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GABA, an effective body-fat inhibitor?
GABA can be used as a supplement to diet programs through its action against insulin resistance.
Gamma-aminobutyric acid «GABA» capsules are recognized as major sleep promoters and enhancers of the growth hormone HGH, but according to researchers at the University of California, they may also help overweight people stay healthy.
GABA inhibits the increase in fat stores that would otherwise occur if you consume more calories than you burn; this is because the compound makes your cells more sensitive to insulin. The more body fat you have, the less sensitive your cells will be to insulin; this happens because large fat deposits are subject to inflammation, causing them to secrete substances that sabotage insulin function.
Researchers had already published an animal study in 2004 demonstrating that GABA inhibits this process, but in another animal study published in the journal PLoS One in 2011, the researchers explained how they caused a group of rodents to gain weight over 20 weeks by putting them on a high-fat diet, dividing the group into a placebo group and another group that consumed GABA in their drinking water; the human equivalent of the dose they used was 800–1200 mg daily.
After the analyses, the conclusion they reached was that GABA supplementation did not reduce food intake, but it did reduce weight gain; in the body, GABA supplementation inhibited the growth of fat stores. What was observed was that when the researchers gave their laboratory animals glucose and insulin, glucose disappeared from the blood more quickly in the mice that received GABA, implying that supplementation increased the rodents’ insulin sensitivity.
It was observed that the adipose tissue of the rodents that consumed GABA contained fewer immune cells than that of the mice in the other group; this means that inflammation in the fatty tissue was less severe and that GABA probably works through the immune system. At the end of the 20 weeks, the researchers put their mice back on a standard diet but continued the supplementation. Once again, body weight and glucose levels stabilized in the GABA group but deteriorated in the other group.
And, given that GABA acts mainly on peripheral GABA receptors and is safe for human consumption, GABA and other GABAA-R agonists may be valuable for the prevention and treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The researchers are so convinced of this that they have patented the method they discovered so that science can confirm that GABA is a complementary compound for a weight-loss diet.