A new study has reviewed the scientific information surrounding synephrine and compares the effects of synephrine to other adrenal stimulants.
Everyone who’s been around this industry for a while knows that synephrine (found in Bitter Orange / Citrus Aurantium) became popular right after ephedrine was banned, as manufacturers scrambled around for something to replace it. At the time, most people’s impression is that it was kind of a mild version of ephedrine because it didn’t give them the intense stimulant feeling and the jitters that they got from ephedrine.
The main findings were that because synephrine binds much less strongly than ephedrine to certain receptors in the body, it has little to no influence on blood pressure or heart rate as compared to ephedrine and the like. The even better news is that because it binds ‘more’ strongly to other receptors that help to control appetite, body weight and fat burning activity in the body, it is considered a much better alternative to these previous fat-burning stimulants!
The review study then goes on to describe three other studies in which synephrine was shown to promote weight loss and two other studies showing that it increases calorie burning and metabolic rate. The authors go on to describe how synephrine may actually have a ‘protective’ effect on the heart and blood vessels.
So the ‘take home message’ here is that synephrine seems to have fewer of the negative effects of the older stimulant ingredients yet have more of the so-called ‘thermogenic’, fat burning effects.
Study Reference:
Sidney J. Stohs, Harry G. Preuss, and Mohd Shara. A Review of the Receptor-Binding Properties of p-Synephrine as Related to Its Pharmacological Effects Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2011
