Are we any closer to developing some sort of pill to boost metabolism so we can consume more calories without weight gain?
Your metabolism is optimised for (and by) your specific diet. Eat less, and your metabolism will slow down. Move more and your body will need to raise the metabolism rate to accommodate your exercise. You cannot boost metabolism apart from feeding your body correctly. Rather than focus on ‘can I consume more calories and take a pill to not absorb them’, be clever and don’t eat the calories in the first place! No expensive pills and supplements!
So what should you eat? Reduce - or better, eliminate - all Ultra-processed foods, stay away sugars and grains and seed oils. This will result in you eating fewer calories, as minimally-processed foods are more satiating. You will also balance your blood sugars and reduced inflammation. Lots to learn here!
This is a fascinating topic to me in terms of health, wellness, fitness, and psychology. Why do people want to eat more calories than they need? I understand the answers of “cravings,” “comfort food,” “it’s fun,” “I enjoy it,” etc. I am looking beneath that (kind of like using the 5 “why’s?” technique). Why do we crave to do things that ultimately, in the long run, make our life, and those around us, worse?
So technically there’s a lot of drugs that exist that do boost metabolism, just by different amounts. Caffeine even has this effect. I don’t have a link to the study here but let me know and I can look for it, but consuming 400mg of caffeine per day was shown to raise a person’s base metabolism by about 80 calories per day. This is obviously not high, but stronger stimulants such as ephedrine (sold as a diet pill where I live) or adderall have a more pronounced effect. This is due to them increasing involuntary movement in the body, increasing heart rate as well as, in the case of stronger stimulants, directly triggering the release of fat into the bloodstream to prepare the body for intense exercise, basically imitating the effects of adrenaline.
mitochondrial uncouplers are basically what you asking for. But there are probably safer ways like increasing intake of calcium, vitamin D, sugars, B vitamins, quinones, lots of other nutrients. There are also some compounds like methylene blue that support certain steps in the electron transport chain