QuickTrim: Does It Help Weight Loss? Review of Ingredients and Research

QuickTrim is the weight loss supplement that features Kim Kardashian. She’s a pretty girl but in all honestly, I had no idea who she was – in fact I'm still not sure who she is or what she does. But that doesn't matter because this review is about her QuickTrim weight loss supplement. QuickTrim has a LOT of ingredients and I reviewed the weight loss evidence for all of them so you can save yourself time and energy as you try to figure out if QuickTrim is right for you.

The QuickTrim Website

I noticed several problems with the QuickTrimInternational.com website when I visited the site on 7/31/11. For one thing, I tried to view the QuickTrim product called “Extreme Burn” but that page didn’t work. I was curious how Extreme Burn was different from the QuickTrim Iso-Burn.

I also found several typos in the spelling of ingredients. For example, acetyl L Carnitine was spelled wrong (they spell it L camitine). Also, many of the ingredients run together on the supplement facts label.

The ingredients you see listed below were taken DIRECTLY from QuickTrimInternational.com on 7/31/11. Notice that chromium picolinate is not listed under niacin.

Yet in the picture of QuickTrim that I personally took with my cell phone camera, chromium picolinate is clearly visible.

So my question is: does QuickTrim have chromium or doesn't it?

In the ingredients list below that I copied DIRECTLY from the QuickTrim website, you can see that under niacin it says “calories from fat” and next to that it says “167”. This makes no sense.

Are they saying QuickTrim has 167% of your daily value from fat? It doesn't. This is another QuickTrim website error.

Again, look at the picture above I snapped with my cell phone. It clearly says 167% next to chromium picolinate.

So, QuickTrim has 167% of your daily value for Chromium.

It doesn't matter how much chromium is in QuickTrim because as I have pointed out many times on this site, chromium doesn't help weight loss.

They put chromium in supplements because most people still think it works. That’s how good the chromium marketing was in the 1990s.

Niacin. QuickTrim has 20 mg of niacin which is 100% of your daily value. I'm guessing it has niacin so you can “feel” it working. Niacin is a vasodilator. In other words, it opens up blood vessels. This causes the skin to flush (it’s called the niacin flush).

I think adding niacin to QuickTrim is a bit of smoke and mirrors because if you can “feel it” you’re likely to think it’s working.

Where is the proof that 20 mg of niacin helps weight loss? There is none.

The odds are that 99% of the people reading these words are not lacking in niacin.

Quick Trim Ingredients

These are the ingredients in QuickTrim Iso-Burn that I copied directly from the QuickTrim website. QuickTrim website errors are in blue.

Serving size =2 caplets

	% Daily Value
Niacin 20 micrograms	100 %
Calories from fat	167%
QT Casimax™ Thermogenic Complex. 227 mg. Contains
Caffeine anhydrous 200 mg
Casimax™ capsicum fruit extract
Metabromine™ (theobromine and caffeine)
Super Antioxidant Thermo Catalist Complex 226 mg
blueberry
blackberry
acai fruit extract
Polygonum cuspidatum root extract (50% resveratrol)
white willow bark extract (25% salicin)
Iso Burn Fat Loss Activator 415 mg
green tea leaf extract (providing 135mg EGCG, 225 mg catechins
raspberry ketones
bnaba leaf extract (1% corosolic acid
Mucuna pruriens seed extract (10% L-dopa),
sclareolide 95% (from clary sage leaf extract
acetyl-L-camitine

Let’s look at each ingredient separately.

QT Casimax Thermogenic Complex

Instead of a “proprietary blend” , this product is using the term “complex”. This is just fancy Park Avenue marketing talk. The complex is made of :

Caffeine

Caffeine has a mild weight loss effect. It’s the reason that most weight loss supplements have caffeine.

Capsicum

Capsicum is found in chili peppers and frequently shows up in weight loss supplements. At least one study has noted that capsicum may help reduce food intake.

While capsicum is the compound responsible for the hot taste of chili peppers, some research notes that it is not capsicum that fosters fat loss but rather compounds called capsinoids.

Capsinoids look like capsicum but are different. One study of 42 overweight women published in the American Journal of Nutrition in 2009 found that capsinoids caused more fat loss in women (especially abdominal fat) over 12 weeks than woman who got a placebo.

FYI, the woman in this particular study got 6 mg of capsionids per day. I don’t know how much capsinoids are in QuickTrim.

Metabbromine

This word sounds scientific but because it’s trademarked, it holds little meaning outside the supplement industry. As you can see in the supplement label above, Metabromine contains caffeine and theobromine.

Theobromine

Theobromine is related to coca (think chocolate) and also has caffeine-like properties. While theobromine is a stimulant, it’s considered less powerful than caffeine. When combined with caffeine however its effects may be magnified.

While chocolate might have some health-promoting effects, I see no reason for using theobromine in a weight loss other than its caffeine-like stimulant properties.

Super Antioxidant Thermo Catalyst Complex

If you look closely on the QuickTrim website, the word catalyst is spelled wrong (they spell “Catalist”). Another QuickTrim website mistake.

In this complex, we see blueberry and blackberry, two fruits that while healthy, do absolutely nothing for weight loss. Acai fruit is also listed.

Acai is one of those trendy ingredients that despite being found in a lot of weight loss supplements, is also useless for weight loss.

For more info on the benefits Acai fruit see my reviews. You can also enter “acai” into the search box and find all the other supplements that have it.

Polygonum cuspidatum

This is also called Japanese Knotweed and Hu Zhang – as well as a bunch of other things. One of the compounds that make up Polygonum cuspidatum is resveratrol. This is why resveratrol is mentioned in the ingredients list.

Resveratrol is a “trendy” ingredient. I think it’s added to products so it can be said “our product has resveratrol”.

At least one lab rat study noticed that high levels of resveratrol helped weight loss. But, this was a rat study –and used 400 mg per kilogram of resveratrol. Translating this to people, if you weighed 200 pounds (91 kilograms), you’d need 36,363 mg (or about 1 ounce) of resveratrol. That’s a LOT more than is in QuickTrim.

Oh, and this research also combined resveratrol with vitamin D, quercetin and genistein which QuicikTrim does not have. So did resveratrol alone cause weight loss or was it resveratrol combined with the other stuff. Nobody knows.

Fact. There is no published peer reviewed study that shows resveratrol by itself helps weight loss in people.

Because resveratrol has blood thinner effects, in theory, it may interact with medications and other supplements that “thin” the blood. Also, women who have a history of breast cancer (or other cancers) should speak to a doctor before using QuickTrim. Polygonum Cuspidatum seems to have some estrogen-like activity.

Polygonum cuspidatum has another ingredient called emodin which acts like a laxative. I wonder how much emodin is in QuickTrim?

White Willow Bark

This is basically aspirin – or as the Professor from Gilligan’s Island called it when he was trying to sound smart to Ginger – Salicylic Acid (they call it salicin in the ingredients list. Salicylic acid is derived from salicin).

Because aspirin can “thin” the blood, see your doctor if you take blood thinner medications or other blood thinner supplements (vitamin E etc). Also be careful if you have kidney problems.

The reason white willow bark is used in weight loss supplements is because research has noted that that the combination of caffeine ephedra and caffeine might help weight loss.

Bodybuilders call this the “ECA Stack” – ephedra, caffeine, aspirin.

Ephedra is banned in the US because of serious side effects. This is why QuickTrim uses Metabromine. On one company informational document that I found, Metabromine was called the “Un Ephedrine”– a reference to its ephedra like properties while not specially being “ephedra”.

White willow bark might be used because People who are overweight often suffer from arthritis. So, the thinking appears to be that if you can reduce arthritis pain, people might move more, and burn more calories. Whether or not this reasoning holds any water or not is debatable. Not all research finds that white willow bark helps arthritis.

Other supplements I reviewed previously that also have white willow bark include

Iso Burn Fat Loss Activator

Green tea

Green tea shows up a LOT in weight loss products. Just a few of the many green tea weight loss products I've already reviewed include Lipozene, Avesil, Kirstie Alleys weight loss supplements Shakeology, and Healthe Trim.

Green tea has caffeine. Don’t believe the hype about EGCG and weight loss. It’s the caffeine in green tea that is the main active weight loss ingredient.

Raspberry Ketones

This compound is also used in Apidexin that I reviewed previously. There is a study of raspberry ketone and weight loss.

I have since written an entire review of raspberry ketones and weight loss. See that review for more information.

Banaba leaf extract

Notice they spelled banaba wrong on the QuickTrim website label (“bnaba”). The scientific name for banaba leaf is Lagerstroemia speciosa.

A couple of studies have noted that banaba leaf extract might lower blood sugar in mice with type II diabetes. Since type II diabetics tend to be overweight, it makes some sense that this ingredient would be used.

FYI. There is far more evidence that walking helps blood sugar levels than banaba leaf extract.

You may recall that banaba leaf extact was also used in the diabetes supplement Glucotor V2. In theory, banaba leaf might also interact with diabetes meds and supplements that effect blood sugar.

Mucuna pruriens

Another name this bean (legume) goes by is Cowhage. The bean contains levodopa (L dopa) which is used to treat Parkinson’s disease.

I'm guessing QuickTrim doesn't have much mucuna pruriens – because it’s listed toward the bottom of the ingredients – but I wonder what might happen in people who were taking L dopa for Parkinson’s?

In high levels, L dopa may lower blood pressure (hypotension). Mucuna Pruriens might also reduce blood sugar levels.

Because Ldopa is a brain chemical, people with any mental illness should speak to their doctor before using.

Sclareolide

Also known as clary sage, this herb has some antidepressant effects – at least in rats. Is clary sage a natural antidepressant in people? It’s hard to say but to be safe, speak to a doctor if you take antidepressants or medications to help you sleep.

Acetyl-L-carnitine

This is a metabolite of L carnitine. We make this stuff and can convert it into L carnitine as we need it. Basically carnitine is a “taxicab” – it moves fat to the part of the cell (the mito-chondria) where the fat can be burned for fuel. This is why L carnitine is sometimes used as a weight loss supplement. I'm guessing this is the reason why QuickTrim has acetyl carnitine.

Trivia: the L in acetyl L carnitine means the molecule is “left handed”.

There is probably very little acetyl L carnitine in QuickTrim (since it’s the very last ingredient listed). There may be several drug interactions including blood thinners.

People who are low in thyroid hormone (hypothyroid) should avoid acetyl L carnitine. At least one study has hinted that carnitine inhibits thyroid hormone.

In theory carnitine may also cause seizures in people prone to seizures or interact with seizure medications.

People who have trouble losing weight might be hypothyroid and should get their “TSH” level tested. This simple blood test can tell if you are low in thyroid. Treating hypothyroidism often causes weight loss.

QuickTrim Caffeine Ingredients

Caffeine
Metabromine
green tea

QuickTrim Stimulant Ingredients

Caffeine
Metabromine
Theobromine
Green tea
Raspberry ketone

QuickTrim Celebrity Endorsements

People have told me that some celebrities have endorsed QuickTrim. Ironically when I searched for them online, I couldn’t find any celebrities. It really doesn't matter because as a rule celebrities usually lack the scientific knowledge to evaluate supplements.

Also, any QuickTrim endorsements from members of the Kardashain family mean very little to me given their relationship to Kim. Generally testimonials mean nothing anyway. Often people are paid for their testimonial.

Does QuickTrim Work?

I believe QuickTrim will not work for most people – and Kim Kardashian told me so!

No, she didn’t tell me personally, but many newspapers and websites have reported that Kim Kardashian has 2 personal trainers to help her lose weight for her wedding. She didn’t just hire one trainer – she hired TWO personal trainers!