A West Sussex mother-of-four who struggled with weight gain after the menopause has lost more than two stone after taking a natural dietary supplement instead of prescription drugs.
Emma Hackett, 54, weighed 14 stone and had a body mass index of 32.6, putting her in the obese range, when she stepped on the scales during a health check last September. At five feet and five inches tall, the assistant manager had found it increasingly difficult to manage her weight after turning 50.
"When I had my children, I tried Weight Watchers and a 'keto' low-carb, high-fat plan," Hackett said. "But even though I lost weight and was pleased with it, I couldn't keep it off. Once I hit 50, it became very difficult to lose any weight at all. None of the things that I used to do worked and my weight was just going up and up."
After seeing the dramatic transformations achieved with prescription drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, Hackett considered joining the estimated 1.6 million adults in Britain using weight loss medication. But concerns about potential side effects put her off.
Plant-based alternative
While searching online for other options, she came across Elcella, a £160-a-month dietary supplement developed by scientists at Queen Mary University of London.
Its makers claim a combination of linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil, along with coconut oil and coconut-derived medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil stimulates the gut to release GLP-1 and peptide YY. These hormones are involved in signalling fullness to the brain, helping users eat less.
The premise is superficially similar to the mechanism exploited by blockbuster weight loss drugs, although the products themselves are very different. Mounjaro and Wegovy are prescription medicines that act directly on hormone receptors and have been tested in large clinical trials.
Elcella, by contrast, is sold as a food supplement and can be bought without a prescription. There is not yet comparable evidence that taking it produces substantial, sustained weight loss.
Hackett began taking Elcella in November and said virtually nothing happened for the first two months.
"By January, I noticed I had lost a good few pounds," she said. "The difference was quite subtle. But then suddenly, I noticed I had stopped snacking."
Lifestyle overhaul
At around the same time, however, Hackett made significant changes to both her diet and activity levels.
Previously, although she ate a largely vegan diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, she regularly grazed on bags of crisps while watching television. She cut back on ultra-processed foods, replacing them with meals based around foods such as oat bran, pulses and beans.
She also began walking two miles four or five times a week, including hikes in Derbyshire, and started strength training twice a week.
By April, she had lost another stone.
Because of the simultaneous changes, it is impossible to know how much, if any, of Hackett's weight loss was caused by Elcella rather than her new lifestyle habits.
There is another complication: in May, after six months on the supplement, Hackett stopped taking Elcella. She continued losing weight regardless.
By the end of July she was down to 12 stone, and today weighs 11 stone 12 pounds, more than two stone below the weight recorded at her health check last September.
Clinical claims
Hackett nevertheless believes taking Elcella helped her break her old eating habits.
"Even after I've stopped taking Elcella, I haven't been snacking as much," she said. "I've been quite regimented with my mealtimes and in the evening, I'll have a square of dark chocolate rather than sitting with a big packet of crisps."
Elcella claims that in its clinical studies, people taking the supplement cut their calorie intake by 18 per cent and lost an average of one stone and one pound in 12 weeks, with no side effects reported.
Dr Madusha Peiris, the supplement's inventor from Queen Mary University of London, said: "The tragedy of obesity is that you lose much of your ability to tell when you're full.
"But we found a combination of nutrients that triggers hormones that control appetite, so you eat less and lose weight."
However, experts point out that Elcella has not undergone the large-scale, independent, gold-standard clinical trials that would be needed to establish whether the supplement itself causes significant and sustained weight loss.
That distinction is particularly important in cases such as Hackett's, where taking the supplement coincided with substantial changes to diet and exercise.
Previous products marketed as "natural" weight loss aids have frequently failed to live up to their claims when subjected to rigorous testing. Furthermore, simply believing a treatment will suppress appetite may influence eating behaviour, making it difficult to disentangle any biological effect of a supplement from changes in habits and expectations.
"It's great to hear that someone found one of these natural supplements helped them with weight-loss, but one person's story is not the same as evidence from a medical trial involving thousands of patient," said Dr Philippa Kaye, a London-based general practitioner.
"It's also important that patients always speak to their GP or pharmacist first before taking a new supplement."
For Hackett, the distinction matters less than the result.
"I'm more confident in the clothes I wear and I'm much happier now I've lost the weight," she said. "It's something my friends and family have noticed and commented on.
"To me, it's much better than doing a fad diet. It's more about changing your lifestyle, which is a much better way of going about it."
