Provitalize makes dietary supplements for women, which claim to reduce menopausal weight gain. This claim seems ridiculous because there shouldn’t be any mechanism of action which specifically targets weight from people of a certain demographic.Â
If a product can reduce weight, it can reduce weight. Saying a product will target menopausal weight gain would be like selling a supplement for testosterone benefit but claiming it will only increase testosterone in one ethnicity of men: it makes no sense and is unscientific.
In this article we’ll review the ingredients in Provitalize along with some of the health claims the company makes, and conclude whether we believe this is an effectively formulated product which is likely to cause weight loss in menopausal women.
Provitalize Ingredients Review - Probiotics
Provitalize has several ingredients but the most important one is definitely the probiotic blend. It contains 68.2 billion Colony Forming Units (CFU) per serving.Â
This seems like a large amount given that most of the studies we’ve reviewed on probiotics contain 25 billion units or less, but probiotics are very well tolerated and the company probably figures some will die during storage, so we have no issues with the probiotic dosage.
The first probiotic strain in Provitalize is Bifidobacterium Breve (B. Breve) strain IDCC 4401. We can’t find any research at all suggesting this probiotic strain increases weight loss.
The company which makes Provitalize, called Better Body Co., published a blog post stating that B. Breve produced significant weight changes in a medical study, but the study they linked to appears to use a totally different strain of B. Breve than the one in the product. The study trials B. Breve B-3 rather than B. Breve IDCC 4401.Â
This doesn’t indicate that the company’s formulators have any clue what they’re doing, and strikes us as very misleading.
The second probiotic strain in Provitalize is called L. Gasseri SBT 2055. The company actually links to a study using the correct probiotic strain this time, and the study does show that this ingredient lowered body weight in obese adults.
What makes no sense to us is the study was on obese men and women, and Provitalize’s health claims involve menopausal women. The study wasn’t on menopausal women, so again the company’s health claims are confusing to us.
The third probiotic strain in Provitalize is B. Lactis strain R101-8. The company tries proving this ingredient is effective by linking to a study which used a different strain of B. Lactis (strain HN019).
The fact that Provitalize links to medical research on different probiotic strains than the ones they're using for two of the three ingredients is a huge red flag to us that this company has no idea what they’re doing. You can’t claim the effects of a similar but different ingredient in marketing. That would be like a wheatgrass company claiming their products can help with anxiety because ashwagandha can and both products are botanicals.
Provitalize Ingredients Review - Other Active Ingredients
Provitalize has five other active ingredients: turmeric root extract, moringa leaf, curry leaf, lecithin and black pepper extract.
Turmeric and black pepper extract are often used in combination because black pepper extract dramatically improves turmeric bioavailability.Â
Most of the research on turmeric is for its anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effect, and while there are some weight loss studies involving the active ingredient in turmeric called curcumin, we can’t find any studies suggesting turmeric extract improves weight loss outcomes.
We cannot find any medical studies suggesting that the curcumin dosage in this product will positively impact weight loss either, and Better Body Co. doesn't publish any.
On the Provitalize product page, the company only references the anti-inflammatory benefits of turmeric with no reference to any weight loss benefits, so we can assume this is a totally ineffective ingredient for weight loss, and we question its inclusion.
Moringa leaf is the second ingredient listed here and we could only find one study suggesting it was effective for weight loss, but this was an animal study and used doses nearly 100 times higher than that in Provitalize. We can conclude this is an underdosed and ineffective ingredient.
We can’t find a single study on raw curry leaf for weight loss, and Provitalize shares none on their site. They simply say “curry leaves support healthy cholesterol...and help with indigestion”. How does that have anything to do with a menopausal weight management product? This appears to be another ineffective ingredient which makes no sense for this product.
Lecithin is the final ingredient to review and at this point you won’t be surprised to read that we cannot find one single study suggesting this ingredient is effective for weight loss.
Overall this is a comically terrible formula; one of the worst we’ve ever reviewed.
No Publicly Listed Scientists
Generally we’ve seen an unsurprising trend in our supplement reviews where companies with no publicly listed scientists on their team tend to produce ineffective products. This isn’t surprising, since formulating an effective and safe dietary supplement involves a lot of research. It’s just a red flag we recommend consumers look out for.
Better Body Co’s “About Us” page states they’re a “collective mind of nutritionists, health experts and naturopaths”. This seems disingenuous to us. If a supplement company had actual licensed doctors or scientists on their team, they would want to list them publicly.
They include a picture of some unidentified person in a lab coat holding their product. This proves nothing; again, if this is an actual doctor why not explain who they are? Any supplement company could pay 20 people to put on lab coats and hold their products up for a picture but it would not prove these people were scientists, or associated with the formulation.
