A few weeks ago Ukmedix reported on the story that in the United States the Federal Trade Commission fined a number of companies that made misleading statements about the effectiveness of their diet products. Following press releases from the FTC we are now more aware of the details of the cases.

One such diet supplement called Trimspa used a famous Playboy model called Anna Nicole Smith to front their advertisements and thus their sales were very good. They used ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of her to show how effective the pills had been. The FTC said that the use of these pictures was misleading and that the company did not explain in the adverts that Anna Nicole Smith had been paid substantial amounts of money to front the advertising campaigns on behalf of Trimspa

The FTC also said that the effectiveness of Trimspa had not been proven in clinical trials and therefore all the adverts were purely conjecture and hearsay. As a result the FTC has ruled that unless and until Trimspa can do some medically controlled and proper trials they are not allowed to make any claims about the effectiveness of their diet supplements. Along with some other diet supplement companies they were made to pay part of a $25 million dollar settlement in damages and refunds to dissatisfied customers.

The FTC also came across some other worrying facts about the billion dollar industry of weight loss supplements and the methods that the lengths that the companies will go to boost the sales of their diet remedies.

For example they found out that in some instances the people in the before and after pictures were given free fatty foods like ice cream and donuts to fatten them up a few weeks before they were meant to have their before photo taken and then even told to look very depressed and wear tight unflattering clothing for the photo shoots to make them look as fat and miserable as possible.

The FTC has frowned on the use of doctored before and after photos but stopped short of proclaiming that they would not be allowed anymore. They did say however in the clearest possible terms that clear clinical evidence would be required to support all diet supplement claims made in adverts in the future.

At Ukmedix like the FTC we frown on the claims of the diet supplement industry as we feel that the vast majority of them are untested and use spurious claims to advance their sales. We only deal with tried and tested EMEA and MHRA approved drugs that have been the subject of extensive testing and trial. All our weight loss drugs namely Acomplia, Reductil and Xenical fall into that category and require a doctor’s prescription and online consultation before they are issued.