Let’s face it, trying to lose weight is no picnic, but instead a battle of epic proportions.

To win that battle, you need as many helpers in your corner as possible. But while many people are reaching for GLP-1 drugs, better known by brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy, you may want to think twice about reports of serious side effects that are stacking up.

Luckily, scientists have identified one more helper in the weight loss battle — an anti-obesity antioxidant that actually blocks fat accumulation and can keep even a high-fat, high-calorie diet from packing pounds onto your body.

PQQ: an antioxidant powerhouse

The antioxidant is known as pyrroloquinoline quinone or PQQ for short.

It’s one that’s been found to lower heart failure risk and help rescue a fatty liver.

It’s also known as a “longevity” nutrient due to its ability to improve the function of the body’s cellular powerhouses — mitochondria.

And that effect on the mitochondria is just one of the ways scientists say PQQ can help you slim down.

Battling the bulge

The scientists pitted PQQ against a high-fat or high-calorie diet in a mouse model.

They found that PQQ:

• Significantly attenuated (reduced) both the total body fat and visceral fat volume in the abdominal region of the mice.
• Blocked body fat accumulation under both high-fat and high-calorie consumption conditions.
• Suppressed lipogenesis (the process by which fat forms) in adipocytes, the body’s fat cells.
• Promoted mitochondrial biogenesis (in other words stimulated the body to produce more mitochondria).

So what does that all mean?

PQQ actually kept fat from being formed (even during consumption of what amounts to a fast food diet).

It stopped pounds from being packed on around the middle and kept visceral fat low. That’s the kind of fat that is stored in your abdominal cavity, wraps around your organs and raises your risk of serious disease.

In fact, in a follow-up paper published in 2023, the same researchers stated that PQQ has the potential to treat numerous metabolic disorders including diabetes. PQQ influences insulin signaling via multiple pathways and increases glucose absorption.

Boosting your PQQ

I don’t know about you, but my immediate thought was “Give me some PQQ.”

So where can you get the antioxidant? PQQ is found in a number of fruits and veggies, such as:

• Spinach
• Celery
• Green peppers
• Papaya
• Kiwi

And if you like liver, it’s also a good source of PQQ.

However, the truth is that PQQ is one of those nutrients that can be a challenge to get enough of through diet alone.

That’s why I mentioned supplementing earlier. Fortunately, it’s become popular in the supplement industry where its strong potential as a potent therapeutic nutraceutical has been recognized.

Supplementing PQQ is considered safe and, as an ingredient, it meets all the USA-FDA “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS) requirements.

Sources:

Pyrroloquinoline Quinone Attenuates Fat Accumulation in Obese Mice Fed with a High-Fat Diet, Daphnia magna Supplied with a High Amount of Food, and 3T3-L1 Adipocytes – ACS Publications

Pyrroloquinoline-quinone to reduce fat accumulation and ameliorate obesity progression – Frontiers Journal Molecular Biosciences

Pyrroloquinoline-Quinone Is More Than an Antioxidant: A Vitamin-like Accessory Factor Important in Health and Disease Prevention – Journal Biomolecules