What Is Guarana?
Drinks based on the extract of the berries from the guarana plant have been popular for decades in Brazil, and now the power of the guarana plant is available to consumers everywhere seeking a healthy, natural energy boost as well as an east way to trim inches of fat.
What is Guarana?
The extract that is so popular in Brazilian drinks and increasingly in health and weight loss recipes elsewhere originates on the shrub of the same name. Guarana plants are found in northern Brazil and Venezuela inside the Amazon rain forest. The plant is a small shrub that is covered in bright red fruit, and inside that fruit is the true goodness – small black seeds that are rich in caffeine and other natural substances.
The seeds of the guarana plant are used in a dried format or crushed into an extract to be taken as it or added to other food or medicinal items. While often touted as a miracle product, guarana is more akin to heavy-duty caffeine. The seeds of the plant contain roughly three times as much caffeine as a coffee bean, and that energy and other tannins and alkaloids have many benefits.
The Benefits of Guarana
In any format, guarana has substantial benefits ranging from mental alertness to colon cleansing.
- Guarana shows a terrific boost in energy far greater than coffee or even espresso. A guarana extract-based syrup can have over 350 milligrams of caffeine compared to 65-130 milligrams found in a typical cup of coffee.
- The caffeine and other natural products in guarana have been shown to increase the metabolism and aid in burning fat. Increasingly guarana is being used as a primary ingredient in many weight loss products and supplements.
- Studies have shown that using guarana can improve memory, mood and alertness. It is a popular supplement to use before tests or events where acute mental awareness is required.
- Guarana has long been considered a natural medicine for “complaints of the bowel” and can still aid in keeping your body and its most important systems healthy.
- Use of guarana can stop feelings of hunger and reduce your appetite. This aids substantially in weight loss and is why guarana is becoming a more common ingredient in weight loss supplements.
- Guarana can make you alert enough to stay up all night. In fact, guarana has become a popular, healthy substitute to the dangerous, potentially lethal methamphetamines often used at all-night parties and for those that work night shifts.
- Guarana has reputed benefits of being a natural aphrodisiac. This element meshes well with the high boost of energy and the mental alertness generated through the natural substance.