Bitter Breakthrough - The Science Behind Calocurb
Background
Like a lot of great ideas, Calocurb was created out of necessity.
In the USA alone, more than two thirds of people are overweight or obese, resulting in a whole bunch of associated health and social problems. It’s been clear for a long time that we’re facing a public health crisis as a result of sedentary living and high-fat, high-sugar diets.
Behind those scary numbers are millions of personal stories about the struggle against excess weight: parents wanting to be better role-models for their children, people feeling powerless in the face of overeating, and health scares threatening livelihoods.
And so, six years ago, a group of New Zealand scientists decided to do something about it.
A team at Plant & Food Research (New Zealand’s largest research institute) was inspired by new scientific research suggesting that a solution might lie in the hidden power of bitter plants. The search would take years of lab work, screening more than 900 bitter plants to find one with the potential to change the way we eat.
And then, in 2014, Eureka! A little-known New Zealand hops flower extract was found to contain a certain type of bitter compound capable of activating a feeling of fullness—and it progressed through to clinical testing.
How Calocurb Was Developed
This hops flower extract was proven to reduce calorie intake across meals and snacks by 20%, and the Amarasate™ extract—the first bitter-compound weight-management supplement in the world and now the active ingredient in Calocurb—was born.
Old Science – An Evolutionary Mechanism Millennia in the Making
Calocurb works by activating what Plant & Food Research scientists call “the bitter brake.” It occurs when bitter compounds (in this case, a hops flower extract) interact with specific receptors in the gut to send a “stop-eating” signal to the brain.
It all starts with special enteroendocrine cells whose job is to sense the chemical makeup of food and tell the body how to react. Some of these cells are primed to respond to bitterness and are concentrated just past the stomach in the small intestine.
When activated by a bitter compound, these cells release a satiety hormone that triggers a feeling of fullness and slows gastric motility (the movement of nerves and muscles in the digestive system). The research team coined this stop-eating signal “the bitter brake”—catchy, isn’t it?
This response to bitterness is thought to be an evolutionary mechanism designed to help early humans steer clear of potentially dangerous foods, which were often bitter. Think of it as a second line of defense—after taste—against toxic plants.
Calocurb mimics this natural response to bitterness—without the danger—making it a powerful tool for cutting calorie intake at meals and snacks.
New Science – Cutting-Edge Capsule Technology
“The bitter brake” works best when the bitter compounds are delivered to the part of the gut with the most enteroendocrine cells—the duodenum, just past the stomach. Getting the extract there can be tricky.
Normal pharmaceutical capsules break down in the stomach, but Calocurb’s delayed-release capsule is engineered to dissolve in the duodenum, activating the stop-eating signal and triggering fullness within an hour.
This combination of advanced capsule technology and the “bitter brake” breakthrough makes Calocurb an effective, world-first, all-natural weight-management supplement.
Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about the science behind Calocurb, our partners at Plant & Food Research have produced a video demonstration of “the bitter brake” in action.
You can also read press overviews from The Daily Mail or the New Zealand Herald.
For more on the relationship between hunger and dieting, see Calories & Caveman, our blog about dieting in a high-fat, high-sugar world.
Happy curbing!
