Feds crack down on crackpot diet product

This past spring, we discussed the dangerously cracked logic of a weight-loss fad centered on the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Dieters were duped into believing that shots of this hormone would allow them to lose 26 pounds in 26 days. However, what they actually lost was as much as $1,000 per shot, as well as money they shelled out over the Internet for lozenges and sprays containing homeopathic forms of the hormone. So we were relieved to hear that the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have finally classified these over-the-counter diet supplements as fraudulent and illegal. Our only question, really, is why it took so long.

Curiously, these products are supposed to work in concert with a diet as low as 500 calories a day a caloric intake that in itself would surely lead to weight loss, not to mention possible malnutrition, electrolyte imbalance, and potentially lethal cardiac arrhythmia. As of Tuesday, the manufacturers of these products have 15 days to inform the FDA of the steps they ve taken to correct their violation; if they do not do so voluntarily, the federal agencies may forcibly halt the manufacturers operations.

Anyone purchasing these products is making multiple ill-advised moves at once: purchasing healthcare products over the Internet, imagining that homeopathic anything will be effective, and the usual caveats that apply to so-called dietary-nutritional supplements, which have not been shown to be beneficial to health, or even safe, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. Supplements including those claiming to be homeopathic are unregulated. That the purveyors of these products are marketing them via Internet spam only underscores their dubious claims.

ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom explains that the term homeopathic, while sounding cool, is actually meaningless. Homeopathy espouses the medicinal benefits of vanishingly low concentrations of supposedly active ingredients. It is nonsense. You re just drinking water, probably from a fire hydrant in Newark.