White Kidney Bean Extract – How This Bean Can Prove Very Helpful

White beans are a protein-rich vegetable, loaded with minerals, and vitamins, and the best source of dietary fibre. By adding them to your diet it offers you a wide range of health benefits like promoting digestive health & preventing heart disease. The white beans are squared and large at the edges, not like smaller beans, like navy beans.

Among humans, kidney beans can:

• Help to burn fat reserves [R]
• Act as the weight loss drugs
• Reduce sugar & insulin spikes after the meals
• Suppress appetite

Besides, white beans have lectin phytohaemagglutinin and very high amounts of the phytohemagglutinin are quite toxic to humans, decreased concentrations will have appetite-suppressing effects. For all these reasons, white bean extract is sold under various brands as a weight loss supplement. Main white bean extract supplements include:

• Beanblock, a combination of α-amylase blocker & phytohemagglutinin
• Phase 2 (known as the Phaseolamin 2250, Starch Lite and Starch Neutralize), α-amylase blocker

Components

The main active compounds included in white bean extract are:

• Phytohemagglutinin: The lectin binds to the receptors on the intestinal lining & suppresses appetite just by influencing the release of some hormones
• α-Amylase blocker: Referred to as phaseolamin, the lectin acts as the carbohydrate blocker just by preventing the binding of the starch to enzyme, which breaks this down. It means that fewer carbohydrates will be absorbed in your body.

Action Mechanism

Carbohydrates get digested by enzymes found in the pancreas and saliva. Plants have developed many amylase blockers as their defence mechanisms against mammals and insects feeding on them. So, α-amylase found in the white beans is active against the human α-amylases. This fat and carb inhibitor will bind to the α-amylase enzyme & prevent access to starch. Thus, starch can’t get degraded and fewer sugars get absorbed by intestines.

Factors that will influence the activity of the blocker are:

• Time: The blocking activity is achieved after ten to forty minutes. But, over 120 minutes are required if pH isn’t optimal.
• pH level: The activity is highest in acid conditions.

Another active compound in white beans, phytohemagglutinin, generally binds to the inner surface of the small intestine. It triggers the release of hormones that enhance satiety and prevents the production of hormones causing hunger and suppressing appetite.

Benefits of White Bean Extract

Because commercial kidney bean extracts had very low amylase blocker activity, concentrate was developed. This broke down α-amylases from the small intestine and mouth and reduced intestinal amylase activity & starch digestion.