By Celia Wright

Bread, biscuits, cakes, pastry, pasta, potatoes and pizza – AH how we love them, but OH what harm they can do! Weight gain and a host of other health complications. But what if there was a natural food substance that would wipe out the carbohydrate calories that we eat?

It’s a sorry story, and one that we each wrestle with every day. Some of us binge on the biscuits anyway. Some of us count calories, and yet another crash diet. Some of us pound away at the gym. But most of us fall off the wagon on a regular basis. The trouble is, it isn’t just weight gain we suffer from when we indulge in carbs. Over the years we hike up the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes as well. Dieting doesn’t work, long term, either: it depletes muscle tissue and when we go back to a normal diet we not only gain back the fat  - we’re stuck with flabby muscles, and we find it harder to lose weight the next time. It’s a vicious circle.

What is needed is a way of eating a normal, healthy diet AND controlling our weight. The Atkins diet goes a long way towards this, except that the less carbs we eat, the more protein and fat we have to eat, because we only have three major food groups to choose from. In the long run, too much protein or fat can also be detrimental. And a low carb diet is very hard to sustain indefinitely. So the news that years of clinical testing have now confirmed that a natural substance derived from white kidney beans can safely neutralise up to a third of our daily calories is excellent news indeed.

It has been known since the 1940s that certain foods contain ‘anti-nutrients’ that bind to digestive enzymes and block their action. Wheat, for example, binds with amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starches. Normally amylase turns starches into sugar, which is then sucked into the bloodstream to start another cycle of weight gain and blood sugar hazards. But when this enzyme is blocked the starch stays in the digestive system and has no effect on blood sugar levels at all. No pain and no weight gain!

It turned out that white kidney beans are the best source of the anti-nutrient starch. But you can’t just eat a plate of beans for it to work. It took years of research to perfect the extraction of the active ingredient, which was named called phaseolamin, after the kidney bean (phaseolus vulgaris).

Clinical studies followed, first at the Mayo Clinic in the 1970s, hoping that this extract could be used by diabetics. Later, researchers realised that it could be a major breakthrough for the epidemic of obesity (ouch, what a horrible word) sweeping the Western World. Since then there have been studies in universities and hospitals around the world. In a recent study at UCLA School of Medicine, Medical Director Jay Udani gave 25 healthy, overweight volunteers either 1000mg of phaseolamin or a dummy pill twice a day before meals, plus a balanced diet and exercise programme. The phaseolamin group lost an average 6 lbs in four weeks, while the dummy pill group lost 4.7lbs. But most significantly, among the phaseolamin group, those that ate more carbohydrate lost the most weight, 8.7 lbs, and the most inches around the waist, 3.3 inches.

At first glance 8.7lbs in four weeks may not seem much to lose. But remember, these people were eating normal, healthy, satisfying meals, with a good proportion of starchy food. They were not having to deny themselves, and could presumably have gone on eating this way indefinitely, losing 1-2 lbs a week until they reached their ideal weight.

In effect, this special bean extract turns the Atkins diet into the perfect scenario, because you can eat your carbohydrates and still effectively lose weight the Atkins way, because you aren’t absorbing the starches. The final touch is that, by bringing starches back into your diet, you will naturally eat less protein and fat, bringing all three food groups into the healthiest balance.

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Those that ate more carbohydrate lost the most weight and the most inches around the waist.