{"id":127665,"date":"2010-01-02T12:01:08","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T17:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2010-01-02T12:01:08","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T17:01:08","slug":"weight-loss-patches-just-another-skin-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/127665","title":{"rendered":"Weight-loss patches: just another skin game?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>You may not want to wear them where your less-gullible friends can see them<\/h3<<br \/>\nA recent CalorieLab post offered a few tips on spotting weight-loss drugs, programs and devices that are <a href=\"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\/2009\/12\/29\/how-to-tell-when-miracle-weight-loss-products-and-programs-are-bogus\/\">probably fraudulent<\/a>, such as boasting that the product &#8220;works for everyone&#8221; or produces &#8220;miraculous results.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/features\/health\/la-he-skeptic16-2009nov16,0,7609198.story\">absorbed into the skin<\/a>, which would include a number of weight-reduction patches now on the market.  <\/p>\n<p>Not that the concept is crazy or impossible, mind you; an effective weight-reduction drug could be administered by absorption. It&#8217;s just that none of the patches have been shown to contain such a drug. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-6701\"><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s no evidence that it effects one&#8217;s weight or appetite), 5-HTP (an amino acid alleged to suppress the appetite), L-carnitine (makes your cells&#8217; mitochondria just lap up the fat!), yerba mate and menthol, among other esoterica.  <\/p>\n<h3>The only thing liable to come out weighing less is your wallet<\/h3>\n<p>The various patches&#8217; claims are right out of the diet industry handbook: &#8220;stops cravings for sweets and junk foods,&#8221; &#8220;enjoy a healthier figure,&#8221; &#8220;feel more energetic than ever,&#8221; &#8220;lose weight permanently,&#8221; and the shameless come-on from Pink Patch, marketed expressly to young females, &#8220;You WILL have the hottest body and the dream life.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>As the head of Duke University&#8217;s Diet and Fitness Center told the <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>, &#8220;The more hyperbolic the claims, the more people can quickly dismiss the product.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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.  <\/p>\n<p>Even some of the patch makers acknowledge that they won&#8217;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&#8217;s mouth.  <\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;re a waste of money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"correspondent\">(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)<\/p>\n<p>From the RSS feed of <a href=\"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\">CalorieLab News<\/a> (REF3076322B7)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\/2010\/01\/02\/weight-loss-patches-just-another-skin-game\/\">Weight-loss patches: just another skin game?<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.calorielab.com\/~ff\/calorie-counter-news?a=qSNw7krO0RI:9H4YXTJiDlc:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/calorie-counter-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/calorie-counter-news\/~4\/qSNw7krO0RI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may not want to wear them where your less-gullible friends can see them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}