Contents

Page 1
Chitosan versus Xenical.
Chitosan patents.
The synergistic effect of vitamin C.
Page 2
Sprague-Dawley rats and human rats.
Page 3
What they don't tell you about Xenical.
Page 4
My chitosan experiment and price comparison.
Page 5
Possible long-term side effects.
Possible long-term benefits.
Discussion.

Sprague-Dawley Rats And Human Rats

Keep in mind that these chitosan/vitamin C experiments were not human studies -- some were in vitro experiments and others were performed on male Sprague-Dawley rats. In addition, compared to the supplements that I have seen, the scientists used a rather large dose of vitamin C. In fact, they even recommended substituting sodium ascorbate (AsN) in order to make it easier for humans to consume enough of this mixture (5). Although large doses of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) can cause diarrhea, I don't think most people would have a problem -- unless someone was planning on taking ridiculous doses of the chitosan/vitamin C mixture.

The composition of the experimental diet that was given to the male Sprague-Dawley rats was 5% chitosan (90% deacetylation) and 1.5% vitamin C -- about a 3 to 1 ratio (5). I did a search on Google and I could not find any chitosan supplement that contained anywhere near enough vitamin C. A popular formulation seems to be 500 mg of chitosan and 50 mg of vitamin C (a 10 to 1 ratio). So not only are we lacking well designed human studies, the supplements do not even conform to the standards of the rat formula.

This reality does not seem to prevent human rats (occasionally referred to as marketing professionals) from making outrageous claims about chitosan's ability to trap fat. In fact, there are even claims that a new "high density patent pending" chitosan is "soluble in 1 minute" and can "absorb 12 times its weight." It sure would be nice if 1 gram of chitosan could block 12 grams of fat, but I have not been able to find any evidence to back up this claim.

However, I did find a patent (# 4,223,023) that covers adding chitosan to chicken noodle soup, cake, bread, etc. Geez. If the size and scope of government continues to grow, eventually we are going to have to pay licensing fees just to take a dump.

Written
Sep 2001
Last Update
Oct 2009

The more conservative claims state that 1 gram of chitosan can trap 3-6 grams of fat. At least the conservative cheeseballs seem to have read the research. Or perhaps it is more likely that they read the popular book, "The Fat Blocker Diet" by Arnold Fox and Brenda Adderly, which claims that 1 gram of chitosan can trap 3-6 grams of fat:

"For each gram of Chitosan you consume half an hour before a meal, at least 3 grams of saturated fat -- and as many as 6 -- will pass through your body undigested. For simplicity's sake, let's assume that 5 grams of saturated fats pass through the body unabsorbed for every 1 gram of Chitosan that you take" (7).

Uh, lets not. I do not want assumptions, I want research. But the authors of "The Fat Blocker Diet" do not reference their claim that 1 gram of chitosan can trap 3-6 grams of fat. However, as you will see, the absence of a medical reference for this claim is *understandable* since obese people are being thrown a curve ball.

It is true that one experiment by Kanauchi et al. (5) found the chitosan/vitamin C mixture entrapped 6.3 grams of fat per gram of chitosan. However, that was an in vitro experiment, and people really should not make claims based on this test tube result -- especially when the same scientists (in the same medical article even!) clearly state that the chitosan/vitamin C mixture entrapped only 3.4 grams of fat per gram of chitosan in their in vivo experiment with  Sprague-Dawley rats:

"We consider that this difference (3.4g/g compared to 6.3g/g) in oil-holding capacity between the in vivo and in vitro experiments depended on the existence of other nutrients (e.g., casein and sucrose)" (5).

You see, after a normal meal, you also have protein and carbs sloshing around in your stomach -- and that reduces the amount of fat that gets enveloped (trapped) in the chitosan/vitamin C mixture. So if one wants to base a claim on the available research, the honest thing to say is that 1 gram of chitosan can trap 3.4 grams of fat. However, the supplements that contain only 50 mg of vitamin C per 500 mg of chitosan cannot honestly make even this claim since the Sprague-Dawley rat study used three times that amount of vitamin C. Clearly, the supplement companies are way out of line here.

It's a shame that BS does not cause weight loss -- we seem to get an abundance of it from supplement companies, popular books and even pharmaceutical companies!

But we should not dismiss the chitosan/vitamin C combo just because of outrageous marketing. Actually, if 1 gram can block 3.4 grams of fat in humans, we might have an economical alternative to Xenical. So I decided to do an experiment on my lab rat (me) and also compare the price of Xenical to a properly formulated (home-brew) chitosan/vitamin C supplement that -- based on the in vivo Kanauchi et al. study (5) -- should block about as much fat as Xenical. But before we examine my experiment and comparison, we need to take a quick look at Xenical.

  
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