Revealed — how potatoes can help you lose weight

Here’s a good news for all those who fear that eating potatoes will make them fat. A study published in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research suggests that potatoes are superfoods and their extract can instead restrict weight gain when included in a diet rich in fats and refined carbohydrates.

How do potatoes help with weight loss?

According to scientists from McGill University in Canada, potato extract contains a high concentration of antioxidants called polyphenols that are also found in large amounts in fruits and vegetables. These compounds are responsible for activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme that helps the body to breakdown sugar at a faster rate, thereby boosting metabolism and preventing weight gain. The enzyme also interferes with the development of fat cells and helps reduction of fat tissue in the body.  Here are 5 other reasons to eat more potatoes or aaloo.

To determine whether or not potato extract actually increases metabolism, the researchers fed mice a diet designed to induce obesity for a period of 10 weeks. Over the weeks, the mice gradually started putting on weight. The mice fed with diet without potato extract weighed on an average 16 grams more, whereas mice that consumed the same obesity inducing diet but with potato extract weighed only 7 grams more. This indicates that the presence of potatoes in the diet played a role in preventing weight gain in those mice.

Will it help weight loss in humans?

‘We were astonished by the results,’ said Luis Agellon, one of the study’s authors. ‘We thought this can’t be right – in fact, we ran the experiment again using a different batch of extract prepared from potatoes grown in another season, just to be certain,’ Agellon explained.

Surely, potato extracts can prevent weight gain in humans as well but probably the amount of potatoes needed to induce the effect will be greater. ‘The daily dose of extract in the study comes from 30 potatoes, but of course we do not advise anyone to eat 30 potatoes a day,’ principal author of the study Stan Kubow concluded.

Although metabolism in mice and humans is quite similar, clinical trials need to be conducted to validate the beneficial effect of potatoes  in humans. Besides, the optimal dose for men and women also needs to be determined, since their metabolisms differ. Until then, eat these 10 superfoods for weight loss.

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