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Monday, January 8, 2007
Claim: Pills the answer to weight loss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recently, the FTC reached a settlement with four major pill makers making false claims about weight loss results. The four distributors are TrimSpa, Xenadrine, CortiSlim, and One-A-Day WeightSmart. The settlement came to the total of $25 million dollars. According to the FTC, the money will be used for refunds. There are a few lessons that you can learn from this.
Lesson number one, never believe the claims that any supplement maker has about it’s own product. These “pill-makers” basically made unsubstantiated claims of dramatic weight loss. They made these claims based upon “studies” that they did with participants using their product. The makers of CortiSlim even went as far as to claim that their product prevented osteoporosis and cancer (just to name a couple).
Lesson number two, never trust that any weight loss remedy is the real reason for the weight loss. Xenedrine EFX makes a fine example of this. From what the FTC gathered, the weight loss that was achieved was from diet and exercise modification (go figure).
Lesson number three, don’t fall victim to anything that claims to improve metabolism. In the case of One-A-Day WeightSmart (created and distributed by Bayer), they have a component in it’s product called EGCG. Most of you don’t know what that is or where it comes from (comes from green tea), however, because it is something you’ve never heard of you may think it works. Fact is, it has never been proven to work in unbiased, controlled studies. Something to keep in mind is that nearly all of these products and one’s similar to it, usually contain caffeine or some other stimulate (remember the now banned ephedra). Now, they may also contain synephrine, gugglesterones, yohimbe, and other things you can’t pronounce and have no conclusive evidence to help you burn fat.
Main lesson: Don’t believe anything that promises you to lose weight quick and easy without consequences. Believe it or not, the makers of these products aren’t always telling the truth. People have literally killed themselves taking pills. Many, such as fen phen, were even prescribed. (Another lesson, don’t believe it’s safe because it’s “doctor recommended” or prescribed). As noted above, if you want to lose weight (body fat), you must engage in a proper diet and you must exercise. These pills will ultimately, in the long run, screw up your metabolism, hormone production, and mental function. A wonderful website for you to learn about the effects of diet pills and diets, go to www.ChaseFreedom.com.
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