A 1.6 mg/kg dose of epicatechin in a supplemented cocoa mixture yielded the largest acute decrease in food intake in humans

Abstract

Objective: To test the hypothesis that epicatechin doses of 1.6, 3.2 and 4.8 mg per kg of body weight in a non-alkalized cocoa beverage cause significant acute decreases in human appetite that increase with increasing dose. Methods: We conducted a four-way randomized, crossover, placebo-controlled double-blinded human trial with 28 healthy, non-obese, young-adult male participants. Our primary measure of appetite was ad libitum pizza intake 150 min after beverage ingestion. We used linear mixed models analyses. Results: Compared to our placebo, the beverages containing 1.6, 3.2 and 4.8 mg per kg of body weight caused mean decreases in pizza intake of 984.3 kJ (18.1%, p = .002), 588.0 kJ (10.8%, p = .06) and 623.2 kJ (11.4%, p = .049), respectively. There were no reported adverse side effects related to the ingested beverages. Conclusions: In our randomized trial two doses of epicatechin larger than1.6 mg/kg did not cause larger acute decreases in pizza intake.

Keywords

• Chocolate
• Cocoa
• Epicatechin
• Appetite control
• Weight loss
• Body weight