Let’s face it, trying to lose weight is no picnic, but instead a battle of epic proportions.
To win that battle, you need as many helpers in your corner as possible. And while these helpers include diet and exercise, they’re not always enough to get you to the other side the winner.
Luckily, scientists have identified one more helper in the weight loss battle — an anti-obesity antioxidant that actually blocks fat accumulation and can keep even a high-fat, high-calorie diet from packing pounds onto your body.
PQQ: an antioxidant powerhouse
The antioxidant is known as pyrroloquinoline quinone, or PQQ for short.
It’s one that’s been found to lower heart failure risk and help rescue a fatty liver.
It’s also known as a “longevity” nutrient due to its ability to improve the function of the body’s cellular powerhouses — mitochondria.
And that effect on the mitochondria is just one of the ways scientists say PQQ can help you slim down.
Winning the battle of the bulge
The scientists pitted PQQ against a high-fat or high-calorie diet in a mouse model.
And their findings might have you looking for a bottle of the antioxidant before you’re even finished reading.
They found that PQQ:
- Significantly attenuated (reduced) both the total body fat and visceral fat volume in the abdominal region of the mice.
- Blocked body fat accumulation under both high-fat and high-calorie consumption conditions.
- Suppressed lipogenesis (the process by which fat forms) in adipocytes, the body’s fat cells.
- Promoted mitochondrial biogenesis (in other words stimulated the body to produce more mitochondria).
So what does that all mean?
PQQ actually kept fat from being formed (even during consumption of what amounts to a fast food diet).
It stopped pounds from being packed on around the middle and kept visceral fat low. That’s the kind of fat that is stored in your abdominal cavity, wraps around your organs and raises your risk of serious disease.
And it resulted in new mitochondria that could then produce the energy to rev up the metabolism and deliver the energy the body needs to exercise.
Talk about stacking up the weight loss benefits!
Boosting your PQQ
I don’t know about you, but my immediate thought was “Give me some PQQ.”
So where can you get the antioxidant?
Well, PQQ is found in a number of fruits and veggies, such:
- Spinach
- Celery
- Green peppers
- Papaya
- Kiwi
And if you like liver, it’s also a good source of the antioxidant.
However, the truth is that PQQ is one of those nutrients that can be a challenge to get enough of through diet alone.
That’s why I mentioned supplements earlier.
It’s the way I plan to take my PQQ, starting with a daily dose of 5 mg to 20 mg.
So enjoy winning the battle of the bulge with PQQ on your side.
Sources:
Pyrroloquinoline Quinone Attenuates Fat Accumulation in Obese Mice Fed with a High-Fat Diet, Daphnia magna Supplied with a High Amount of Food, and 3T3-L1 Adipocytes – ACS Publications