From Consumer Reports

Well before the government's year-end announcement that it would ban the diet herb ephedra, the supplement industry began marketing supposedly safer "ephedra-free" weight-loss products.

Two of the most widely used replacement ingredients, bitter orange and green tea extract, have not been shown to be safe and effective weight-loss aids. Here's what you need to know about them:

Bitter orange. Also known as Citrus aurantium, it may show up on labels as green orange or neroli oil. It's a featured ingredient in Stacker 2 Ephedra-Free and Twinlab's Diet Fuel Ephedra Free, among many others.

The active ingredient in bitter orange is synephrine, a close chemical cousin of ephedra and mimics ephedra's side effects: constriction of blood vessels and an increase in heart rate. Experts fear that as such, it could cause the same kinds of problems as ephedra: heart arrhythmias, anxiety, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

These problems may be even more likely when bitter orange is combined with ingredients that contain caffeine, such as guarana and green tea extract.


Green tea extract. This ingredient contains chemicals called catechins, which exaggerate the effects of bitter orange and ephedra. Some preliminary evidence suggests that green tea may help treat obesity. But too much, especially when combined with other stimulants, can cause jitters, headaches, insomnia, gastroinestinal upset, and possibly worse problems.