Losing weight ranks as one of the top New Year's resolutions each year, with many frustrated dieters looking for fast fixes to shed pounds.

Television and magazine ads promote revolutionary diet pills, miracle patches, and magic potions that guarantee quick and easy weight loss with little or no effort.

In the end, however, most of these products are ineffective and aren't worth the colorful bottles and boxes they come in.

But according to scientific research, as well as rave reviews from real-life success stories published on blogs and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, there may be at least one product that lives up to the hype: African Mango.

The exotic fruit from the rainforests of Cameroon, Africa, has been used for centuries among African villagers as a slimming and health-enhancing aid. New lab research shows an extract from the fruit may inhibit body fat production through effects on certain genes and enzymes that regulate metabolism.

By the end of the study, subjects taking the African Mango extract lost an average of 12.3 pounds and 2 inches of dangerous abdominal fat within only 28 days, without additional diet or exercise.

Mom of Three Drops 33.5 Pounds in 6 Months

Among those who say African Mango delivers where other products fail is Tiffany Waterson, a 30-year-old mother of three from St. Petersburg, Florida, who says she'd been trying to lose weight for years but with no success.

"I have struggled with my weight over the past years," says Waterson. "I gained 40 pounds with my last child, and I was already 25 pounds overweight. So when I only lost 20 pounds of weight I had gained with that pregnacy, I then was 55 pounds overweight."

Waterson says she tried dozens of different diets, and diet pills, but to no avail.

"I might have lost a few pounds, but it would always come back," she says. "So I gave up and then one day I was on this website www.cw44.com and they had a thing about the Top 5 Diets out there, so I clicked on the #1 African Mango and read all about it and said what the heck, I'll give it a try and ordered some."

Waterson says she began seeing results almost immediately, from the increased energy to the looser jeans. And after just six months of taking the capsules, she lost a total of 33.5 pounds of bodyfat.

"All I have done is take the pills like the bottle says and drink plenty of water, and I don't eat past 8 p.m.," says Waterson. "I still eat what I have always eaten, just smaller portions. And now to tone my body up I'm doing light exercise, and I am loving my new body."

Arizona Woman 'Can't Believe' Weight Loss Results

Another skeptic turned true believer is Leslie Kent from Tucson, Arizona. Kent says she, too, has long struggled with her weight only to find disappointment with each new diet and weight-loss product she tried. That is, until she discovered African Mango.

"I went swimming yesterday—the third time in three weeks—and put on my very tight bathing suit... and for the first time, I was not totally repulsed anymore at the way I looked in the mirror!" says Kent. "I actually looked reasonable, and I don't really understand it." 

She credits her weight-loss breakthrough to African Mango.

"Something has changed," she says, "and it's not just going to the gym for three weeks. It takes, as we all know, absolutely forever to lose belly fat, if it ever happens. It must be the African Mango I am taking; I really can't believe this — how a little piece of fruit, in a little pill, could do anything for me in three weeks. I haven't even been taking it as often as I should or the right way.

"I just can't believe it," she continues. "I really seem to be able, maybe, to get the body I've always wanted in the shortest amount of time humanly possible."