I have long been on the anti-supplement band wagon for a couple of reasons. 1) I don’t like to be scammed and 2) There isn’t any science-based evidence to support the use of the vast, vast majority of supplements.
Over at the web site www.ScienceBasedMedicine.org there is a whole lot of debunking going on, and nobody does it better than the SMB Crew. In the past week SBM has posted stories debunking the claims that Collagen can be taken for joint pain and that Hoodia is an effective weight-loss supplement.
If you want to just skip over my “layman’s” review and click on over to SBM be my guest, as the authors of those posts provide exhaustive research to back up their conclusions. Also, they are much smarter than I am.
For those of you who don’t want to do a lot of reading and sift through facts and research papers, I will give you a clear and concise summary of the SBM posts.
Collagen has been a popular supplement used in the effort to ease joint pain for those who suffer with arthritis. Genacol is an over-the-counter supplement that claims to be, “Scientifically proven to reduce joint pain.” According to SBM author Scott Gavura, since no other product has been able to deliver this kind of result, he looked into the science used by the Genacol people to support this claim.
In an unsurprising nutshell, he found no science. Like I said, if you want to read for yourself, be my guest. But Gavura does a great job of giving us a review of the role of collagen in the human system. In case you didn’t know, collagen accounts for about 25% of our body mass and is a major ingredient of what makes up our connective tissue, and is found in skin, muscles and tendons. Having a lack of collagen is bad, but for those people who have this problem, eating collagen – which is a protein – doesn’t help.
When we ingest collagen, it gets broken down into amino acids so the body can absorb them. The bottom line is that your body doesn’t know or care if you ate collagen or any of the other sources of collagen. So there’s no reason to believe the claims that a collagen supplement will do anything for you. The research is lackluster. Read Gavura’s piece to get a real meaty analysis of the data.
The “hoodia-doesn’t-do-anything” article was written by Harriet Hall, an MD who writes about Complimentary and Alternative Medicine and all-things quackery. A while back I wrote about hoodia, and that we shouldn’t believe the hype based on the science and the nonsensical anecdotal stories of this substance’s effectiveness. I also wrote of the problem of determining just how much – if any – hoodia is contained in a given supplement.
Hoodia seemed like a dead issue years ago, so I was surprised to see an article crop up re-reviewing the problems with this supposed weight loss supplement. Hall does a great job of dispelling the myths associated with hoodia and cuts through the nonsense used by the hoodia-hucksters. Hall’s piece is recommended reading for those of you who are unfamiliar with the problems associated with this product.
Over the past several years hoodia in all of its various forms – also known as hoodia gordonii – has been hailed as the magic bullet of weight loss supplement that may help end the problem of obesity. My dear friends, this is pure nonsense.
Hoodia and hoodia gordonii comes from a cactus that grows in South Africa and has been seized upon by dietary supplement hucksters as the weight loss panacea of the 21st Century, a substance that can help us in the fight against obesity, despite the fact that there isn’t a shred of real evidence to back up these outlandish claims.
This point bears repeating and needs to be emphasized: Whether it be hoodia diet pills or the hoodia patch, not one reliable, legitimate scientific study has been performed to study if hoodia can suppress appetite which leads to weight loss. Hoodia will do nothing in the face of the obesity epidemic.
The way that hoodia has been marketed illustrates just how laughably pathetic nutritional supplement companies can be. As an example, today I received a spam email from one of these hoodia gordonii pushers that included a link to an old NBC Today Show clip that talked about the supplement. By the way, I would love to get a specific hoodia spam filter; it would help to keep my inbox way less cluttered. Anyway…
After the report that touts the purported benefits of hoodia, Katie Couric performs an in-studio interview with Madelyn Fernstrom, a woman who works in the University of Pittsburgh Weight Management Center.
During this interview Ms. Fernstrom talks about all of the reasons that hoodia gordonii, whether it be hoodia pills or the hoodia patch, won’t work and certainly won’t help reduce obesity.
So a company that sells hoodia provides us with access to an independent report that says that their product DOES NOT work in the effort to sell us this hoodia, and people are still buying it.
People, wise up and get with the program!
The major reason why hoodia doesn’t work is that hoodia diet pills are made from parts of this cactus that are ground up into a powder, mixed with filler and put into a pill form. Even if the raw hoodia cut right from the cactus did work, there’s no reason to believe that drying it up into a powder and mixing it with other non-hoodia gordonii substances and putting it into a pill form will work.
Powdered fruits and vegetables don’t offer the benefits of the real thing, so why would hoodia?
And then there’s the matter of dosage. Since there are no controls over these kinds of supplements, there is no way that anybody knows how much hoodia is needed to provide benefits, if there are even benefits.
There is also the matter of counterfeit hoodia. The cactus that produces the hoodia is not only rare, but is on a protected species list in South Africa. As a result, hoodia exporters need a special export license to sell hoodia gordonii powder. There have been many stories detailing how unscrupulous hoodia brokers have forged this document so that they can sell phony hoodia or diluted hoodia. Recently investigations have uncovered that many brands of hoodia contain little if any real hoodia powder.
So here’s the rundown. No scientific evidence, expert opinions say that hoodia doesn’t work, even if raw hoodia did work the powdered version won’t, no effective dosage indication and the possibility that there isn’t even hoodia in the hoodia pills.
The bottom line is stay away from hoodia gordonii diet pills and the hoodia patch.
Acai berry is the latest, hottest supplement. In an industry that’s big on hype and small on performance, the acai berry is the latest in a long line of weight loss supplements that won’t live up to weight-loss marketing claims.
The acai berry craze has picked up where the hoodia craze left off. Hoodia, derived from a cactus found in the Kalahari Desert, is supposed to stave off hunger and miraculously help people lose weight. People bought hoodia in droves based on an amateurish feature spot on the television show, “60 Minutes,” some good Public Relations, a lot of hype and hundreds of Internet-based hoodia hucksters.
To get more details check out my review of hoodia that was posted here last year.
Back to the acai berry. Scammers, working the lucrative weight-loss scheme, have hijacked this product of Amazon jungle palm trees that shows promise as an anti-oxidant. Fake blogs, fake testimonials and dishonest advertising, marketing and business tactics are indications that the weight-loss claims made by acai berry baristas are baseless.
To make matters worse, some unscrupulous acai berry scammers claim that Oprah Winfrey has endorsed the acai berry as an effective weight-loss supplement. Winfrey’s legal representatives say she has not endorsed the acai berry and is not affiliated with any company that sells the supplement. Why does anyone listen to Oprah and her counter-productive and destructive tidbits of healthy living advice anyway? But that’s another story for another blog post.
The legitimate scientific data that points to the acai berry’s efficacy deals with its anti-oxidant properties and there’s little, if any, data that indicates acai has any weight-loss properties. But this hasn’t stopped marketers from distorting scientific data and making all kinds of claims that the acai berry can do everything from prevent cancer to inducing weight-loss. Others have claimed the acai to be some kind of “superfood,” a designation that has imbued the berry with mystical powers.
The term “superfood” is just marketing and is invariably used by people looking to make a buck and if the acai berry really had potent weight-loss powers there would be no need to market this supplement in such a dishonest manner.
All things considered, you could do a lot worse than take the acai berry, as it possibly provides some benefit, unlike hoodia. From the legitimate research that has been done the acai may have some anti-oxidant properties, and if you can get the genuine product and don’t mind spending the money, that’s your call.
However, if you’re looking for the acai berry to help you lose weight you are better off keeping your money in your pocket.
