'Bizzy Diet' Sheds 2% Body Fat (2kg) in Only 3 Weeks, Study in 51 Women (BF 25%) Shows - W/ and W/Out 'FitMiss Burn'

The "Bizzy Diet" works, the supplements that are suggested in the program at BB.com are useless, though.

You know that I am a fan of supplement companies that try to support the often hilarious claims on their product labels with science. Against that background, I feel there's nothing wrong with MusclePharm sponsoring, ah... I mean "funding" a recent study by researchers from the University of... ah, I mean, from Bodybuilding.com and the Ohio State University (Kendall 2017) - and that's not just in those (not exactly rare cases) when said research proves that their "thermogenic" powerhouse is actually a hilariously underdosed barrel burst.

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In the study at hand, the corresponding supplement is MusclePharm's FitMiss Burn "thermogenic fat burner" for women. A product that contains an undisclosed amount of Guarana Seed Extract (Paullinia Cupana), (22% Caffeine) Caffeine Anhydrous (100mg), Pyroglutamic Acid, Green Tea Extract (40% EGCG) (Camellia Sinensis)(Leaf), Papain, Yerba Mate (Llexparaguariensis)(Leaf), Yohimbine HCl, of which all have some scientific back-up as fat-burners alongside the other ingredients you can see in the graphical summary of the study results I created in Figure 1:

Figure 1: Graphical summary of the results; no sign. inter-group differences for Bizzy Diet (alone) vs. BD + FitMiss Burn.

In view of the fact that there's research backing almost all of the other ingredients, as well, it may seem surprising that the those of the fifty-one apparently healthy women between the ages of 18 and 35 years volunteered to participate in this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, who have been randomized to receive the product didn't see any benefit from their two capsules of FitMiss Burn, right?

Exercise characteristics in the three groups of young women during the 3-week study period (Kendall 2017)

Why did the control group see almost identical improvements in body composition? That's a good question. After all, the 14 women in the control group were "instructed to maintain their normal dietary habits" (Kendall 2017) and trained significantly less (see Figure on the left), ate more food and less protein over the course of the three-week study. Well, the explanation for this "phenomenon" lies within our naive trust in the accuracy of DXA scans and studies with small group sizes. With standard deviations that are two-times larger than the relative pre-/post-changes in body composition, we simply have to rely on the scientists' statistical analyses and those reveal that: (a) the diet groups lost sign. more body fat and (b) had a sign. different lean mass trajectory (lost or maintained vs. gained) compared to the control group... let's be honest, that's not a phenomenon.

Well, that's true, but if you scrutinize the label you'll realize that the total amount of active ingredients, i.e. 1,450 mg per serving (2 capsules per day) simply cannot contain caffeine, green tea, yerba mate, yohimbine, glucomannan, white kidney bean extract... to allow for all of them to have measurable effects. After all, the studies I previously alluded to used...

• at least 200mg of caffeine (usually alongside other ingredients),
• more than 500 mg green tea extract (e.g. Nagao 2007), and
• the human equivalent of 7g of yerba mate (e.g. Arçari 2009)

which would already exceed the total weight of the proprietary ""Energy & Focus Complex" in the product... and we haven't even talked about the "Appetite Reduction & Fat Metaboliser" blend from which we'd need 2x1g per day of glucomannan (e.g. Salas-Salvadó 2008), 7.5-30g of guar gum (Pittler 2004), and much more of all other key ingredients.

Figure 2: Original grocery list for the "Bizzy Diet 21-Day Fitness Plan" (Bodybuilding.com | download PDF)

Well, now that it's clear that the supplement didn't work and couldn't work, let's take a closer look at the "Bizzy Diet" (you can learn more about the diet at bodybuilding.com): Basically, we're looking at a high calorie (1,000kcal/d) version of a low-carbohydrate protein-modified fast.

Over the course of the three-week study period the women had to cut their habitual food intake to 1,000kcal, cut out almost all carbs, eat every 3h (this is probably an irrelevant rule of the diet, but will certainly keep you "bizzy" ;-) and 'gorge' on eggs, bacon, tuna, broccoli and the other foods the meal plan on bodybuilding.com suggests - is it any wonder that the (almost overweight) ladies went from ~27% to ~25% DXA-assessed body fat on that diet? Not really.

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Why did you even discuss the study at hand? I know that some of you may now ask yourselves just that: Why? Well, the answer is simple: Firstly, I want you to scrutinize the labels of the supplements you buy and not be fooled by "proprietary blends" - in cases like the one at hand, it doesn't matter if the amount of the individual ingredients is undisclosed: even a first-grader will be able to see that they're underdosed if the label lists 20+ ingredients and the total weight of active ingredients is below 2000 mg (or less).

And secondly, I want you to understand how powerful dieting is: I mean, the 2% reduction in body fat the ladies in the study at hand achieved with their 1,000kcal protein- and nutrient-rich low-carbohydrate diet is worth reporting, isn't it?

References:

• Arçari, Demétrius P., et al. "Antiobesity Effects of yerba maté Extract (Ilex paraguariensis) in High‐fat Diet–induced Obese Mice." Obesity 17.12 (2009): 2127-2133.
• Kendall, Kristina L., et al. "A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial to Determine the Effectiveness and Safety of a Thermogenic Supplement in Addition to an Energy-Restricted Diet in Apparently Healthy Females" Journal Of Dietary Supplements (2017) - Ahead of print.
• Nagao, Tomonori, Tadashi Hase, and Ichiro Tokimitsu. "A green tea extract high in catechins reduces body fat and cardiovascular risks in humans." Obesity 15.6 (2007): 1473-1483.
• Pittler, Max H., and Edzard Ernst. "Dietary supplements for body-weight reduction: a systematic review." The American journal of clinical nutrition 79.4 (2004): 529-536.
• Salas-Salvadó, Jordi, et al. "Effect of two doses of a mixture of soluble fibres on body weight and metabolic variables in overweight or obese patients: a randomised trial." British Journal of Nutrition 99.06 (2008): 1380-1387.