Bitter Orange

With the Scientific name of “Citrus Aurantium” (may be either when examining the ingredients label.) This is the replacement ingredient for many weight loss “metabolism pills” after the ephedrine alkaloids they were using were found to be killing people. It’s found in fat loss products like ‘Miracle Burn.’

The irony is that both ephedrine and citrus aurantium work, after a fashion, as a weight loss pill. It’s just that they accomplish this feat by ripping up your heart. You lose weight, die, and then lose even more weight.

Of course, it is a “natural” way to cause vasoconstriction and a racing resting heart beat which brings me to my own pet peeve. The “Natural is good” vs. “Artificial is bad” assumption. Arsenic is perfectly natural but I’m not about to start taking it as a supplement. Insulin injections are artifical, but if my type II ever gets that bad I’ll get over my dislike of needles pretty damn quick.

So sure, the Chinese were taking bitter orange hundreds of years ago to cure everything from indigestion to the wonderfully named anal patosis. (Imagine a Harry Potter spoof with the incantation, “Anal Patosis!”) But the Chinese didn’t have a western diet causing coronary disease and besides, people back then didn’t have enough food or live long enough to get arteriosclerosis like we do anyway. And I’m sure most of them would be perfectly happy to swap with any of us for their ‘natural lifestyle’, especially since most of them died before thirty.

Bottom line to me, stay away from Bitter Orange like the plague if you don’t want to die of a coronary.