Ursolic Acid

A new answer to building muscle and burning fat?

- Pedro Van Gaalen

FOR THOSE WHO ARE PRIMARILY CONCERNED WITH ENHANCING THEIR AESTHETICS, the ultimate supplement is one that can increase the rate and efficiency with which we metabolise stored fat, while simultaneously adding muscle. While there are few products on the market that are able to achieve this, there are some that do so indirectly by helping to build muscle, which increases our resting metabolic rate and, therefore, our daily calorie expenditure.

AESTHETIC AID

However, there may be a natural compound found in apple peel, rosemary and in the Ayurveda herb known as Holy Basil, called ursolic acid, that could deliver a direct benefit on both fronts.

Also known as urson, prunol, micromerol, and malol, this compound has been found, mainly in studies conducted on mice, to both spare and increase muscle tissue, as well as increase metabolically-active brown fat. Research into the resultant effect has shown that energy expenditure increased in the mice fed ursolic acid, resulting in more calories being burned than in mice not fed the supplement.

One of the leading academics in the study of ursolic acid and its potential application in humans is Christopher Adams, M.D., Ph.D., who is the associate professor of internal medicine and a Faculty Scholar at the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center at the University of Iowa.

HEALTH BENEFITS

In one of his mice studies that looked at the effects of this compound, the findings of which were published in the journal PLoS ONE, Adams and his team determined that ursolic acid reduced obesity and its associated health problems by increasing the amount of muscle and brown fat in mice fed a highfat diet.