African mango (Irvingia gabonensis) is a fruit tree from western and central Africa whose seed extract is sold as a weight-loss supplement. Whether it helps is unproven: the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) says it has been studied in people only to a limited extent.
Also known as: Irvingia gabonensis, IGOB131.
The main trial used 150 mg of the extract IGOB131 before lunch and dinner (300 mg a day) for 10 weeks (Ngondi 2009). Trials in the 2013 review used 300 to 3,150 mg a day (ODS). These are study protocols, not a recommendation.
It is sold in the US as a dietary supplement. Under the 1994 dietary supplement law (DSHEA), FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are marketed, and the maker, not FDA, is responsible for safety and labeling. How it differs from GLP-1 medicines: semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound) are prescription drugs whose FDA labels include reducing excess body weight and keeping it off long term in adults with obesity, or with overweight and a weight-related condition, alongside diet and exercise. African mango is not an FDA-approved drug for weight loss.
What studies show: in a 10-week trial in Cameroon, 102 adults with overweight or obesity who took IGOB131 had lower body weight, body fat and waist size than those on placebo (Ngondi 2009). A 2013 systematic review found 3 trials, all reporting less weight and waist size with African mango, but all had flaws in how they were reported; the reviewers concluded the effect on weight is unproven and that it cannot be recommended as a weight-loss aid (Onakpoya 2013). ODS adds that the trials were small and short, used different doses, and were all done by the same authors.
Safety: ODS says the extract appears well tolerated but its safety has not been rigorously studied in people. Reported side effects are mostly mild: headache, trouble sleeping, flatulence and gas. One person with chronic kidney disease became dialysis-dependent after 2.5 months of African mango use (Özkan 2015). FDA warns that many products sold for weight loss, including supplements and teas, are likely to contain dangerous hidden drug ingredients, and that its public list of such products covers only a small fraction of them.
We could not find a single published half-life or time to peak for African mango that applies to a supplement dose, so we do not list one. Plant extracts are mixtures of many compounds, so no single figure would describe them.
How Dose Track handles peptides · Reconstitution calculator · Half-life calculator