Brown Algae Promotes Satiety, Weight Loss

New research conducted at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE), University of Copenhagen, has found dietary fiber from brown algae boosts satiety and promotes weight loss and weight maintenance.

The researchers demonstrated that healthy subjects who took alginates and were allowed to eat as much as they wanted felt less hungry and ate less than the subjects not drinking fiber drinks with alginates.

The 12-week study included 96 overweight men and women. Forty-eight subjects drank a specially designed drink with alginates three times daily before each main course as a supplement to an energy-reduced diet; the other 48 subjects drank a placebo drink without alginates. The 80 subjects who completed the study achieved a far larger weight loss with alginate treatment than those drinking a similar drink without alginates.

On average, the subjects in the seaweed fiber drink group lost 1.7 kg more of body fat than those in the placebo group. The researchers said a probable explanation of the weight loss is that the alginates form a gel in the stomach that strengthens the gastrointestinal satiety signals to the brain because the gel takes up space in the stomach.

U