You may not want to wear them where your less-gullible friends can see them A recent CalorieLab post offered a few tips on spotting weight-loss drugs, programs and devices that are probably fraudulent, such as boasting that the product “works for everyone” or produces “miraculous results.”
The Federal Trade Commission also offers some basic guidelines for the wary consumer, such as: Distrust anything that promises a weight reduction of more than two pounds in a week. One thing the FTC explicitly warns against is pinning your hopes on any weight-reducing substance that is supposedly absorbed into the skin, which would include a number of weight-reduction patches now on the market.
Not that the concept is crazy or impossible, mind you; an effective weight-reduction drug could be administered by absorption. It’s just that none of the patches have been shown to contain such a drug.
Instead, they are marketed with names like Ezee Slimming Patch and Be-Slim, and their typical ingredients include bladderwrack (a diet patch favorite even though there’s no evidence that it effects one’s weight or appetite), 5-HTP (an amino acid alleged to suppress the appetite), L-carnitine (makes your cells’ mitochondria just lap up the fat!), yerba mate and menthol, among other esoterica.
The only thing liable to come out weighing less is your wallet
The various patches’ claims are right out of the diet industry handbook: “stops cravings for sweets and junk foods,” “enjoy a healthier figure,” “feel more energetic than ever,” “lose weight permanently,” and the shameless come-on from Pink Patch, marketed expressly to young females, “You WILL have the hottest body and the dream life.”
As the head of Duke University’s Diet and Fitness Center told the Los Angeles Times, “The more hyperbolic the claims, the more people can quickly dismiss the product.”
The fact is, no patch on the market has been subjected to an independently conducted and published weight-loss study, a simple and inexpensive test that would have long ago been done if any of these things actually worked.
Even some of the patch makers acknowledge that they won’t be effective unless the wearer starts eating less. That being the case, the most effective application of the patch would probably be taped over the user’s mouth.
For the record, they come in packages of 15 and 30 and will run you from $1 to $1.65 per patch. At any price, say the experts, they’re a waste of money.
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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Weight-loss patches: just another skin game?