Another type of appetite suppressant works by blocking your brain’s “hunger pang” signal. When your brain detects low energy stores, it signals your hypothalamus to tell you you’re hungry. Appetite suppressants that block hunger signals interact with your hypothalamus and prevent it from signaling hunger. 
• Serotonin interaction. Some appetite suppressants can increase your serotonin levels, which may make you feel more satisfied and full. 

How does this equate to weight loss? We lose weight by burning more calories than we eat. This is referred to as a caloric deficit. 

You enter into a caloric deficit by:

• Burning off more calories than you consume 
• Consuming less calories than you burn
• A combination of consuming less and burning off calories

Appetite suppressants decrease and/or eliminate the brain stimulus that tells you you’re hungry, which should make you take in less calories, giving you a caloric deficit. However, if you’re an emotional eater (someone who eats to soothe feelings of stress or anxiety), an appetite suppressant may not be effective in helping you lose weight.

Most appetite suppressants work within an hour of taking them, in terms of curbing your hunger. If you’re wondering how long it will be before you see results when you step on the scale, you should know it can take up to 12 weeks before you’ve lost a significant amount of body fat.

If you’re in search of a natural way to decrease your appetite between meals, you’ve got options. In addition to the classic more exercise and healthier diet routine, there are supplements you can consider that can help you maintain a healthy weight.     

Most of us can admit we should eat more vegetables, reduce our intake of sweets, limit salt, and get a bit more physical exercise. Unfortunately, our jammed schedules make fast food and skipping the gym much easier options. 

If you’re really striving to do better in terms of improving your overall health, C15:0, a healthy odd-chain saturated fatty acid that a growing body of evidence supports as an essential fatty acid, may help you feel satisfied while promoting your heart health and improving your quality of sleep.* 

What is C15:0?

C15:0 (pronounced see-fifteen) is an odd-chain saturated fatty acid found in trace levels in some types of fish and whole fat dairy products. 

Saturated fat to help you lose weight? Isn’t saturated fat bad for us? 

Well, not all of it.

We already know we need certain essential fatty acids like omega-3 and omega-6 to maintain our health and keep our bodies functioning properly. Now, mounting research suggests that C15:0 is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in 90 years, and the best part -- it may help you maintain a healthy weight long-term.


How Does C15:0 Help You Maintain Healthy Weight?

So just how does a fatty acid help with weight loss? It’s science. C15:0 dives deep into your cells to give them what they need to function properly. When your cells function properly, your body, including its nutrient sensing and energy metabolism capabilities, functions properly. 

C15:0 also interacts with certain receptors in our hippocampus, the area of our brain that controls our hunger, anxiousness, and stress response. C15:0 binds with receptors in the hippocampus that help us respond to stress in a healthier way, which may prevent us from turning to food for stress relief.

Additionally, C15:0 helps promote a healthy metabolism. When your metabolism functions properly, your body burns calories more efficiently, which can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy body fat level when paired with a healthy diet and exercise.

In a case-control study involving 372 women, higher serum C15:0 concentrations were associated with lower adiposity. In our study evaluating a model of obesity, C15:0-supplemented animals gained less weight while on a high-fat diet compared to non-supplemented controls.

Not a bad resume for a simple, dietary fat. 

~

Weight loss can be challenging, but you have options. In addition to making lifestyle changes that help you get more physical exercise, and dietary changes that help you eat more of what you should and less of what you shouldn’t, C15:0 can help support a healthy metabolism.

C15:0 can help support your weight loss goals in a natural, gentle way that is beneficial to your overall health, gentle on your body, and backed by science. It’s a new year, and you’ve got goals and options. You can do it, and C15:0 can help. 


Sources:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-7155-7_7

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/weight-management/prescription-medications-treat-overweight-obesity

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28446037/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2710609/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8363202/