Raspberry ketone is the main aroma compound in red raspberries, used as a food flavoring and sold as a fat-burning supplement. There is little evidence that it helps weight loss: ODS says only one randomized trial has tested it, and that trial used a blend of many ingredients.
Also known as: raspberry ketones, 4-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2-butanone.
Supplements typically contain 100 to 1,400 mg a day, while typical diets supply only a few milligrams; the safety of supplement doses has never been tested in people (ODS, Bredsdorff 2015). The one trial used 2,000 mg a day of a blend in which raspberry ketone was one of many ingredients (ODS).
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. Raspberry ketone is not an FDA-approved drug for weight loss.
What studies show: in mice on a high-fat diet, raspberry ketone reduced food intake and body weight (ODS). The only randomized trial in people gave 70 adults with overweight a blend of raspberry ketone, caffeine, bitter orange, ginger, garlic, cayenne and other ingredients, or placebo, for 8 weeks with diet and exercise. Those on the blend lost more weight (1.9 kg versus 0.4 kg), but 25 of 70 people dropped out and results were reported only for those who finished, and the blend had too many ingredients to show what raspberry ketone did on its own (ODS, Lopez 2013).
Safety: no serious side effects were reported in that trial (ODS). Food safety researchers at the Technical University of Denmark found that toxicity data are limited to short-term rat studies, that the lowest supplement dose (100 mg) is 56 times a standard threshold of toxicological concern, and that computer models flagged possible heart and reproductive effects; they said its toxic potential should be clarified (Bredsdorff 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 raspberry ketone that applies to a supplement dose, so we do not list one.
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