Cracking down on questionable diet pills
As the average American waistline expands under the weight of our country's obesity epidemic, millions of plump consumers seek quick ways to shed their excess pounds. The fever to look thin has spawned a decades-old, multibillion-dollar diet-pill and weight-loss industry, in which questionable products often masquerade as the newest medical breakthrough.
The most recent alleged example, Xenadrine EFX, drew the scrutiny of Federal Trade Commission lawyers this month for fraudulent advertising claims. The commission filed a complaint saying the dietary supplement, a mixture of green tea extract, yerba mate, and bitter orange, doesn't cause the "unbelievable" and "clinically proven" weight-loss effects touted so frequently on TV and in magazines like People, TV Guide, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Men's Fitness.
Quite the contrary, the FTC says placebo pills in one clinical trial caused more weight loss than the drug. Over the 10-week study, commissioned by Robert Chinery, president of the company that makes Xenadrine EFX, subjects taking Xenadrine EFX lost an average of only 1.5 pounds, whereas subjects in the placebo control group lost an average of 2.5 pounds. (Because the case is still in trial, FTC officials would not release the study to U.S. News.)
Supposedly satisfied customers, who claimed in advertisements to have lost anywhere from 20 to 110 pounds while on the pills, actually "engaged in rigorous diet and/or exercise programs in order to lose weight, and some were provided with a personal trainer," according to the complaint. The FTC says that Chinery's company paid some of these Xenadrine EFX users $1,000 to $20,000 for their endorsements, chump change compared with the roughly $160 million consumers have paid for Xenadrine EFX since its debut in 2002.
In the past, the FTC has uncovered fraudulent "slimming insoles" that caused the body to burn stored fat when placed in each shoe and chromium chewing gum that caused weight loss without diet or exercise. This past April, the government agency also filed a complaint against the marketers of a cream that claimed to cause permanent weight loss when rubbed on the body.
"We require that marketers be able to substantiate their claims about a particular product," says FTC lawyer Peter Miller. "If it sounds too good to be true, you should trust your instincts."
The real cure for weighty thighs and bulbous hips doesn't require fancy medications, just discipline, according to the FTC.
"We know that diet, exercise, and behavior modification are most effective means of achieving weight loss," Miller says.
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