Diet & Exercise: Forget the Magic Pill; It Takes Work
If you plan on losing weight in 2007, better not pin your hopes on a diet supplement. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Thursday that marketers of five major weight-control pills–Xenadrine EFX, CortiSlim, CortiStress, TrimSpa, and One-A-Day WeightSmart–have agreed to pay a combined $25 million in fines for overhyping the products' powers and to tone down future advertising claims. Some of the money will be used to offer refunds to duped consumers.
The deceptive ads, which ran on television, radio, and the Internet and in newspapers and magazines such as People and TV Guide, often claimed it was possible to lose 30, 50, or even 70 pounds simply by taking a pill. Some infomercials were challenged because they were presented as talk shows; other ads failed to disclose that the people featured in extravagant testimonials were paid up to $20,000 and engaged in rigorous diet-and-exercise programs, sometimes with the aid of a free personal trainer. Many of the ads implied that scientific evidence proves that the pills' "miracle" substances–hoodia gordonii and green tea extract, to name two–melt away pounds.
"The marketers made claims that the products contain breakthrough ingredients, which have been proven to cause weight loss or control weight, but the claims aren't supported by sound science," says FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. "Paying for fad science is a good way to lose cash, not pounds."
Bayer Corp., whose One-A-Day WeightSmart multivitamin contains a component of green tea, released a statement yesterday vigorously defending its claims that the substance enhances metabolism and helps users control their weight and saying that the company had agreed to a settlement "in order to expeditiously resolve a complaint." The FTC acknowledges that Bayer is not admitting that its advertising claims were unsubstantiated. FTC officials wouldn't say what was wrong with the science Bayer offered but noted that marketers that want to avoid making false claims need to consider whether the amount of active ingredient studied is similar to the amount in the product and whether the research was conducted on the same population that the advertising targets.
Consumers should realize that the diet pills and multivitamins they find lining shelves in supermarkets and health food stores are regulated differently and less stringently than prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Marketers of dietary supplements must demonstrate their products are safe and cannot make false advertising claims, but they are not required to show a health benefit as drug makers must. Recent research from the University of Connecticut shows that a third of Americans have tried a dietary supplement of unproven benefit and that 70 percent of Americans try to lose weight by following their own plans rather than consulting with a doctor.
"I know of no plant product that has been successfully shown to reduce weight," says Norman Farnsworth, an expert at the University of Illinois–Chicago who specializes in evaluating the active ingredients in herbs and other natural products.
"If you want to lose weight, focus on a healthy diet and exercise," advises Majoras. "Think about calories in and calories out."