**3. Results**

The study sample consisted of 80 participants from the United Arab Emirates University, aged 18–50 years with a mean age of 25.51 ± 9.5 years, mean BMI of 33.9 ± 5.4, and with 62.3% being female. Nineteen participants dropped out of the study due to poor treatment compliance, with 61 ultimately completing the 12-week intervention. Dropouts were largely due to failure to take prescribed GA or placebo, or failure to present for follow up testing. The control group consisted of 30 participants, and the experimental group 31 (Figure 1). There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between groups (Table 2).

**Figure 1.** Summary of study recruitment.





After 12 weeks of GA treatment, the experimental group showed significant decreases in both systolic (*p* = 0.008) and diastolic blood pressure (0.009), as well as fat free mass (*p* = 0.03), with no intragroup difference in the control group. No significant inter- or intragroup differences were observed in BMI, waist circumference, or body fat between baseline and week 12 (Table 3).

**Table 3.** Changes in physical characteristics for study population after 12 weeks.


#### \**p* = < 0.05.

#### *3.1. Diet and Physical-Activity Assessment*

After 12 weeks of GA treatment, the intervention group showed a decrease in carbohydrate (*p* = 0.008) and calorie (*p* = 0.014) intake and an increase in dietary fiber consumption (*p* ≤ 0.001), with no intergroup change in the controls (Table 4). There were also intergroup differences in carbohydrate (*p* = 0.004) and dietary-fiber (*p* ≤ 0.001) consumption at 12 weeks. The intervention group also showed a trend toward lower energy intake compared to controls after 12 weeks; however, this did not reach significance (*p* = 0.069). There were no inter- or intra-group changes to physical activity parameters either in fat or protein consumption (Table 4).

**Table 4.** Dietary and physical-activity characteristics of the study population.


1Standard Error, \* *p =* <0.05.

## *3.2. Biochemical Assessment*

After 12 weeks of GA treatment, the intervention group had significantly decreased in fasting plasma glucose (*p* = 0.046), with the control group showing no change; however, there was no difference between the groups at the endpoint (*p* = 0.101). There were no changes to HbA1c or blood lipid profile in either group (Table 5).


\* *p =* <0.05.

#### *3.3. Bowel Movement*

The intervention group reported significant reductions (*p* = 0.005) in bloating and improvement in bowel movement (0.047) compared to the control group. Although there were no statistically significant differences in abdominal pain, better digestion, or reduction in nausea, the intervention rate responses were almost double those of the control group (Table 6).

**Table 6.** The effect of GA on the bowel movement at week 12 in the Control and Intervention Groups.


\* *p =* <0.05.

#### *3.4. Feeling of Satiety*

One hour after taking the GA treatment, the participants in the intervention group showed a significant increase in appetite score (reflective of a decreased appetite) compared to controls receiving the placebo treatment (*p* = 0.01) (Table 6).
