Coffee Manooloigosaccharides Augment Weight Loss in Overweight Men

Certainly, you have heard that coffee is supposed to help with weight los; conversely, you probably won't have imaginged that it may not be the caffeine in everyones favorite baverage which does the magic. A recent study by Salinardi et al. (Salinardi. 2010) investigating the effect of 4g/day coffee manooloigosaccharides on weight loss in 54 overweight men and women (BMI 27-33) came to the surprising conclusion that this hitherto overlooked coffee ingredient positively influences weight loss in men, but has no apparent effect on women:

There was a significant beverage x time interaction on total body volume, total adipose tissue (TAT) and total subcutaneous adipose tissue in men, but not in women. Men consuming the MOS beverage had a greater percent change in total body volume and tended to have greater percent changes in subcutaneous and TAT compared with the placebo group.

The gender difference hints at some hormonal background of the effectiveness / ineffectiveness of MOS in men and women, respectively. It would thus be interesting to see a follow up study investigating hormonal changes, e.g. a rise in testosterone or reductions in cortisol, which may be at the underlying causes of the weight changes observed by the scientists.