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Calorie Burning Coke Coming Soon

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hope-it-tastes-better-than-coke-blak dept.

The Fun Guy writes "Coca-Cola and Nestle are getting together to introduce a new beverage "proven to burn calories". Enviga will be in the U.S. Northeast in November, nationwide in January 2007. How does it burn calories? With green tea extracts, calcium, and caffeine. No word on how many milligrams caffeine per can. "

74 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Cancer by otacon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Otherwise known as cancer

    --
    In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
    1. Re:Cancer by Zarniwoop_Editor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Already been called on this marketing lie..
      http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/soft-drinks/sh ocker-enviga-doesnt-actually-burn-calories-208357. php
      This product does not burn calories....

      --
      - F1 NEWS
    2. Re:Cancer by hclyff · · Score: 5, Informative
      From the link you provided:
      The results actually showed that there was no difference in fat oxidation (fat burning) between those drinking Enviga versus a placebo. But it did show that "energy expenditure" was significantly higher for the Enviga drinkers.

      So it does make you "burn" energy, but doesn't cause any weight loss. It's the perfect product!
    3. Re:Cancer by skarphace · · Score: 2, Funny
      So it does make you "burn" energy, but doesn't cause any weight loss. It's the perfect product!
      Meh, make your own 'perfect product'. Guaranteed to loose weight!
      --
      Bullish Machine Tzar
    4. Re:Cancer by Cr33pybusguy · · Score: 3, Funny

      There's also a coke that burns calories. It energizes, maximizes, and all around kicks ass. You don't drink it and it's not a suppository. (Any one know some fat cokeheads??)

      --
      Hee Hee The drinking bird does all the work!
    5. Re:Cancer by Frangible · · Score: 2, Informative

      Still, there's a good reason to believe that Coke's new Enviga drink, advertised as "The Calorie Burner," is a total scam, and Mouseprint has finely combed the small print to showcase the absurdity. For one thing, the study that 'proved' that Enviga burned calories was only 32 people of normal weight. No one actually burned any fat, even when they were on placebos, but heck... "energy expenditure" was higher for Enviga drinkers. Whatever the hell that means. Yes, I wonder what "energy expenditure" in humans could possibly have to do with calories...

      Look, it's no marketing lie. EGCG/caffeine is the cornerstone of green tea's thermogenic effect, and alters many slight parameters to increase fat loss over time, and many studies have proven this. Search for green tea and obesity in PubMed. The data's all there.

      This may have the "sounds too good to be true" feeling, but here's the thing: the effect is very slight. It was slight in green tea, and it's even more slight in this.

      No drug, with the possible exception of large amounts of DNP, is going to "treat obesity". But choosing functional foods is very important. Most all natural foods (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, etc) are more satiating than processed food, and all have these slight indirect effects in improving health, fighting cancer, and fighting obesity.

      This product indeed burns calories, and this shouldn't be surprising, because what Coke did here is basically steal the most active ingredients from green tea, which most certainly do burn calories. Personally, I'd recommend you just drink green tea instead. It's more powerful, healthier, and cheaper. In fact, I'd recommend you eat more functional, natural, healthy food in general. You'll get these slightly beneficial effects from many sources then.

    6. Re:Cancer by MightyYar · · Score: 2, Informative

      Don't find it too hilarious :) Professional grade drain cleaners are often mostly sulfuric acid. You need the acid to attack paper - the base type won't attack toilet paper or maxi-pad clogs. Google it if you must...

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    7. Re:Cancer by ACorvus · · Score: 2, Informative

      You do indeed get it - in the UK it's called HipShift, and it's far superior for many uses, notable bathroom drains clogged with hair - it essentially turns all organic materials to flaky charcoal (or renders them at least brittle enough that they break up when flushed). It's harder to get as it's used more by professionals, but if you go to a decent builder's/plumbers centre they'll have it.

      Caustic Soda/Lye generally only works well on fats (turns them to soluble soap). Hydrochloric is also sold here as "Spirits of Salts" and is really the only thing to shift heavy limescale (we moved into a flat where someone had never given the toilet bowl a good scrub with cream cleaner - it was encrusted with about a 3mm layer of discoloured limescale. One small bottle of HCl, it was gleaming in 30 minutes.) Great on the drip-marks on baths and crusty/rough-looking taps too (but keep the concentration down a bit so it won't bite through the nickel plating).

      --
      -- Sig Sig Sputnik
    8. Re:Cancer by holysin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Two words: Jerry Garcia. Admitedly he's dead, but he was most definately a fat coke user.

    9. Re:Cancer by justin12345 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Drink enough diet coke and you'll at least be running to the pisser every five minutes.

      --
      Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
    10. Re:Cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Of course there's an element of danger in this approach, but it seems managable. Lot safer than being fat.


      The most serious of these dangers would be a runaway infection of the deep fatty tissues.

      If you are constricting blood flow to the area you are slowing the arrival of neutrophils, as well as providing a smorgasbord for bacteria. The worst of these would be Staph. aureus which is easy to introduce into fatty tissues through small skin wounds. When S. aureus is introduced into another subdermal tissue with (normally) limited blood flow -- the fascia -- the result is usually an aggressive infection, necrotizing fasciitis. There is much more food energy for opportunistic microbes in dying adipose tissues, and many of them are much more mobile than macrophages when there is lowered blood flow.

      The second problem is what happens to the stored fats. They don't just vanish into thin air. There are one of two possibilities: they're released into the blood stream until they are stored as fat elsewhere (or until you die of hypertriglyceredemia), or they are excreted (hard on the liver, hard on the kidneys, risk of cholesterol stone formations). They aren't just "burned" because at 9kcal/g significant weight loss through a non-excretory pathway would result in serious hyperthermia.

      Whether it is riskier to carry a huge triglyceride burden around in one's blood and other ECF fluids (obese people may already be doing that, but increasing blood fatty acid levels is likely to provoke a nonlinear response) or to deal with the breakdown products in an elimination process, is unclear.

      What needs to be understood is to what extent the breakdown of adipose tissues in this fashion drives weight loss because the mice are too ill to eat. The third and second last paragraphs in the article you linked to points that out, but doesn't stress enough how rigorously this would have to be tested before being considered reasonably safe for (even morbidly obese) humans.

  2. Bogus... by BWJones · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Enviga increases calorie burning. It represents the perfect partnership of science and nature," said Dr. Rhona Applebaum, chief scientist, The Coca-Cola Company. "Enviga contains the optimum blend of green tea extracts (EGCG), caffeine and naturally active plant micronutrients designed to work with your body to increase calorie burning, thus creating a negative calorie effect.

    Oh man this is such a lie..... Did they perform metabolic chamber analysis? Where is the published paper? Why do people *always* seem to fall for marketing nonsense like this? Look, the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. It's calories in versus calories out and Enviga, metabolically will not let you magically burn more calories by consuming it unless it can somehow short circuit the electron transport chain or mitochondrial respiration and that is dangerous as hell. (Think poisons like dinitrophenol or proteins in brown fat like thermogenin).

    It's too bad, because I like Coca Cola products, but this claim that it will burn excess or extra calories is simply a marketing lie. And yes, I *do* have a PhD in physiology and am calling out Dr. Rhona Applebaum to back up her words with some scientific evidence that shows these claims are more than specious marketingspeak designed to increase the bottom line.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:Bogus... by slidersv · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey! Their words are enough for me. Off to McDonalds to tripple my Big Mac input, and then drink myself stupid when this product comes out, all while lying on the couch.
      It's one can of the drink for every Big Mac I eat to balance calories out.

      --
      there is no issue with my network
    2. Re:Bogus... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Look, the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume.
      I know a tapeworm that says you are wrong.
      Also dysentary is another solution to lose weight without exercize and reducing your calorie intake.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Bogus... by BWJones · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Have you considered that perhaps it's digestion/metabolization ends up burning more calories than it can provide?

      Yes, it's called the thermic effect of food or TEF and can be simplified to the following: TEF = total kcals consumed x 10% which of course means that 10% of anything you consume *might* be burned off leaving you with net positive calories. Think of it this way.... organisms eat to survive, not to lose weight.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    4. Re:Bogus... by BWJones · · Score: 3, Informative

      I know a tapeworm that says you are wrong.

      OK, true and in fact at some points in history, tapeworm eggs were used as a means to "diet", although I don't know anyone who would really want to be doing that as the negative health effects are significant. They don't call it parasitism for nothing. :-)

      Also dysentary (sic) is another solution to lose weight without exercize and reducing your calorie intake.

      True, but here we are talking dehydration or water weight, not fat loss and it should be noted that dysentery is one of the leading causes of death in the world.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    5. Re:Bogus... by SamSim · · Score: 5, Funny

      No no no. You have to eat the can as well. That burns more than enough calories in chewing energy. Strengthens your teeth, too.

      --
      qntm.org
    6. Re:Bogus... by hey! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bogus? For a given value of "bogosity".

      I think it is quite possible that they have a formulation that increases metabolic rate somewhat. But the implied promise is that it will help you lose weight. Unless they've developed something like antabuse for calories, it probably won't happen. The problem is that it's very easy to sit down to a meal with 2000 or even 3000 calories; you'd have to rev your metabolism up to inhuman levels in order to absorb that without offsetting exercise. Probably if you washed down a bag of chips with six pack of this stuff, any safe level of metabolic change would be dwarfed by the calories in the chips.

      If humans had a very high metabolic rate, like a bird of a mouse, marginal changes in the rate would yield big differences. But if that were the case we wouldn't have obesity problems.

      There are other substances that have been shown to have metabolic effects of the type claimed in animals. Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) has been demonsrated to cause cattle to gain somewhat more lean muscle mass and less fat. This proves that metabolism changes alone can alter fat and muscle formation in mammals. However, so far as I know nothing like the cow results have been demonstrated in humans, although I'm sure it's been tried. A human is a very different animal than a cow in a feedlot. IANAR, but it is my understanding typical cow goes from a bit over 500 pounds as a yearling to well over a thousand pounds when it's brought to market. That's a lot of weight gain, and tiny marginal differences in lean mass gain add up. Maybe if you started kids in the first grade and made them drink a six pack a day until they reached their adult height you might see some difference. But for your 30 year old overweight computer hacker, losing weight by drinking Coke is a pipe dream.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    7. Re:Bogus... by BWJones · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's quite simple, actually. It's like celery. It takes more energy for you to consume it and your body to subsequently break the food down than is actually contained within the food.

      You obviously missed my post here explaining this fallacy.

      And yes, though their methodology wasn't mentioned in this article, .....blah blah blah.... It specifically says that it burns a few extra calories if you drink xyz amount per day.

      Do you believe *all* press releases?

      P.S. I call shenanigans on your Ph.D. Either that, or you just didn't read the article. Either way.

      Feel free to check out my formal CV any time you would like and you should know earning it obtained reading a not insignificantly greater amount of material than a few press releases.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    8. Re:Bogus... by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      That isn't true. I've lost weight while consuming between 3000-4000 (estimated) calories a day on no excersize at all. I dropped 85 lbs in about 4 months doing that. A typical breakfast for me was three eggs, a quarter pound of bacon with about 50 grams of cheese. I'd have 3 or 4 lattes per day with the heaviest cream I could buy. Lunch was usually hamburger and cheese and for dinner chicken breast wrapped in bacon and cheese. Or meatballs and sourcream. The funny this is my cholesterol actually dropped on this diet as well.

      If you control your diet its very easy to hack your body to do things that on the surface seem impossible. There are lots of ways for a body to effectively burn excess calories.

    9. Re:Bogus... by Zenaku · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a perfectly valid claim, it just doens't mean that much. ANYTHING you put in your body requires calories to process. Even distilled water will cause your body to move the substance through your system and adjust the hormones that regulate hydration, and everything the body does requires energy to do. We have dozens and dozens of 0 calorie beverages which provide no nutrional value and no energy input whatsoever. In a sense, these drinks could already be marketed as "calorie burning". Consuming them takes more energy than they provide. All Coke and Nestle are doing here is creating another zero calorie drink, that happens to contain substances known to ramp up your heart rate and metabolism. In that sense, it is a calorie burning drink. What makes the marketing dishonest is merely that the drink differs from water and coke zero only in that the very small amount of calories that would be burned by drinking it is slightly higher than the very small amount that would be burned by drinking other zero cal things.

      --
      If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
    10. Re:Bogus... by mgv · · Score: 4, Funny

      Look, the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. It's calories in versus calories out and Enviga, metabolically will not let you magically burn more calories by consuming it unless it can somehow short circuit the electron transport chain or mitochondrial respiration and that is dangerous as hell.

      There is a much more simple way to lose weight - the cold water method

      Remember that a calorie is the energy used to heat one ml of water by one degree celcius. No the calories mentioned with weight loss are actually kilocalories, so 1 Kcal is the energy needed to heat 1 litre of water one degree celcius.

      So far, so good. So to lose a Kg in weight, you need to burn about 7000 calories; so you could raise 1 litre of water to a very hot temperature, or 7000 litres of water just 1 degree.

      Just as dieting is balanced, I would reccommend taking a balanced approach here. You could raise about 200 litres of water 35 degrees and that gets you over the "magic" 7000 figure here.

      How? Easy. Just take one large bath tub. Fill with water. Add ice and straw. Drink.

      Voila! An easy Kg of weight loss, no exercise required.

      Your bodies natural regulatory mechanisms will maintain your temperature at 37 degrees, and the ice will keep the water at 0 degrees, easily maintaining a >35 degree differential.

      And it doesn't get any more natural than water; no nasty chemicals involved.

      Remember who told it to you first .....

      Michael

      --
      There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
    11. Re:Bogus... by BWJones · · Score: 3, Informative

      But here is the kicker: they had both groups also engage in moderate exercise too. Why is this significant? Because I will bet you dollars to donuts that the placebo was not caffeinated!

      You should also consider that caffeine inhibits the sodium reuptake pump in the kidney which leads to a net water loss (i.e. mild diuretic).

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    12. Re:Bogus... by Compholio · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Yes, it's called the thermic effect of food or TEF and can be simplified to the following: TEF = total kcals consumed x 10% which of course means that 10% of anything you consume *might* be burned off leaving you with net positive calories. Think of it this way.... organisms eat to survive, not to lose weight.
      From reading the article it actually looks a little scarrier than "has practically no calories", it looks like the drink is a drug cocktail designed to trick your body into working harder when it doesn't need to. That might be a good thing, that might be a bad thing. I tend to think of magic drug cocktails more toward the "bad thing" end of the spectrum since we don't know what will happen in the long run.
    13. Re:Bogus... by Fozzyuw · · Score: 5, Funny
      What about celery, then?

      That's why I eat celery all the time. Celery with Ranch dressing, Celery with peanut butter, etc. It works great!

      cheer,
      fozzy

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
    14. Re:Bogus... by nelsonal · · Score: 2, Informative

      7 up is a product of Cadburry Scheppes, not Coke. It seems to be distributed by Coke bottlers in portions of the country and Pepsi bottlers in other parts leading to some of the confusion. Natural just means it comes from a plant or animal rather than typically oil. An interesting piece of this is that the chemical that gives almonds their flavor (benzaldehyde) can be extracted from nuts or created through a reaction. In either case it's the same flavoring compound, but if it's made in the lab it's pure (and artificial) if extracted it contains a small amount of hydrogen cyanide (but natural), but if you ask folks the natural one sounds so much safer. In both cases they come from a chemical plant and neither comes from an almond.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    15. Re:Bogus... by slidersv · · Score: 5, Funny

      In fact, forget the celery!

      --
      there is no issue with my network
    16. Re:Bogus... by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Feel free to check out my formal CV any time you would like..."

      That can't really be you....your Slashdot ID # doesn't appear anywhere! :-)

      --
      Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
    17. Re:Bogus... by OldeTimeGeek · · Score: 2, Funny

      I get my cellulose through wood pulp and wheat chaff. Not much difference, after all...

    18. Re:Bogus... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 4, Funny

      "It means exactly what I intended it to say..."

      In other words, you intended to say nothing, since that is what that sentence means.

      "...and you should know earning it obtained reading..."

      That does not mean anything in English. Obtain means to acquire, not require.

      Also, trying to use a double-negative is probably not what the other poster was talking about. Good job on sounding like a pretentious asshole, though.

    19. Re:Bogus... by bmongar · · Score: 2, Informative

      Calories aren't bogus just over simplified. Thermodynamics still hold true even in your body. Energy in = Energy Stored + energy out. Calories are the measure of energy.

            Changing the types of food you eat changes the way your body decides to pass/store/or burn energy. That's what all the ketonic diets are about.

            Also even after you stopped exercising and following your diet, all that time you spent exercising increased your muscle mass and therefore your base metabolism (muscle burns more calories than fat).

            But it is still true that a pound of fat gained is 3500 calories consumed and not burned or passed.

      --
      As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
    20. Re:Bogus... by WhiplashII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Since I have seen this a few times, let me clarify that a "large" calorie (the ones used in food labeling) is the amount of energy needed to raise a kilogram of water 1 degree C. So, assuming you drink a liter of water at 0 C, you burn 37 calories as your body raises the temperature of the water up to body temperature.

      So, roughly speaking, for every 100 liters of ice water you drink you lose a pound of body fat...

      --
      while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
    21. Re:Bogus... by IAmTheDave · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not to mention the heart palpitations that this caffeine/"natural caffeine" cause me. Let's make your heart pump faster! Now there's a good idea!

      --
      Excuse my speling.
      Making The Bar Project
    22. Re:Bogus... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, no! Now he's getting you to name-drop his degree, too!

      By the way, I love delicious irony in the post where he claimed to have used an expression from the 1600s to avoid sounding pompous. Isn't that about like owning a castle to avoid appearing extravagant?

    23. Re:Bogus... by Vr6dub · · Score: 2, Funny

      All that cocaine must have cost you a fortune!!!

  3. Just Ask a Scientician by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "Enviga increases calorie burning. It represents the perfect partnership of science and nature," said Dr. Rhona Applebaum, chief scientist, The Coca-Cola Company. "Enviga contains the optimum blend of green tea extracts (EGCG), caffeine and naturally active plant micronutrients designed to work with your body to increase calorie burning, thus creating a negative calorie effect. It makes this product stand out as unique. Enviga brings the benefits of green tea to the forefront in a convenient and accessible, great tasting beverage."
    Ok, so "Dr." Rhona Applebaum (a chief scientist, mind you) is quoted as saying the above. What part of that has even an ounce of scientific data in it? I didn't realize a job of a chief scientist is to relay selling points to the public.

    "Optimum blend of green tea extracts (EGCG)" ... how do you define optimum? Optimum taste? Optimum health benefits? Or have you magically optimized both of those qualities? And what the hell does Epigallocatechin do for us? Wait, don't tell me, the Chinese used it for thousands of years so it must be good. Yep, the Chinese lived forever and it was all in the green tea. Not the fact that they ate low fat diets with rice. Not the fact that I got my fudd rucked last night (1 lb. red meat burger) and then drank myself stupid. Nope, no other factors hinting at why they lived longer than I will.

    Nearly every single word on here is marketing buzz speak. Boo.

    I don't know what University Dr. Applebaum threw money at to call herself a doctor but I certainly hope I never attend it. Call me a hardass but Applebaum just lost any respect from me that 'doctor' & 'chief scientist' could have given her.

    Did anyone else notice that this sounded like a 3 am infomercial for Bowflex?
    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Who came up with this name?! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Enviga + Viagra = Senior Citizen Health Plan

  5. I've discovered a calorie burning beverage! by purpledinoz · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's called water. If this works, this will be coca-cola's greated scam.

    1. Re:I've discovered a calorie burning beverage! by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It already is their greatest scam.

      --
      Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
    2. Re:I've discovered a calorie burning beverage! by smbarbour · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They already tried that (and it actually worked).

      The realized that they could take the water they were using to make Coca-Cola, don't carbonate it or add anything to it, put it in 20 oz bottles, call it Dasani and charge the people more for it than Coca-Cola.

  6. To be drunk with by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The wagon wheel sized pizza and six candy bars.

    Coke will never be part of a healthy diet and should stop pretending.

    --
    init 11 - for when you need that edge.
  7. Interesting cans, but quite the scam... by VitrosChemistryAnaly · · Score: 5, Informative

    So here's a picture of the cans.

    On another note I can think of one beverage that is zero calories and makes you feel great. Just plain old water. I started drinking a couple liters of it a day about 2 years ago and I've never felt better. No more dehydration to make me feel sluggish and tired. That's way better than any caffiene buzz (which just exacerbates dehydration by the way). I love caffiene, but I think it's overused.

    --
    "It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
  8. Old news by not+already+in+use · · Score: 5, Funny

    We've had calorie burning coke for a while. Apparently this new product isn't as hard on the nose.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors
  9. No Pain No Gain by decipher_saint · · Score: 2, Funny

    The can weighs over 50 lbs and periodically yells slogans at you.

    "Feel the burn!"

    "Go for it!"

    And soforth.

    --
    crazy dynamite monkey
  10. does not have to be bogus... by Vario · · Score: 2, Informative

    Even without a PhD in physiology I would agree that it burns extra calories. This is however not so hard to achieve, so why should it be a marketing lie?
    You are certainly right that you have to burn more calories than you consume but why should there be no "magic" thing that increases the amount of burned calories without having so much calories itself? I think this is exactly what is happening here. Lets say the drink contains 50 calories, increases your metabolism to burn 20 extra calories per hour through caffeine, green tea or something else. After three hours this drink has the claimed "negative calorie effect".

  11. Sept of course everyone who reviewed their claims by falcon5768 · · Score: 4, Informative
    Already said a week ago it was bogus and they had faulty studies proving their claim.

    http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/enviga-fat- burning-tea-snake-oil-scam-just-as-you-predicted-2 08488.php

    Maybe if you got a few more editors there, you would have known that every other news site on the face of the internet reported AND debunked the claims over a week ago.

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  12. Re:Ride the snake? by Ingolfke · · Score: 2, Informative

    Oh YouTube how I love thee... ride the snake.

  13. Just like the DHEA scam by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Funny how, as others have mentioned, one can never get a copy of any of the supposed studies which 'prove' whatever it is the product claims. Like Kevn Trudeau and his scam or the now discredited DHEA claim, this too will be shown to be a false promise of getting something for nothing.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    1. Re:Just like the DHEA scam by 10seconds · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here is your study:

      Efficacy of a green tea extract rich in catechin polyphenols and caffeine in increasing 24-h energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans

      From the abstract: "Conclusions: Green tea has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation beyond that explained by its caffeine content per se. The green tea extract may play a role in the control of body composition via sympathetic activation of thermogenesis, fat oxidation, or both."

  14. Coca-Cola already offers a burn calories drink by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It is called ice cold Dasani (Dasani is Coca-Cola's bottled water).

    If it is ice cold then your body must burn calories to warm it up to 98.2 F / or 36.8 C (the REAL average human body temperature - 98.6 is what you get when you round 36.8C upto 37C then convert Farenhiet).

    One calorie (phyics) will raise one gram of water one degree. 454 grams = 16 ounces. So to raise 16 ounces of ice cold water from 0.8 C to 36.8 takes 36*454= 16,344 calories. But please note when talking about food, what we call a calorie is actually what a physicist calls a KILOcalorie, so we do the conversion and:

    Drinking one nearly ice cold water 16 ounce bottle of water will burn about 16 calories.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  15. Ive seen this before...... by stfvon007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Every month in wired there's an "found: artifacts from the future" picture. a few months ago it featured a soft drink product with negative calories.

    Also there is a food already available that for all intents and purposes contains negative calories: Celery

    --
    All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
    1. Re:Ive seen this before...... by IcyNeko · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is a violation of the Starfleet Temporal Prime Directive. You aren't supposed to be talking about future artifacts.

  16. Dear Coca Cola by pandrijeczko · · Score: 3, Funny
    If I may correct your advertising for one moment:

    1. Coca Cola delivery trucks are not, to my knowledge, equipped with Tesla-coil like devices capable of illuminating light bulbs by some kind of electrical induction the moment that they drive past them - even during the Christmas holiday period.

    2. Having performed an experiment with a dead goldfish and a can of Coke, I can confirm that it indeed does not, as you so like to state, "add life".

    3. I just wondered how the "Teaching The World To Sing" campaign is getting on since the heady days of the 70s? I realise that this vast undertaking will take a long time to complete but could I ask that you bump Britney Spears up the list a bit?

    Having said all that, I'm afraid I must ask that you prepare yourselves for something of a shock - after many years of analysis and experimentation I'm afraid I have to conclude that you product is nothing more than a fizzy drink.

    Kind Regards

    A. Consumer

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  17. Or even better - Diet Pepsi Slurpee by alispguru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Diet Pepsi Slurpees have been out for about three years now. A 32-ounce drink has essentially zero calories, and since it's mostly ice, it should take about 100 calories to drink one:

    900 grams of Slurpee * 80 cal/g (to melt the ice to 0 celsius) = 72000

    900 grams of Slurpee * 1 cal/g/degree * 37 degrees (to raise the fluid to body heat) = 33596

    total 105596 calories or 105 Kcal (the food calorie)

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
    1. Re:Or even better - Diet Pepsi Slurpee by gurps_npc · · Score: 2, Informative
      Your numbers assume someone eats the ice whole and exert the energy to melt the ice as well as to heat the ice. That seems a bit wierd to me. I bet most of the conversion from ice to melted water happens outside the body.

      When drinking cold water, it takes approximately 1 nutritional calorie to heat 1 ounce of water from just above the melting point of ice to body temperature.

      1 calorie per gram per degree, moveing from 0.8C to 36.8C takes 36 degrees, about 28 grams/ounce = 36*28 = 1008, /1000 to get the nutrional calories = approximately 1 calorie to heat 1 ounce of just melted water to body temperature. I rounded a bit, but just melted could be heated a bit more, so it is near the correct number.

      So for a 32 ounce drink, you only burn about 32 calories, not 105.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  18. And the sweetener is? by rs79 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I take it there's no sugar in this crap. I assume it's got Aspartame in it. This meands migraine sufferes and epileptics cant drink it.

    When diet coke came out I drank a bunch. And had a seizure. "But I'm not epileptic" says I. "You are now" says the doctor. "Aspartame is well known to aggrivate epilepsy and migrains but they wat they pushed Aspartame through the FDA was unsusual and we didn't find out till later. There will be no warning labels".

    It used to be you could look for the pink Nutra-Sweet (sic) swirl but that's gone and now you have to be really careful this crap is in everything from most gum to nearly all soft drinks whether they say diet or not: case i point that new coffee/coke drik coke makes. Sugar ana Aspartame.

    Enough already.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
    1. Re:And the sweetener is? by Aero · · Score: 2, Informative

      You may not see the NutraSweet logo anymore, but look for the PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE warning in fairly bold letters near the ingredients list. It's required (in the US) to be hard to miss, and it's a sure indicator of aspartame, provided that you take the five seconds to pick up the package and turn it over. But that's better than the 30 seconds it may take to squint your way through the ingredients list.

      --
      We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
    2. Re:And the sweetener is? by Wdomburg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not quite. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid that happens to be one component of aspartame. Almost all protein rich foods contain a fair amount of it. People with PKU typically need to cut out meat, fish, poulty, milk, eggs, cheese, legumes, nuts and so forth - not just aspartame.

      And no, phenylanine does not break down to methanol. Aspartame is a methyl ester of two amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartic acid). This can hydrolize to methanol, which is then metabolized into a trace amount of methanol. Though this sounds scary, the amount release is far below toxic levels, and in fact you get far more exposure from drinking a glass of many common juices than you do from diet soda.

      Also, the temperature aspartame breaks down is not simple 80dF. It actually varies by pH levels; at nuetral levels it doesn't break down until 86dC (or about 187dF).

    3. Re:And the sweetener is? by reverseengineer · · Score: 3, Informative
      Aspartame is more than just phenylalanine. It gets its name from being aspartyl-phenylalanine-1-methyl ester. Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are both amino acids, and are both naturally found in the human body. Phenylalanine cannot be synthesized de novo by humans, however, so it must come from dietary sources. The major role it plays in the human body is conversion to the amino acid tyrosine, from which a very wide variety of biological substances are generated, particularly neurotransmitters like dopamine and adrenaline.

      Some people, however, have the condition phenylketonuria (PKU), an inability to convert phenylalanine into tyrosine. For them, tyrosine becomes essential in the diet, and consumption of phenylalanine becomes dangerous, because phenylalanine and its breakdown products will accumulate, which can damage the brain (hence the warning on diet soda cans).

      Also of interest in the aspartame molecule is the methyl ester on the end- in the presence of heat and acid or base, the ester bond breaks to form methanol. The enzyme that begins the process of alcohol metabolism, alcohol dehydrogenase, cannot distinguish between methanol and ethanol, and so it oxidizes methanol to methanal, better known as formaldehyde. Two things to keep in mind about this process: there are other natural human metabolic processes that also produce methanol, and aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar, so there is not very much at all in diet soda. For some people, the health effects of aspartame are certainly real, and they should avoid it- in my personal case, though, I consider sugar to be more dangerous in the long run.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  19. Wrong, numerous medical studies confirm this by Frangible · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you're going to debunk someone on medical grounds, can't you at least search PubMed first?

    There have been many, many studies about green tea (which contains a lot of EGCG) and obesity. This data is years old too... EGCG being useful in obesity isn't even news. Magic? Not hardly. Yes, 2,4-DNP is still the king of obesity drugs, but it hasn't been legal since 1930 in humans for a reason.

    There are many ways to fight obesity, upregulating the metabolism is one of them. Decreasing the effeciency of processing/storing food, which results in more calories excreted in feces, is another. (think leptin signalling, hypothalamic setpoint, PPARalpha agonists, Xenical/chitosan... oh and EGCG does this with carbs) Changing behavior underlying emotional eating (low serotonin), food compulsions (neuropeptide Y), or lack of energy/desire to exercise is another. (antidepressants, stimulants) Changing hunger/fed signalling by improving leptin sensitivity/transport, insulin sensitivity, etc makes a difference too. (omega-3 fatty acids, oh and EGCG improves insulin sensitivity...)

    EGCG:
    1. Inhibits fatty acid synthase
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=164 04708&query_hl=165&itool=pubmed_DocSum
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=166 11078&query_hl=165&itool=pubmed_docsum

    2. Upgrades hypothalamic AMPK to suppress adipogenesis and induce apoptosis of adipocytes
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=162 36247&query_hl=165&itool=pubmed_DocSum
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=159 76140&query_hl=165&itool=pubmed_DocSum
    3. Increases fat oxidation, metabolism (likely through COMT inhibition and indirect gene expression)
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itoo l=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstrac tplus&list_uids=10584049
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itoo l=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstrac tplus&list_uids=10702779
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=157 38931&query_hl=165&itool=pubmed_DocSum
    http://ww

    1. Re:Wrong, numerous medical studies confirm this by BWJones · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good on you for searching Pubmed and for your mad physiology skills. However, the claim is that this product will help people to burn calories by consuming the beverage. There are lots of studies that can be made looking at hormonal modifications, protein interactions, endocrine signaling and psychological motivations. However, the fundamental argument is that by consuming this drink, you will somehow upregulate metabolism to a point where you will burn more calories than you consume. Where compounds in green tea (EGCG and caffeine) may help one to modulate physiology so that you accumulate less fat and may exercise more, the fundamental issue is that thermodynamics is not wrong. You cannot consume more calories than you burn and expect not to gain weight.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    2. Re:Wrong, numerous medical studies confirm this by Frangible · · Score: 2, Informative
      This drink has 0 calories, and provides modest thermogenesis (and perhaps other effects not immediately measurable) of 33 calories per drink in the Coke funded study. Other studies have shown about a 10% increase in metabolism for moderate consumption of "real" green tea.

      It well fits within thermodynamics. Caffeine causes lipolysis of adipose tissue, and increased cAMP levels within cells via adenosine antagonism and phosphordiatese inhibition. EGCG, among other things, is also a COMT inhibitor, preventing the breakdown of epinephrine and norepinephrine to a limited extent. Epi and NE act on alpha and beta adrenergic receptors in a synergistic fashion with the effects of caffeine to increase the rate at which mitochondria use energy. This is shown in CO2 breath analysis and temperature measurements, as well as long term studies of weight loss. So yes, quite literally, the person runs a little hotter.

      And you can expect to consume more calories than you burn and not gain weight, to a certain extent. Carbohydrates are absorbed with less than 50% efficiency, and the body is very reluctant to metabolize protein at all. And here is where another property of EGCG comes in-- it interferes with an enzyme involved in carbohydrate digestion, and further lowers the efficiency of which you metabolize carbohydrates. To a significant degree? No, not really, but it's a few less calories.

      The human body is a very complex, dynamic system. Only at the mitochondrial level does thermodynamics make sense. Psychological eating factors, nutrient partitioning, storage, excretion, and absorption all play major roles.

      Again, this drink does in fact burn calories. Hell, ice water burns calories. In neither case though, is it a significant amount of calories.

  20. Drinking cold water makes you burn calories by tizan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Any liquid that have less calories that is needed to bring its temperature to body temperature can be considered ...calorie burning... is it a significant amount of calories ? no Ah marketing... anybody willing to advertise cold water as calorie burning ?

  21. Re:tapeworms by BWJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since nobody has these parasites nowadays, these diseases are now more common.

    Tapeworms are *very* common in some areas of the world. For instance, just last week I saw the MRI of a patient with trichinosis. Parasites in the brain are a baaaad thing and not as uncommon as you might think.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  22. Flatulence by Brown+Eggs · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't know about the rest of you, but my farts already smell like bakery fresh cinnamon rolls

  23. What does it do to the bones? by AxelBoldt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Drinking coke is associated with lower bone density in women. So if you don't like the prosprect of brittle bones in old age (osteoporosis), you may want to drink something else.

  24. Re:Celery... by AndyChrist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm pretty sure the negative calories comes from the energy required to break it down so you can metabolize what energy it DOES contain. Squeezing all the juice out kind of defeats the purpose.

  25. Well, aren't you a walking argument against.... by chaboud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...post-graduate work?

    First off, your sentence is broken because you inserted "obtained" recklessly. Secondly, your position disagrees with Snopes.

    Thirdly, your use of the thermic effect of food is a bit wonky. 10% is, first off, an average estimate. Protein can cost you as much as 30%. Fat costs you very little. Secondly, TEF describes how many calories you will spend consuming the food in question. Conversely, it can be used to calculate how many calories of a given type of food one would need to recover from expenditure. What a bomb calorimeter gets from food is clearly not the same as what a human body gets from it. There are plenty of things that humans can eat that cannot sustain them calorically. Just ask Metamucil...

    Fourthly (never had to go that far before), just think about it:

    Even drinking cold water causes you to burn calories. Your body ends up doing the work to bring the water up to body temperature. How would digesting a highly fibrous water-stalk not take effort?

    Yes, celery has a few digestible kcals per stalk, but you more than outstrip that in digestion. Will those extra burned calories make a marked difference? God no, but you're still on the wrong side of the argument. Whipping out your PhD just shows how much trouble you are having defending your position. I certainly hope I never need any of your work. To be considered right in an argument, it helps to actually be right. I don't have a PhD, but if the point of getting one is to have something to wave around when you're clearly wrong, I think I'll pass.

    1. Re:Well, aren't you a walking argument against.... by BWJones · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...post-graduate work?

      Two post-docs and a current appointment as a research assistant professor. Is that good enough for you?

      First off, your sentence is broken because you inserted "obtained" recklessly.

      Typo, so sue me. This is Slashdot after all.... But the sentiment of the statement and overall construction stands.

      Secondly, your position disagrees with Snopes.

      And Snopes is the end all be all? Seriously though, there are other things like celery that we *could* eat, that will be indigestible and will cause you some effort to pass. Think dirt. To be fair, you get this though from your point on Metamucil.

      Thirdly, your use of the thermic effect of food is a bit wonky. 10% is, first off, an average estimate.

      Thus my utilization of "*might*" in the original post. One always wonders how much effort to put into a post on Slashdot for fear of going beyond many readers.

      Even drinking cold water causes you to burn calories. Your body ends up doing the work to bring the water up to body temperature. How would digesting a highly fibrous water-stalk not take effort?

      Who is saying that it is not possible to alter basic metabolism? If you cause a system to perform work without putting energy back into it, there will be a net loss, but the original point of the Coca Cola beverage being touted as "burning calories" is pretty easy to get through the system. There is no fiber to digest, right?

      Yes, celery has a few digestible kcals per stalk, but you more than outstrip that in digestion. Will those extra burned calories make a marked difference? God no, but you're still on the wrong side of the argument.

      You appear to be arguing with somebody else here as again, there is no fiber or cellulose in Energia to digest. What they are claiming is that their drink upregulates metabolism and causes one to burn more calories because you consume Energia.

      I certainly hope I never need any of your work.

      I hope that you do not either as I study the effects of retinal degenerations and how to intervene to save vision loss. If you needed my primary work, then you'd be in trouble. That said, we are developing technologies in the metabolomic space that can be applied to many other applications from cancer research to heart disease, drug development, agaronomics and defense, so perhaps you *might* need them someday? You would likely not know it, but you very well may benefit from our work.

      To be considered right in an argument, it helps to actually be right.

      Don't be an ass. You have said nothing here that is really of substance other than arguing loose points that appear to be aimed at other people statements.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  26. Yea and verily by ackthpt · · Score: 2, Informative

    True, but it is a very, very, very small amount that it burns. Calorie vs calorie is a few orders of magnitude difference.

    Forsooth! But these claimed negative calorie beverage are most likely to operate in the little-c range than the big-C range.

    500 mL of my Xtal Geezer bubble water, raised from room temp (18C) to body temp (37C), that's about 19 degrees x 500g of water = 9,500 calorie or 9.5 Calorie, about the amount of energy in one Lifesaver candy, IIRC.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  27. No it does NOT make you burn energy. by Chas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What it's doing is exactly what Caffiene already does taken in large quantities.

    It gets you wired. If you actually get up and move around to work off that sensation, yeah, you'll burn fat. DUH.

    But if you don't, and you just sit around being wired, you won't burn a damn thing. Because the drink is not altering your metabolism.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  28. Re:tapeworms by Swanktastic · · Score: 3, Funny

    Parasites in the brain are a baaaad thing and not as uncommon as you might think.

    Around 90% of French have been infected by Toxoplasma gondii, a nasty little parasite that infects the brain and is suspected to cause changes to the host's personality.

    This explains a lot.

    (Disclaimer: some facts may have been omitted to make a joke about the French)

  29. Homemade Enviga by CustomDesigned · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I make my own drink: plain, unsweetened green tea with black pepper. I drink it on my 7-mile bike ride to work while fasting. My body has no choice but to burn fat - my wife loves the result. I suspect the sugar in Enviga is the problem. Also, the proven energy burning benefits of green tea require exercise - swigging Enviga while sitting in a chair is certainly not going to help.

  30. In English by rootEToTheIPi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "We've seen a shift in consumers' attitudes toward diet and health and wellness, with more consumers seeking product choices that support active lifestyles, rather than just eliminating things from their diet"

    Potential English translations:

    1. Some people want to be healthier, so they have stopped (or limited) their consumption of coca-cola products. Now coke needs another avenue of income.

    2. Other people want to be healthier, but don't want to do it the right way, so coke needs to find a way to cash in on that.

    Myself? I just drink water and tea and juice most of the time. I avoid things like high fructose corn syrup, caffeine and elevators.

    --
    When it comes to pastry theft, I take the cake.