Introduction
Provitalize’s primary marketing claims come from the probiotics it contains. It’s supposed to be a “natural” way to lose weight, whatever that means. When people ask me about Provitalize, the main question most people ask here is: “Can probiotics help you lose weight?” Well, can they? And do the specific probiotics in Provitalize do anything special? Let’s take a closer look at it for weight loss, see if it’s worth your money, see if we can replicate it with a cheaper alternative, and give it an overall rating.
How Probiotics Help with Weight Loss?
Probiotics are a type of good bacteria, and there is some evidence that some strains of probiotics are associated with obesity, and may help with weight loss. But it’s not the same as suppressing your appetite so you eat less and start losing weight immediately, sort of. It’s like changing the way you metabolize nutrients so it lowers your risk of obesity, sort of helps. What I mean is that the benefits of probiotics are usually under the surface and not easy to see. They often take effect more slowly than most people realize. These benefits are also highly dependent on the strain used, and not all probiotics are created equal. I’ve previously looked at which probiotic strains may be best for weight loss in other articles, so if you want a more comprehensive review of probiotics and weight loss. So what strain is inside Provitalize? Let’s take a look at the ingredients list.
Ingredients in Provitalize
Here are the dosages per capsule: The recommended dose is two at breakfast, so that’s two daily doses. Whenever supplements add ingredients to their products, there are three very common problems with many of these ingredients. One is that the doses are inadequate, two that the extracts they use are ineffective and do not contain the most active compounds, and three that these compounds themselves have not shown any beneficial effects in humans. When we analyze all these components, we will see which of them is the problem. Let’s take a look at the probiotic ingredients first.
Probiotics in Provitalize
68.2 billion CFU isn’t bad, but it’s what we call a proprietary blend. Proprietary compounds allow supplement companies to avoid listing the exact amount of each ingredient within the compound. Sometimes these mixes have special names such as “Probiotic blend” or “Detox mix” which will list the ingredients within the mix, but not the dosage of each ingredient. You need to be very careful about proprietary compounds. They may list an effective ingredient, but only the amount and you won’t be able to tell that the dose isn’t listed. This shows a lack of transparency, and may indicate a desire to hide inferior components or make a component appear to contain more than it actually does.
This is why it is a good idea to avoid proprietary blends or compounds. What they’ve done here is combine three different probiotic strains together, and list one quantity, 68.2 billion CFU. They fail to list the amount of each probiotic strain, which is important because you need to get enough of the probiotic strain if you want to reap the benefits. It’s like I’m telling you: “I’m going to give out a bunch of pennies and quarters, and the total will be 25 coins.” But then I don’t tell you how much of each coin I give you. It makes a lot of difference if I give you 24 pennies and 1 quarter, or 1 penny and 24 quarters.
Looking at the probiotic strains in Provitalize, we have three listed strains. Of the three, only Lactobacillus gasseri has some evidence that it can actually help some people lose weight. Unfortunately, the effect was usually small and sometimes insignificant, with most people losing an extra pound per month. Bifidobacterium breve and bifidobacterium lactis do not cause weight loss by themselves, but studies have shown that they have some benefits that support the health of people with obesity, such as improving fat composition or reducing inflammation. helping to reduce, but these beneficial effects did not translate reliably. For any excess weight loss.
Unfortunately, we can’t say whether this supplement will have the modest and sometimes dramatic weight loss that Lactobacillus gasseri can provide, because we don’t know how much of the compound this particular strain contains. For all we know, 95 percent of it could be one of the other stressors, and we wouldn’t even know it. Aside from the probiotics, there really isn’t anything else in Provitalize that is good enough for weight loss. Turmeric and lecithin have been studied to help reduce inflammation or cholesterol levels, things that are linked to obesity, but won’t help you lose weight.
Even so, the doses used in the study are measured in grams per day, the small amounts you’re getting in Provitalize won’t do anything. For example, there is some weak evidence to suggest that turmeric may help reduce inflammation in people with obesity. However, the effective doses used in these trials were 1000 mg/day or higher. The 350 mg/day Provitalize provides won’t cut it. Moringa and curry leaves are really only known for their traditional uses, meaning they were used by herbalists and holistic healers but evidence-based research is currently lacking.
Their traditional uses include glucose control and reducing inflammation. There’s really no evidence that they actually help with these things, so it would be hard to determine their effectiveness, if any. Even then, herbalists typically use 10 to 100 grams of these ground leaves, not a few hundred milligrams like Provitalize uses. Bioperine is a standard black pepper extract and is used in this case to help improve the absorption of some other ingredients, but otherwise has no therapeutic effect. That being said, these ingredients, although not very useful, are relatively safe to use.
Side Effects and Concerns
There are no major concerns with any of the ingredients listed, and assuming there are no contamination issues or illegal ingredients sneaked in, only probiotics have some mild side effects in people. can Probiotics can sometimes cause mild gas and bloating in people who first start taking them, especially in high doses, as their bodies get used to introducing new bacteria into the gut. Sometimes it also causes mild constipation or diarrhea, but this is usually temporary as your body gets used to it. So, is Provitalize effective for weight loss?
Is Provitalize Effective?
It probably won’t be any more effective than any normal probiotic supplement. Probiotics primarily help with healthy weight loss for some people, but they don’t make you lose weight on their own. This means that you should not expect to lose weight from taking Provitalize, nor will it help you eat less, or exercise more. Rather, its effects, if any, will be much more subtle, possibly helping to improve your gut flora. Whether it actually helps your gut will depend on your existing gut flora, so if you don’t have a lot of digestive or health issues, and eat a variety of healthy foods, this should help your So there will be little or no benefit.
Is Provitalize Worth It?
Overall, Provitalize is no more than an overpriced probiotic. At a cost of $50 per month, Provitalize is quite expensive. A typical Lactobacillus gasseri probiotic supplement can be purchased for around $5 a month, and if your primary goal is just weight loss, that’s probably good enough. But if you want to add another generic multi-strain probiotic, it’s another $10 per month. You can then supplement what Provitalize basically gives you, but even better, for about $15 a month.
Overall Rating
Rated for weight loss effectiveness, I give it a D. It basically works like any multi-strain probiotic to support healthy weight loss. It won’t really help you lose a lot of weight, but it can help support your gut during weight loss. Ranking it for price, I’m giving it a D. This can be essentially replicated by getting individual probiotics at about 3-4 times the cost. Rating it for safety, I’m giving it a B. Probiotics are relatively safe to take, and any gas and bloating you experience will likely be mild and temporary. Overall rating, I’m giving it a D. I would not recommend it at all.
