Is The Suddenly Slim Diet Safe and Effective?

The hottest new weight loss plan of 2008 is the Suddenly Slim Diet, a program of meal-replacement drinks and herbal supplements that promises users will "lose 6 - 8 - 10 pounds or more!" in just 10 days.

Like many commercial weight loss products, Suddenly Slim offers a little bit of a number of things that really do help people lose weight:

Liquid meal replacement. Fluids reduce hunger. Dr. Barbara Rolls of Penn State University has participated in a staggering 167 studies that find that you'll be just as satisfied with fewer calories if your food has enough water content (within some reasonable limits, of course).

Green tea extract. A series of small-scale clinical trials mostly confirm that green tea enhances weight loss by speeding up the oxidation of fat.

Milk protein and soy protein. Both milk and soy sources of calcium enhance weight loss and shrink the waistline while protecting muscle mass.

Coffee and cola extracts, for caffeine. Green tea won't help you lose weight without caffeine.

Bitter orange extract, which is used to replace the now-banned ephedra. The most optimistic way to sum up the research literature is that bitter orange for weight loss is "iffy." A study at Pennington Biomedical Research Center found that 20 dieters using 20 mg of synephrine three times a day lost from 1 to 7 pounds over eight weeks, but the study was too small to produce statistically significant results.


The problem is, you don't know for sure you're getting enough of the weight-loss ingredients to do you any good. Manufacturers don't disclose the exact amounts of active ingredients so (1) other manufacturers can't accuse them of violating patents and (2) they won't have to constantly change the formula to keep up with their competition.

The amounts of these active ingredients that are demonstrated in the scientific literature are 300 mg a day for green tea extract and a question mark for bitter orange. It's possible and even likely that Suddenly Slim contains enough active ingredients to have a measurable effect--just don't expect 10 pounds in 10 days. A sustainable weight loss of 10 pounds in 10 weeks is still a stretch, but possible.

The amount of skim milk or soy milk that most clinical studies use to test weight loss runs about 3 cups (720 ml). In the Suddenly Slim plan, you'd provide your own milk and add the powder to it.

Now is the Suddenly Slim diet safe?

It's probably not a great idea for diabetics. A good amount of added fructose for most diabetics is zero.

It's also probably not a great idea for people with high blood pressure. Caffeine accelerates the pulse and has a minor elevating effect on blood pressure.

Assuming you aren't diabetic or hypertensive and you've cleared your diet with your doctor, however, you aren't likely to run into any serious health problems as a result of following the plan for 10 days. Moreover, the shakes are formulated so that you won't lose as much muscle as you might on other diets. The combination of carbohydrates and proteins consumed after workouts (if you do them) is important for helping your muscles repair themselves. You're still like to lose a little muscle mass along with the fat on the 10-day version of this diet.

For a 28-day plan, there's a significant problem, the same for non-diabetics as for diabetics. The shakes are sweetened with fructose. For most people this won't be a problem, but if you are trying to lose a really significant amount of weight, fructose is definitely something you want to avoid. Fructose encourages insulin resistance, which helps you put the pounds back on quicker should you fall back into unhealthy eating habits. Again, we don't know how much fructose is in the product, and the fact is, if you aren't diabetic, you need some carbohydrate for recovery every time you exercise.

You may also be interested in:

Have Scientists Discovered a Diabetic Fat-Burner?
R-Lipoic Acid and Acetyl-L-Carnitine as Fat Burners for Diabetes
Super-Citrimax: Does It Really Work?
Acupressure for Weight Control
Dieters: Can You Eat All the Foods You Love and Still Lose Weight?
How Teens with Type 2 Diabetes Can Lose Fat and Gain Muscle
Are Sugar-Free Candies and Deserts for Diabetics Really Sugar-Free (And What to Do When They Are Not)
What Doctors Don't Tell Diabetics About Fats and Carbs
Is There An Appetite-Suppression Oolong Tea Supplement?
Raw Hemp Powder as a Substitute for Whey
If You Are Diabetic, Fat Is Not Your Fault
Does Espresso Inhibit Weight Loss?
Mustard, Chili, and Weight Loss