Research

Mixed

Native inulin supplementation (16g/day) combined with dietary advice to consume inulin-rich vegetables promotes greater weight loss and metabolic improvements in obese patients compared to placebo, but this efficacy is significantly compromised by concurrent metformin treatment.

If you are obese and not taking metformin, adding 16g of native inulin daily (starting with 8g for the first week) along with eating more inulin-rich vegetables (like garlic, onions, and artichokes) and eating 30% fewer calories can help you lose more weight and improve metabolic markers than just dieting alone. However, if you are already taking metformin, this specific supplement may not offer the same benefits, so discuss this with your doctor before starting.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The prebiotic induced greater weight loss and additionally decreased diastolic blood pressure, AST and insulinemia. Metformin treatment compromised most of the gut microbiota changes and metabolic improvements linked to prebiotic intervention.
Sophie Hiel et al. · Clinical Nutrition · 2020

Why this rating

Randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial with 150 participants, though the primary outcome was microbiota, secondary outcomes showed significant clinical differences.

Source

Link between gut microbiota and health outcomes in inulin -treated obese patients: Lessons from the Food4Gut multicenter randomized placebo-controlled trial

Sophie Hiel et al. · Clinical Nutrition · 2020

DOI 10.1016/j.clnu.2020.04.005

rct · n=150Cited 167×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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