They offer testimonials and extreme “before” and “after” pictures

Testimonials, especially paid ones, are easy to obtain and often meaningless. Real science is based on research and controlled studies rather than on the results of a few satisfied customers. Do you actually know how many people who used the product lost any weight? Are the testimonials a representation of the large majority of consumers or are they isolated cases? A diet pill was recently pulled off the market for claiming “miracle results.” Further investigation revealed that only five percent of the customers using the product had actually lost any weight. The extreme results professed in their TV advertisement occurred in less than one percent of all cases and only in people who had followed a strict diet and exercise program.

While it is possible to lose large amounts of weight on a diet, there is no guarantee that the weight won’t come back as soon as the program is over.

They tell you they have discovered a secret herb/tea/powder that melts fat “like magic”

There is no magic pill. There are currently only fifteen medications approved by the FDA to treat obesity. Almost all of them act as appetite suppressant, except for Xenical, which works by preventing fat absorption in the body. “At this time, there’s no over-the-counter drug that can do the same,” says Wolff. “Despite what advertisers are telling you, the medical community is not harboring any secrets.”

Obesity is now the number two cause of preventable death in the US, rapidly closing in on tobacco, which was once considered an unparalleled crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about a thousand people died every day in 2000 of an obesity-related illness. “If there were a pill that could save even one of these people, doctors would be prescribing it,” adds Wolff.