I'll admit that I have never heard of this specific product before you mentioned it Nat, but at further poking around their site, the active ingedients of Pentabosol are:

carnitine, hydroxycitrate (HCA), chromium, aspartic acid, and biotin

CARNITINE (specifically, Actyl-L-Carnitine) has been shown to be useful in burining circulating free fatty acids. This was shown in rat studies ...

Author(s):Ruggiero FM Cafagna F Gadaleta MN Quagliariello E

Journal:Biochem-Biophys-Res-Commun. 1990 Jul 31; 170(2): 621-6 1990 0006-291X

Fatty acid patterns in the plasma of aged rats show remarkable alterations when compared with control rats. These changes reverted to normal after three hours of acetyl-L-carnitine treatment.

No significant differences in the erythrocyte lipid pattern of young and aged rats were observed.

This study provides the first proof that acetyl-L-carnitine probably acts by lowering free and esterified cholesterol and arachidonic acid (20:4) levels in the plasma.


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HCA (Hydroxycitric Acid) has been taking a beating in the supplement world. It came out with big promises, but not many people see results from it.

Author(s):Heymsfield SB Allison DB Vasselli JR Pietrobelli A Greenfield D Nunez C

Journal:JAMA. 1998 Nov 11; 280(18): 1596-600 1998 0098-7484

Overweight men and women subjects (mean body mass index [weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters], approximately 32 kg/m2).

A total of 135 subjects were randomized to either active hydroxycitric acid (n = 66) or placebo (n = 69); 42 (64%) in the active hydroxycitric acid group and 42 (61%) in the placebo group completed 12 weeks of treatment (P = .74).

Patients in both groups lost a significant amount of weight during the 12-week treatment period (P<.001); however, between-group weight loss differences were not statistically significant (mean [SD], 3.2 [3.3] kg vs 4.1 [3.9] kg; P = .14).

There were no significant differences in estimated percentage of body fat mass loss between treatment groups, and the fraction of subject weight loss as fat was not influenced by treatment group.

CONCLUSIONS: Garcinia cambogia failed to produce significant weight loss and fat mass loss beyond that observed with placebo.

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CHROMIUM is present to help stabilize insulin levels I assume, which baffles me since when we are on low-carbs, insulin activity is low, right?

But, I have seen chromium work in weight loss in individuals who were chromium deficient.

As for aspartic acid and biotin, I would have to dig up more on them to see why they are in there. Probably for protein or fat metabolism. I'll check it out.