Reduslim Mercadona: does it really work?

Is Reduslim Mercadona a really useful aid to lose weight and maintain your figure?

Achieving optimal health is essential in an increasingly sedentary and affluent society. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), obesity has tripled in the world since 1975. More than 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight, 625 million of whom are obese.

Along with these data, the complications associated with obesity are also on the rise. Heart failure is the leading cause of death in adults in high-income countries, and this clinical condition is promoted by overweight and obesity in up to 60% of cases. There is a clear correlation between elevated Body Mass Index (BMI) and cardiovascular disease (CVD), accelerated cellular aging, various types of cancer (gastric and colorectal, among others), depression, diabetes and other clinical entities.

The general population is increasingly aware of the dangers of obesity and sustained overweight, so more solutions are now being sought to address this condition. However, up to 80% of people fail to follow a typical diet. Dietary supplements come to try to help in the process of weight loss, and Reduslim Mercadona is one of the most talked-about in the parapharmaceutical field. Here we put it to the test.

What are dietary supplements?

First of all, it is essential to delimit what a dietary supplement is in general, beyond the brand of the product and the area in which it is distributed. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) defines a dietary supplement as a compound that is intended to supplement (redundantly) the individual's diet for a specific purpose..

Typically, these supplements contain one or more of the following ingredients: vitamins, minerals, typical elements of herbal medicine, amino acids, metabolites or ingredients and extracts resulting from the combination of these elements. Due to their primarily "herbal" nature, it should be noted that these compounds are not considered medicines, but are categorized in the dietary supplement category.

This distinction, although it may not seem so, is extremely important. Since they are categorized as foods and not as drugs or pharmaceuticals, the definition of their usefulness and efficacy is limited solely to the seller of the product. In other words, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can withdraw a harmful supplement from the market, but does not have to check whether or not it is entirely useful for the purpose for which it was designed.

For this reason, a supplement does not have to go through the whole process of analysis and laboratory tests to be offered for sale in a drugstore or supermarket.. In these cases, the only thing to rely on (or not) are the opinions of nutritionists or the supposed properties that the product's sellers defend. As you can imagine at this point, it is always necessary to see these supplements from a skeptical point of view, since no one assures you that their usefulness is real. Be careful and do not be fooled.

What is Reduslim Mercadona? Does it work?

On this occasion, we have before us the product Reduslim, which is mainly on sale in the large commercial chain Mercadona. According to the product's official website, this compound in the form of oral tablets blocks the absorption of fast carbohydrates, gives a feeling of satiety, burns stored fat and improves digestion by speeding up metabolism.

They also argue that "scientists have shown that Reduslim is effective in 99% of cases". Let's put this claim to the test by dissecting each of the essential compounds contained in the tablets: L-carnitine, glucomannan tuber extract, Garcinia cambodian fruit extract and Gymnema wild leaf extract. As we have not found any such studies demonstrating the efficacy of Reduslim, we have to turn to external scientific sources.

1. L-Carnitine

The clinical study Effects of l-carnitine supplementation on weight loss and body composition, published in the journal Clinical Nutrition in 2020, attempts to explore the effects of L-carnitine on weight loss, after analyzing 37 different randomly selected studies.

It appears that, L-carnitine supplementation appears to modestly reduce weight loss (1.21 kg) in obese people who are dieting with professional help.. In any case, an optimal value of 2,000 milligrams of daily intake is established to observe significant effects, a value that cannot be verified if the manufacturer of the tablets does not publish the exact percentages of each compound.

2. Glucomannan tuber extract

Glucomannan is a high molecular weight polysaccharide found in the cell walls of some plants, which is why it is considered a type of dietary fiber.. It is often used as a food additive for its emulsifying and thickening properties, but in recent years it has also become fashionable as a dietary supplement.

The sources that market it argue that, when mixed with water, this type of fiber could take up space in the stomach, which would help to increase satiety in the patient who is trying to decrease his caloric intake. So far, the scientific community has not been able to confirm such properties, so this ingredient has not been associated with weight loss, at least in the laboratory setting.

3. Garcinia cambodiana extract

The shrub referred to in the table of contents of Reduslim is not really called that. In reality, we are talking about Garcinia gummi-guttagarcinia, a vegetable that grows in southern India and is found in the Clusiaceae family. Since 2012, this garcinia fruit concentrate has undergone a media boom, as it is argued that it presents miraculous abilities to reduce weight in patients.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only have the effects of garcinia on dieters not been confirmed, but studies such as "The Use of Garcinia Extract (Hydroxycitric Acid) as a Weight Loss Supplement" show that patients who consume this compound are twice as likely to present gastrointestinal symptoms during the process. Because of these studies (and the hepatotoxic potential of the compound), the withdrawal of this extract from the market has been repeatedly requested..

4. Wild Gymnema leaf extract

Again, the designation of this compound is not quite right. We assume that the official Reduslim website refers to Gymnema sylvestre, a climbing plant native to Asia, China and the Arabian Peninsula.

In this case, the prospectus is a little more encouraging. Studies such as "Effects of a natural extract of (-)-hydroxycitric acid (HCA-SX) and a combination of HCA-SX plus niacin-bound chromium and Gymnema sylvestre extract on weight loss" have shown that some patients with obesity lost up to 6% more weight by consuming supplements of this plant.. The sample number is very low (60 patients monitored), but the results are not bad.

It seems that the chemical compounds of this plant adhere to the receptors of the intestinal walls, helping to reduce the absorption of simple sugars at the gastrointestinal level. This could potentially promote insulin secretion into the bloodstream and reduce Blood sugars, although more research is needed to confirm these properties.

Summary

If there is one thing we are taught in schools that teach scientific disciplines, it is to be wary of words and pay more attention to numbers. Any biologist, nutritionist or health professional should take a skeptical point of view when talking about dietary supplements because, as we have said, their sale is not regulated at the governmental level, except in exceptional cases where the compound is dangerous.

We cannot assure you that Reduslim Mercadona is a scam, but certainly its effectiveness has not been proven either (or the studies that prove it are not available to the public). It may or may not help with body mass reduction, but clearly the unbiased studies do not seem to indicate that their efficacy is miraculous..

At this point and after the above data, the choice is up to the consumer. If you need more evidence to make a decision, check the bibliography, as we cite the studies consulted and many others.