Acai Scam Settlement
Attorney General Reaches National Settlement with Dietary Supplement Company
~ Companies marketed Acai berry supplements, among others ~
TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his office has reached a national settlement with an internet-based company that markets non-prescription dietary and health supplements. The settlement resolves allegations that the company, Aton Solutions, and its subsidiaries were offering free trials of their products, including Acai berry supplements, but customers were unable to cancel their subscriptions before being billed. Since the Attorney General began investigating, Aton has made nearly $10 million in customer refunds nationwide.
Palm Beach County-based Aton Solutions and subsidiaries GIC LLC, SFL Nutrition LLC, Globalnet Pharmacies LLC and Glades Distribution Services LLC offer 15-day free trials of several products, but the trials triggered an automatic subscription and customers had to cancel the subscriptions before the end of the trial so they would not be billed for the products. The Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division received thousands of complaints from consumers and opened an investigation in December 2008.
According to the complaints filed with the Attorney General’s Office, customers claimed they were unable to contact the companies by telephone, e-mail or through the company’s websites to cancel future orders under the terms of the free trial offer. As a result, thousands of consumers were continuously billed a monthly fee of $80 or more for products that they neither ordered nor wanted.
Under the settlement, Aton Solutions and its subsidiaries will openly describe all terms and conditions of any trial offer located on the company’s website and will clearly disclose how and when products may be returned. Additionally, the company will maintain adequate customer service personnel to field cancellation requests in compliance with the terms and conditions of the free trial offer and will continue to examine, address and resolve all complaints related to the company’s business, products and trial offers.
In addition to the consumer refunds, Aton has agreed to pay $250,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs and will continue to issue refunds to any consumers who have complaints. The companies have fully cooperated with Attorney General’s investigation.
The company that agreed to the settlement sells Acai Berry Supreme and Extreme Acai Berry, among others. While I applaud the Attorney General for looking into this scam, I can not help wonder how much difference it will make. At least some people will get some of their money back, but how many just gave up when they couldn’t reach anybody to cancel the autoship? While they might have had their credit card company stop further payments, many of them are likely out of the money for the first couple of shipments. Clearly, this company has made a lot of money on this product as they agreed to a settlement of $10 million in refunds.
The company is also allowed to continue to sell these in my opinion useless products. The requirement to “clearly disclose how and when products may be returned” is technically fulfilled, but who checks the “Terms and Conditions” before placing a $3.95 order for a “Risk Free Trial?” Or, understands the statement about “a negative option” that has been added to the bottom of the page?
†I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CONSUMER TRANSACTION INVOLVES A NEGATIVE OPTION AND THAT I MAY BE LIABLE FOR PAYMENT OF FUTURE GOODS AND SERVICES, UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, IF I FAIL TO NOTIFY THE SUPPLIER NOT TO SUPPLY THE GOODS OR SERVICES DESCRIBED.
It is also annoying that the supposed benefits of this product were not questioned. Acai Berry continues to be sold as a detox and weight loss supplement despite there being no proof of these claims. None. The only studies that have been done have confirmed a relatively high amount of antioxidants but then there are no studies that show that antioxidants are beneficial to us in the first place.
Healthy Diet
What is a healthy diet? The answer will vary depending on who you ask. Everything from the food pyramid with a “balanced” diet from all food groups, to the calorie counting Weight Watchers to the carb limited Low Carb diet. All of these groups have their own definition of what “healthy” is.
I think it’s easier to agree on what unhealthy is. Very few would disagree that fried foods (carbs + fat) or desserts/donuts/cakes (carbs + fat) are not the best food choice. But to actually agree on what we should eat is much more difficult.
We have the Food Pyramiders that insist that we have to eat from all food groups as an “unbalanced” diet is bad. They advocate a lot of fruit, vegetables and “good” grains (= high in fiber) and a small amount of “healthy” fats (= vegetable fats). Meat should be served in small portions and chicken is preferred over beef and pork due to the lower fat content.
While excessive use of sugar is not encouraged, the emphasis for low fat is more important. We can see their influence on the food industry on a daily basis. Fat free or low fat everything. Yogurt where the fat has been replaced by sugar and the end result is higher calories than plain, full fat yogurt. Or, fat free cheese that has no resemblance to the original product any more. Not to mention the oxymoron of low fat margarine.
The minimal amount of fat allowed should be “good” fats; olive oil, other vegetable oils and fish oils. Butter and lard are shunned citing the high saturated fat content. This despite that nobody has actually shown that saturated fats are bad for us. All studies looked at saturated fats with carbs, and then just blaming the fats without even considering the carbs. This fact has not yet been acknowledged by this group.
For weight loss, the Food Pyramiders recommend portion control and exercise. It’s all about calories in and calories out. We can see how well this has worked by just looking around us. This has been the mantra for the last 30 years and people have just gotten heavier.
Then we have the Lowcarbers. For many of them, anything and everything is allowed as long as it has a low carbohydrate count. Fat is not limited, nor the type of fat. Any type of meat is allowed as is low glycemic vegetables.
Many that start out on a low carb diet initially are looking for low carb versions of high carb foods. Enter Frankenfoods. The label Frankenfood is typically given to a food item which is trying to emulate a high-carb original by replacing carbs by some chemical and/or fiber. Artificial sweeteners such as sugar alcohols is a typical example. Sugar alcohols have theoretically very low carb count and are used to sweeten coffee and make lowcarb desserts.
The food industry has responded here as well, even though there are less low carb products now than just a few years ago. I think many of them disappeared as no matter what chemical conoction they used, they just didn’t manage to make them taste good.
So what is a healthy diet for me? Now eating low carb and maintaining my weight loss for 5 years? Even though I don’t always adhere to it 100%, I try to stay with the basics; meat, fish, vegetables. No calorie counting. No limit on fats, but I don’t add any either. The only dairy I eat is hard cheese and the only grain is rye crisp bread. These last two are not good for weight loss for many people, me included, but I can get away with it in maintenance.
I don’t like processed foods. If it has a list of 30 ingredients where I only recognize two or three, it is not something I want to put in my body. I also find that it doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as home made foods.
I don’t drink diet soda or other artificially sweetened drinks. I do use splenda, davinci or stevia on occasion. Perhaps once per month at the most. It’s not because I don’t have a sweet tooth. Or, rather had a sweet tooth. I lost it after lowcarbing for some time. I used to have a serious Snicker’s bar habit. Now, fruits and berries taste sweet enough for me without any artificial addition. Diet soda is sickening sweet. I had a taste of ketchup yesterday night for the first time in years, and that was much, much sweeter than how I remember it.
If a food is sugar free, carb free and/or fat free, has no nutritional value and only contain chemicals, what would be the purpose for me to eat/drink it? For me, food implies that it will provide nutrition for my body.
But that’s my personal preference. I would never berate anybody for using artificial sweeteners or drinking diet soda. If that helps them to stay on the diet and to lose weight, more power to them. I would however suggest that if weight loss comes to a halt, it might be a good idea to limit the use of these before abandoning the diet altogether.
FTC Charges Hoodia Marketers
FTC Charges Marketers of ‘Hoodia’ Weight Loss Supplements With Deceptive Advertising
The Federal Trade Commission has charged the suppliers of supposed Hoodia gordonii, also known as hoodia, with deceptive advertising for claiming that using their product would lead to weight loss and appetite suppression.
In its complaint, the FTC alleges that the defendants not only made false and deceptive claims about what hoodia could do, but also, on one or more occasions, claimed that their product was Hoodia gordonii, a plant native to southern Africa, when it was not.
The FTC has requested that the court order the defendants not to make false or deceptive statements or destroy documents pending trial. The Commission seeks to permanently bar the defendants from deceptively advertising hoodia, and to obtain disgorgement of the defendants’ profits from their hoodia sales.
The defendants allegedly made false and deceptive claims when advertising their fake hoodia to trade customers who manufactured and marketed supplements.
NOTE: The Commission authorizes the filing of a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. A complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendants have actually violated the law.
It is interesting to see how the FTC continues to pursue these companies that make a living by selling weight loss products with claims that are not backed up by facts. This Hoodia charge follows closely on the Hydroxycut warning, the settlement with QVC and the FDA releasing a list of weight loss supplements considered unsafe.
There is still much work to do though. Will the Acai scam and Colon Cleanse come next? I hope so.
We can also hope that these type of cases result in some legislation for deceptive marketing as a whole. That would prevent dangerous diets such as Kimkins to establish themselves on the internet
Stop Taking Hydroxycut
A few months ago, FDA released a list with names of diet pills that were considered unsafe. Hydroxycut was not one of them, but FDA now warns consumers to immediately stop taking this popular diet pill.
The FDA Press Release states:
FDA Warns Consumers to Stop Using Hydroxycut Products
Dietary Supplements Linked to One Death; Pose Risk of Liver InjuryThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to immediately stop using Hydroxycut products by Iovate Health Sciences Inc., of Oakville, Ontario and distributed by Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y. Some Hydroxycut products are associated with a number of serious liver injuries. Iovate has agreed to recall Hydroxycut products from the market.
The FDA has received 23 reports of serious health problems ranging from jaundice and elevated liver enzymes, an indicator of potential liver injury, to liver damage requiring liver transplant. One death due to liver failure has been reported to the FDA. Other health problems reported include seizures; cardiovascular disorders; and rhabdomyolysis, a type of muscle damage that can lead to other serious health problems such as kidney failure.
Liver injury, although rare, was reported by patients at the doses of Hydroxycut recommended on the bottle. Symptoms of liver injury include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes) and brown urine. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, light-colored stools, excessive fatigue, weakness, stomach or abdominal pain, itching, and loss of appetite.
“The FDA urges consumers to discontinue use of Hydroxycut products in order to avoid any undue risk. Adverse events are rare, but exist. Consumers should consult a physician or other health care professional if they are experiencing symptoms possibly associated with these products,” said Linda Katz, M.D., interim chief medical officer of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Hydroxycut products are dietary supplements that are marketed for weight-loss, as fat burners, as energy-enhancers, as low carb diet aids, and for water loss under the Iovate and MuscleTech brand names. The list of products being recalled by Iovate currently includes:
Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Rapid Release Caplets
Hydroxycut Hardcore Liquid Caplets
Hydroxycut Max Liquid Caplets
Hydroxycut Regular Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Caffeine-Free Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Hardcore Drink Packets (Ignition Stix)
Hydroxycut Max Drink Packets
Hydroxycut Liquid Shots
Hydroxycut Hardcore RTDs (Ready-to-Drink)
Hydroxycut Max Aqua Shed
Hydroxycut 24
Hydroxycut Carb Control
Hydroxycut NaturalAlthough the FDA has not received reports of serious liver-related adverse reactions for all Hydroxycut products, Iovate has agreed to recall all the products listed above. Hydroxycut Cleanse and Hoodia products are not affected by the recall. Consumers who have any of the products involved in the recall are advised to stop using them and to return them to the place of purchase. The agency has not yet determined which ingredients, dosages, or other health-related factors may be associated with risks related to these Hydroxycut products. The products contain a variety of ingredients and herbal extracts.
Health care professionals and consumers are encouraged to report serious adverse events (side effects) or product quality problems with the use of these products to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program online, by regular mail, fax or phone.
- Online: www.fda.gov/MedWatch/report.htm
- Regular Mail: Use FDA postage paid form 3500 found at: www.fda.gov/MedWatch/getforms.htm and mail to MedWatch, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787
- Fax: 800-FDA-0178
- Phone: 800-FDA-1088
The FDA continues to investigate the potential relationship between Hydroxycut dietary supplements and liver injury or other potentially serious side effects.
The main Hydroxycut website is putting a little milder spin on it. hydroxycut.com is redirected to hydroxycutinformation.com where they state:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a consumer advisory about certain Hydroxycut-branded products. According to the advisory, the FDA has received 23 reports over the years about consumers having experienced serious liver-related problems coinciding with the time they were taking Hydroxycut-branded products. The advisory states that, “Although the liver damage appears to be relatively rare, FDA believes consumers should not be exposed to unnecessary risk.”
While this is a small number of reports relative to the many millions of people who have used Hydroxycut products over the years, out of an abundance of caution and because consumer safety is our top priority, we are voluntarily recalling these Hydroxycut-branded products.
Hmm. The Hydroxycut company must have received a different version of the advisory as compared to the press release. Or, could it be that they are stretching the truth a little?
FDA said nothing about “over the years,” “liver-related problems,” “exposed to unnecessary risk,” nor mentioned “millions of people.”
FDA said “serious liver injuries” and “urges consumers to discontinue use of Hydroxycut products in order to avoid any undue risk.”
Also note that the “standard blame” that people exceed the recommended dose (as was done with Ephedra) cannot be used in this case. FDA states
Liver injury, although rare, was reported by patients at the doses of Hydroxycut recommended on the bottle. Symptoms of liver injury include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes) and brown urine. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, light-colored stools, excessive fatigue, weakness, stomach or abdominal pain, itching, and loss of appetite.
Please stop taking this “supplement” immediately. I would also suggest not to go in search of another miracle pill to take it’s place. Surely, it’s just a matter of time before they find that pill to be harmful as well.
Note. Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc, the manufacturer of Hydroxycut, will provide a refund if you return the bottle to the place of purchase.
Tired of Diet Scams
My local radio station is blasting weight loss ads for everything from Evercleanse (lose 10 - 25 pounds of toxic waste from your colon!) to a skin care company (!) that now has developed a diet pill.
Online is even worse. New “diet” supplement ads pop up all the time.
There must be money to make, otherwise these companies would not stay in business. Constantly changing product names to reel in people by using keywords and ads for the latest fad. From colon cleanse to Wu-yi tea to Acai to ….
The product with the new name is probably the same as the previous one. Just a new label. Who would analyze the ingredients anyway? And sometimes they don’t even bother with new labels. Many that ordered Acai Burn received shipments of Wu-Yi Burn.
One company that caught my eye recently is GNS Inc out of Colorado. In December last year, they were selling something called Slim Pro Shakes. Those don’t exist any more. The ads/blogs that still pop up on a search for them lead to Acai Berry Edge. The sales pitch is the same. A FREE offer and then in fine print on the bottom of the page:
21-Day Free Trial Terms and Conditions: Get two bottles of Acai Berry Edge free for 21 days during the trial period. You invest $3.97 s&h today then $39.95 per bottle at day 21 only if you are satisfied. Auto-shipments follow at the same terms and conditions. Cancel at any time. See the complete Terms and Conditions on the next page for complete details.
Most people just see FREE and don’t notice that this is an autoship program. In addition, for most of these schemes, the trial bottles arrive after 2-3 weeks, so there isn’t even any time to try out the product and cancel before the automatic debit hits your credit card. Of course, most don’t even know they have signed up for autoship before they find the charge on their credit card bill.
Many find a way to cancel at that time. The majority of them just pay the bill, and put the cost down as another expense for yet another failed diet attempt. A few get their credit card company to reverse the charges.
The main GNS website is not much better. While I at first didn’t see any autoship scams there, they are revealed when ordering a product. Then you get the offer to:
SAVE 20% and Get FREE Shipping When You Join the GNS Preferred Customer Club…a fresh bottle of Energy Matrix will automatically be shipped to your doorstep every month at this low price so you don’t have to remember to reorder!….Monetary refunds are not given for autoship products once they have been processed.
So, what products do they sell? One of them, Slim Body Matrix, seems to be just an expensive whey protein shake. This particular shake is advertised as:
the absolute best-tasting, most satisfying weight loss shake ever…
But, when you read on the actual can, there is this little box with the statement:
Notice: Use this product as a food supplement only. Do not use for weight reduction.
A “weight loss shake” that is not intended for “weight reduction?”
Not that his particular company is unique; it just served as an example. There are hundreds of others, perhaps thousands, with equally misleading advertisements and overpriced “weight loss” products. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) may be looking into some of these online scams (Acai autoship) and the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) has released a list of weight loss supplements judged to be unsafe.
But, considering the ever growing number of websites trying to cash in on desperate dieters looking for a quick fix, I don’t think we will see any changes soon. I just wish that people would stop falling for unrealistic promises and fake testimonials. If nobody buys the “magic XYZ” there will be no business in selling it.
There have been many articles/blogs listing sure signs to recognize a scam. To me, the most obvious is:
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Another way of researching a diet, product, supplement, or really anything, is to google it on the internet (Yahoo search, MSN search, etc work just as well, of course). For example, a search on the company “GNS” leads to ripoff reports. There are 129 complaints about this company. That might tell you something?
The Kimkins Diet Scam taught me the google trick. Not that it would have helped much when that particular disaster of a diet had it’s heyday in June of 2007, thanks to a Woman’s World article. Back then, only pro-Kimkins articles, fake pictures and fake testimonials were to be found on the web. Not as today when the anti-kk bloggers overwhelm any positive Kimkins.con information out there.
So, that is one more lesson. If there is nothing but obvious ads on the internet, perhaps it would be a good idea to hold of parting with my money for a while. Or, look at the ads and research from there. For Acai, it is pretty obvious that most of the ads have the same origin. It’s also easy to find out that there is no scientific proof that acai has anything to do with weight loss. None.
Deceptive Weight Loss Claims
The FTC announced on 19/02/2009 that QVC has agreed to pay $7.5 Million for airing deceptive weight loss claims: QVC to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Charges that It Aired Deceptive Claims
This case seems to have been going on for some time. I found a reference to it from March 2004: Feds Charge QVC over Weight-Loss Claims
The weight loss claims to be found deceptive were:
- For Women Only weight control products cause substantial weight loss, for example, 50, 60, 100 pounds or more, and enable users to maintain their weight loss for a substantial period of time;
- For Women Only Zero Fat pills (with chitosan, herbs, and other ingredients) prevent fat absorption;
- For Women Only Zero Carb pills (with chromium, vanadium, glucosol, gymena sylvestre leaf, and other ingredients) prevent sugar and carbohydrates from being stored as fat;
- Lite Bites products (including Fat Fighting Bars and Fat Fighting System Shakes, containing chromium picolinate, garcinia cambogia, L-carnitine, herbs, vitamins, fiber, and other ingredients) enable users to lose substantial weight, including, for example, 52, 80, 110, 125 pounds or more, and enable users to maintain their weight loss for a substantial period of time.
It is rewarding to see that FTC is actively pursuing these type of scams. I hope it sets a precedence for other “magic pills” and weight loss methods marketed via TV, radio and other media. Hopefully it will also reach internet marketing where people looking to lose weight seem to be a targeted group for internet marketers wanting to make a fast buck, recycling their “success photos” from last year’s fad (wu-yi tea) to this year’s fad (acai). [Before even thinking about ordering any of these two products, you may want to check out the complaints at Ripoff Reports. Many, many people have lost money on a useless product and have problems getting out of the autoship charges to their credit card.]
But note that this case took at least 5 years. And then it didn’t even go to trial but a settlement was reached. This fact gives me hope about eventually seeing Kimkins.con being shut down. After all, the class action lawsuit wasn’t initiated until late 2007, and class certification granted in January 2009. The wheels of justice are turning, even if not as fast as I’d like.
Despite Heidi Diaz thinking that the “scandal” is over, it is not. Cleaning up your marketing practices does not cancel the fact that people were defrauded of money based on untrue claims and representations. And, while the “internet hate group,” as Heidi calls us, might be small, there are many, many more that would like to see Kimkins.con gone from the internet for good. Including the vast majority of the 40,000 people that paid for a lifetime membership and quickly found out that this was a dangerous diet. I’m sure they would like to have their money back too.
Sensa Weight Loss System
Browsing the internet, I come across crazy diets all the time. All of them promise fast and easy weight loss. Often without diet (eat all the food you want!) and without exercise. Magic!
Obviously there is a market for these diets. Otherwise they wouldn’t exist. So are we so gullible? Do we so easily believe these unrealistic promises? That this diet will do what others failed to do?
Do we believe that the weight loss claims are real? That the success stories exist? And that the persons depicted actually used the magic supplement they are selling?
It seems that many do. And are willing to pay a lot of money for another quick fix. If Acai didn’t do it, Wu-Yi didn’t do it, perhaps this Sensa will?
So what is Sensa?
It is a powder (!) that you sprinkle (!) on your food and it makes you eat less.
Backed by “25 years of study” and “clinical study.”
The 25 years research consisted of testing out “sprinkles” or Sensa Tastants (patent pending!). The ingredients in the Tastants are of course not fully disclosed more than that they contain Maltodextrin (corn starch, used as a bulking agent, no doubt), Tricalcium Phosphate (bone ash), Silica (sand), Natural and Artificial Flavors (proprietary), FD&C Yellow 5 (synthetic yellow dye), and Carmine (red pigment from scale insects). Sensa also contains Soy and Milk ingredients.
Hmm. Perhaps you really would eat less if you sprinkled this on food.
The clinical study consisted of one study where 1,436 people sprinkled Tastants on their food for 6 months and then were compared to 100 people that did not. The Tastant group lost 30 pounds while the control group lost only 2! Wow! And it must be true as the study is published. Actually, only the abstract (summary) is published. In “Advanced Technologies and Treatments for Diabetes”, First International Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, February 27, 2008.
Searching, I actually found the abstract. No study. This is the entire text:
USE OF GUSTATORY STIMULI TO FACILITATE WEIGHT LOSS
A .R. Hirsch
Smell & Taste Treatment And Research Foundation, Chicago, IL, USABackground: Excess weight is a risk factor for myriad illnesses including diabetes. Despite its ubiquity, treatment is, for the most part, ineffective focusing on conscious, draconian self-deprivation efforts including portion control, fasting, hedonic sacrifice, or initiation of a rigorous, often painful, exercise program. Chemosensory modification to induce weight loss has used both aversive and nonaversive olfactory and hedonically positive gustatory stimuli.
Hypothesis: Noncaloric tastant crystals added to food enhance gustatory evoked satiety, reducing consumption, as manifest by weight loss.
Methods: Two thousand four hundred thirty-seven overweight or obese subjects, over a six-month period, sprinkled a variety of savory or sweet tastant crystals onto their food prior to mandiculation. Pre and post study weights were obtained and compared to one hundred nontreated controls.
Results: One thousand four hundred and thirty-six patients (87.4% female, 12.6% male) with an average initial weight of 208 pounds, and BMI of 34.2, completed this study. The average weight loss was 30.5 pounds, 5.0 BMI, versus control of 2 pounds, 0.3 BMI (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Use of tastants to enhance or generalize sensory specific satiety demonstrated efficacy in the promotion of weight loss. Further investigation into this approach on the secondary effects of obesity and diabetes is warranted.
If this “study” is so convincing, why not make it available on the web site that sell the “sprinkles?” Not holding up for peer review?
So, now, when you have read my glowing review, are you ready to shell out $59 (special price!) for a one month’s supply of sprinkles? With autoship! Or, if you were really impressed by the “study” and the “success stories” you can go directly to the 6 months option, for $235, with autoship!
To Supplement or Not To Supplement
That is the question.
A report from 2006 by NIH (National Institute of Health) recently came to my attention. This report (Ref below) discusses the benefits (or lack thereof) of vitamins and supplements. Not surprisingly, they found little evidence (or rather, none) that they do us any good. The conclusions were (as I understand them):
- More than half of the population use multivitamin supplements
- The supplement users tend to be people that eat a healthy diet, making it difficult to distinguish between any benefits from the supplements as compared to nutrition derived from the diet itself
- Fortification of foods further confuses the matter as it makes it impossible to evaluate the actual amount of nutrients people consume
- They also found no studies that pointed towards a positive effect for treating chronic conditions, except for certain subgroups such as calcium and vitamin D for bone density
They conclude with
Finally, the present evidence is insufficient to recommend either for or against the use of MVMs (multivitamins) by the American public to prevent chronic disease
And, of course, the recommendation is that more studies are required. I have never seen a study that didn’t include this recommendation. More work for the researchers!
What the study did not address is whether the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for vitamins and minerals are optimal numbers. Personally, I very much doubt they are. They all seem to be based on a study treating a deficiency and the number that was required to restore the levels might not necessarily be the what is required for a person that has another composition of her diet.
So what does all this tell me? First, I’m not too worried about my inconsistency in taking supplements any more. I tend to jump on a bandwagon for a certain supplement, and then drop others. There are just so many pills I can take in a day!
I’m not even consistent with calcium. But then I read a study that taking calcium religiously for 3 years resulted in 1% (ONE percent) less loss of bone density as compared to not taking it. The study also concluded that you were better off getting the calcium from food. I have no trouble remembering to eat cheese!
The one supplement I will not drop for now is Vitamin D. I think there is enough evidence that most people can benefit from it. But I will not worry if I miss a dose a day or two as the vitamin is stored in the body and I can hopefully compensate by a higher dose the next day. Fish oil for Omega 3 and cod liver oil for Vitamin A also makes it into my mouth now and then.
Note. I do not recommend anybody to stop taking any supplements. I just present my personal opinion and I realize that what I think is good for me will not be valid for all people. I am not an expert and I don’t pretend to be. There are certainly groups that require supplementation for various reasons such as illnesses or malabsorption issues.
[Ref: National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science conference statement: multivitamin/mineral supplements and chronic disease prevention. Ann Intern Med. 2006;145:000-000. Full report in pdf: NIH]
Zero Carb Diet
The latest diet rage seems to be the Zero Carb Diet. The rules are:
- Eat only from the animal world (eggs, fish, red meat and fowl and some dairy are all animal sourced foods, i.e.: meat).
- Eat nothing from the vegetable world whatsoever. (Very small amounts of flavorings such as garlic/chillies/spices/herbs which may be added, are not ‘food’).
- Avoid milk and yogurt (heavy carbs - lactose), use only pure (not ‘thickened’- heavy) cream (read the label), cheese and unsalted butter.
- Don’t cook your meat very much - just a little bit on the outside - for flavor - blood - rare.
- Eat liver and brains only very infrequently - they are full of carbs.
- Be sure to have plenty of fat of animal origin at each meal and eat mostly of the fat until you feel you have had enough - you can eat more lean at this point if you like - calories are not important, nor is the number of meals/day. Vegetable oils are not good food.
- You do not need any supplements of any kind. Drink a lot of water and do not add salt to anything.
The hard core Zero carbers go even further. No eggs (they have carbs!). No dairy or cheese (carbs!). Not to mention “bolting” the food - swallow it without chewing it.
This is not supposed to be a crash diet, done for a short period of time. The Zero carbers see it as a way to eat for life. They are fully convinced that you can be fully healthy by eating supermarket meat only.
They base this conviction on the history of carnivorous peoples. The Inuits provide the main example. I do not understand how they fail to see the difference on a diet based on supermarket beef and a native carnivorous diet that included raw offal (brain and liver contain Vit. C, for example). Certain animal parts, raw, were greatly favored by carnivorous peoples. There surely was a reason for it. The same reason that I can crave broccoli. There must be something my body needs from it.
Even more alarming is that many with a history of ED (Eating Disorders) jump on the Zero Carb wagon. From one extreme to the other. While it might be good that they become unafraid of fat and calories, the recommendation to “eat fat until nauseous, then lean” doesn’t seem like it would lead to a healthy relationship to food.
What will the Zero Carbers do when weight loss stops? Cut the protein and risk protein deficiency? Cut the fat and end up with a Kimkins starvation diet? What other option is there?
Now, I don’t think that a couple of weeks with meat only is doing any harm. This is really Atkins’ induction, in the original 1972 diet. But Atkins never intended it to be done for life. He invented the carb ladder for a reason.
Joan’s Weight Loss
I haven’t visited my blog for a while and I had a huge amount of spam comments waiting to be deleted. Many of them were from Joan’s Weight Loss. Now, I don’t think there really is a Joan. I also don’t think that the woman shown on this blog lost weight on the Acai and Colon Cleanse products “she” sells.
I will not post “Joan’s” comments. It doesn’t matter how much “she” supposedly likes my blog. Clearly “she” hasn’t read it. My posts about Acai are pointing out that it’s a scam. Acai seems like a nice berry but there is nothing that suggests it would help with weight loss.
I also see that “Joan” is not accepting comments on “her” blog. Helensweightloss, Sandrasweightloss, Nadiasweightloss, etc. do not either. I can understand why. The comments I got on my blog post about Acai have all been negative. Seems that many that order Acai Burn receive Wu-Yi Burn instead. Perhaps the scammer can not keep track of which of “her” sites the order comes from.
Not that it matters much. I’m sure both Acai Burn and Wu-Yi Burn are equally useless. I just hope that the people that ordered get out of their autoship program without losing too much money.
If you have fallen for this scam, you might want to read Acai-Scams. Perhaps there will be some way for you to get your money back. Or at least preventing the scammers from keeping it. Internet business is tricky that way due to the anonymity. But we managed to corner Heidi Diaz of Kimkins so there may be hope for Acai as well. With enough of these Internet scams, perhaps the FDA will finally step in and decide to do something about it.
