Research studies conducted under ideal conditions are one thing, but I always want to know how well something works in the real world, where conditions are not always perfect. Fortunately, my patients have enjoyed excellent results with this amazing yet simple substance. I’ve used Chitosan for years. One of my early Chitosan patients was Joan, a 40-year-old attorney from trendy Brentwood, California. Her ideal weight was 125 pounds and she was frustrated, because even though she’d been dieting conscientiously, she seemed to be stuck at 145. When I first saw her in my office she said, “I want to lose weight, but only in a healthy way. No crazy diets for me.”

Since she was already following a highly nutritious, medically safe, low-calorie diet, I felt that she just needed an extra push to get her unstuck. I prescribed Chitosan and she began losing half a pound, then 1 pound a week. “The weight just melted off me,” she later reported. “It was easy.”

I was glad to see Joan’s weight drop down to her ideal range. And I was delighted to note that the Chitosan also pushed up her “good” HDL cholesterol while driving the “bad” LDL

cholesterol down. She became slimmer and healthier simultaneously.

John, a 36-year-old entertainment personality, was also pleased with Chitosan’s fat-blocking prowess. He lived north of Sunset in Beverly Hills, the choice place to reside in the City of the Stars. “My belly’s bulging over my pants, Dr. Fox,” he said one day as he slapped his paunch. “I’ve tried following the diet you told me about, but my schedule is crazy and I’m always eating the junk they bring on the set. Can you help me?”

I measured the circumference of John’s abdomen. It was greater than the circumference of his hips. That is a shorthand way I often use for estimating that my patients are at increased risk for heart disease. You can check it out for yourself. If the measurement comes in “backwards”

(as one of my patients
phrased it), with the abdomen measurement greater than the hip measurement, it’s high time you did something about it. In John’s case, it was not only that his weight was a health problem, in his business it was an image problem, too. I got him started with Chitosan and the Fat Blocker Program, and soon he was losing weight. After a few months on the program his belly was no longer hanging over his pants, and his abdomen-to-hip ratio shrunk to .75. (This means that the circumference of his abdomen was only 75 percent that of his hips, which is a good indication that patients are safe from heart disease.)

“That did the trick,” he told me a few months later in my office, proudly showing me his newly slim waistline. “This has given me the confidence to stick to a healthy diet—forever. No more belly over the pants for me.”

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