Eleuthero Root, often referred to as Siberian Ginseng has been getting a fair bit of traction recently in the supplement industry. Largely down to claims around its ability to improve workout performance and help with weight loss.

Unfortunately, the verdict is still out on this one, most of the studies are a little bit sketchy, even in terms of the workout performance, which is more well backed than it’s effects on weight loss. As for the weight loss evidence, there’s some, but we are talking about in vitro or lab sample studies rather than anything that’s been evidenced to actually work in a real life environment. And unfortunately, most studies like this don’t translate well to a real life setting. Even still we’ll get into the evidence that is there for Eleuthero root and weight loss.

Eleuthero Root And Exercise

Of course, if it does turn out that Eleuthero can improve workout performance, it would indeed improve weight loss. If you work out more efficiently, you burn more calories. Which is a relatively straightforward point. So, the studies we do have here are positive, although a lot are still in animals, for example muscle tissue did develop faster in rats supplemented with eleuthero than exercise alone. [1]

In terms of human studies the most often cited one was in regards to cyclists, who supplemented for 8 weeks and saw an increase in their cardiovascular performance and their VO2 max. [2]

There are a few similar studies that have results that match up, suggesting that it probably does have some benefit for this, but not enough for us to say conclusively especially as we mentioned there are some issues with the studies. For example, most are on already trained men and relatively small sample sizes. The study above only had 9 participants and is the most commonly cited on the topic.

Eleuthero and Weight Loss

So, aside from the potential to raise performance during work outs, does Siberian ginger do anything for weight loss.

Well possibly. There are some studies in laboratory settings that show it can speed up the breakdown to fat and improve it’s conversion into energy. [3] But, the only human study was on a mixed drink containing eleuthero and it was combined with other more well researched weight loss aids. [4]

Last up, there is a study which suggests that Eleuthero can have a minor impact on raising testosterone in males [5]. It was tested against Panax Ginseng, which is a more well known supplement for this. And it did show a minimal uplift, which could in turn help with fat loss in men.

Eleuthero Weight Loss Conclusion

All in all there’s some evidence to suggest Eleuthero could have a minor effect, and some albeit limited evidence it could help with exercise performance. However, there are far more robustly studied herbal extracts for both of these functions.

References

1 - Mohammed, Z., Allouh. (2011). Effect of Ferula hermonis root extract on rat skeletal muscle adaptation to exercise.. Experimental Biology and Medicine,  doi: 10.1258/EBM.2011.011164

2 - Kuo J, Chen KW, Cheng IS, Tsai PH, Lu YJ, Lee NY. The effect of eight weeks of supplementation with Eleutherococcus senticosus on endurance capacity and metabolism in human. Chin J Physiol. 2010 Apr 30;53(2):105-11. doi: 10.4077/cjp.2010.amk018. PMID: 21793317.

3 - Hashimoto T, Okada Y, Yamanaka A, Ono N, Uryu K, Maru I. The effect of eleutherococcus senticosus on metabolism-associated protein expression in 3T3-L1 and C2C12 cells. Phys Act Nutr. 2020 Sep;24(3):13-18. doi: 10.20463/pan.2020.0016. Epub 2020 Sep 30. PMID: 33108713; PMCID: PMC7669464.

4 - Alfaifi FF, Alghamdi AM, Al-Omarani B, Dawaji EH, Aljabry H, Al-Gayyar MM. Comprehensive Study of Scientific Evidence and Potential Risk of Herbal Medicine Use for Body Weight Reduction in North West Saudi Arabia. Cureus. 2020 Oct 11;12(10):e10903. doi: 10.7759/cureus.10903. PMID: 33062460; PMCID: PMC7555612.

5 - Gaffney BT, Hügel HM, Rich PA. The effects of Eleutherococcus senticosus and Panax ginseng on steroidal hormone indices of stress and lymphocyte subset numbers in endurance athletes. Life Sci. 2001 Dec 14;70(4):431-42. doi: 10.1016/s0024-3205(01)01394-7. PMID: 11798012.