Layne Jones
Mr. VanSickle
Writing 150 44
1/28/13
Dietary Supplements, is the scam worth the risk
Have you ever wanted to lose weight but just didn’t have the drive to do so? If so then
there are pills and supplements guaranteed to make you lose weight and shed fat fast. All you
have to do is take them the recommended dosages and you could lose 20 pounds in a month like
Heather on the Lipofuze website. Don’t look at one story though look at what Elizabeth Ellis
said on the Lipovox website “I used this 2 years ago and lost 35 lbs in less than 3 months! It
works but like any other diet pill not on everyone. I just had a baby and have 20Ibs to lose. I plan
on using it again!"(Lipovox) That website didn’t even have pictures of the consumers, and the
Lipovuze website had poorly taken before and after pictures with one consumer only having an
after picture. Throughout the research of dietary supplement websites I found them to almost
always take this format and if they did not have success stories or before and after pictures every
website had a beautiful girl in a bathing suit right next to the title. These corporations have made
pills and supplements claiming that you will lose weight fast but all they are doing is scamming
the public, and the health risks associated with these scams are not worth the risk.
The diet supplement companies do many things to grab the attention and market to the
potential customers. As stated in the introduction they use tactics such as success stories, before
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and after pictures, and pictures of fit men and women on their websites. The success story tactic
is often paired with the before and after pictures. These success stories usually express weight
loss that is on the borderline of reachable to the average person, like Elijah Johnson losing 104
pounds in 5 months as stated on the lipofuze website. This success story also had Elijah’s before
and after picture which in the before picture Elijah has a closer picture inside with a baggy white
tee shirt on. The after picture they have Elijah outside on the beach wearing sunglasses in a
picture taken farther away than the before picture. It is hard to see if it is the same person in both
pictures, so some may assume it is and believe he made this huge weight loss. Another tactic
these companies use is always almost always having a fit man or women in a bathing suit next to
the title, or a good looking man or women somewhere by their title. Many of these companies
also put their ingredient list on the website with a select few of the ingredients having
explanations of how they benefit weight loss. If you take a look at a lot of the supplements their
names also have something to catch the eye of the consumer that hints at weight loss. A few of
the supplements I have researched had the prefix lipo which means fat and is most popular in
relation to liposuction which is a surgery in which fat is removed. A few attention grabbing
supplement names were Carb Block, AmbiSlim, and Lean System 7. These companies have a
crafty way of getting the customer attention, but for some of the companies they actually care
about the customer.
Diet pills can be a great thing for certain people and not all of these diet pills are a sham.
Some diet pills like the new pill Qsymia that came out last year. Along with this pill being
effective the company also said who should use the pills as stated in Times magazine “The drug
is approved for obese adults with a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or higher. It can also be used
by overweight adults, with a BMI of 27 or higher, if they have at least one weight-related
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condition such as high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol.” (Park) Some of the
companies give these statements and all the companies warn of side effects, although they are
not advertised as much as they should be. Some of these companies also ask for the consumer to
ask a doctor before taking the supplement in order to make sure it is safe for them. Not all of the
companies are bad and want to scam the population and their intentions are for the best, but like
every industry there are companies that are in it for the money, it just happens to be more
prevalent in the dietary supplement industry.
Many Americans and people across the world take diet pills in order to try to lose weight,
but what they usually do not understand upon buying the product is the health risks that go with
these supplements. The healthy weight to loos on average a week is 1-2 pounds, anything after
that for the average person is harming their body. These companies have advertisements for
losing 20 pounds in a month and over 100 pounds in 6 months, that may be possible to someone
way overweight but is not reachable to the average person. If the average person tried to lose 20
pounds in a month which is 5 pounds a week they would start to feel light headed, drowsy,
increased heart rate, and increased blood pressure. If they continued they may harm their liver or
heart by putting to much stress on their organs, which in some cases is what these pills do. The
FDA has recalled a plethora of diet pills in the past; in 2009 alone they recalled 72 dietary
supplements. The reason for the recall as stated by Kristina Fiore on the Medpage today website
“The active ingredients found in the drugs include sibutramine, fenproporex,
fluoxetine, bumetanide, furosemide, rimonabant, cetilistat, phenytoin, and
phenolphthalein. The FDA said sibutramine, an appetite suppressant, was found
in many products at levels much higher than the maximum daily dosage for
Meridia, the only FDA-approved drug product containing the compound.”
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-Fiore
These supplements were proven to have the give the risks of “high blood pressure, seizures,
tachycardia, palpitations, heart attack, and stroke”(Fiore) as stated in the article FDA Yanks
More Diet Pills for Undeclared Drugs by Kristina Fiore. There have been many other diet pills
that have been recalled for the same thing, for example the big name in diet pills hydroxycut had
a warning put it on the FDA telling th public to refrain from using the product. There were 23
reports on the hydroxycut for liver jaundice to liver damage being so high that individual had to
get liver transplants. Also there was one recorded death due to liver failure caused by taking
hydroxycut. These supplements should not be taken without first consulting a doctor, and if
possible these supplements shouldn’t be taken at all.
Dietary supplements can be great for the right people but everything comes at a risk. The
companies selling diet pills are truly in it for the money and on special occasion pay attention to
the health of their customers. There have been countless recalls and bans of dietary pills and
supplements over the years to health risks. These risks include but are not limited to liver
jaundice, liver failure, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, heart attacks, and stroke. These
pills and supplements are not worth the risk and buyers should refrain from purchasing any
product before consulting a doctor. These pills are dangerous and if not taken correctly they
could lead from constipation to high blood pressure, liver failure and to an extreme they may
lead to death.
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"News & Events." FDA Warns Consumers to Stop Using Hydroxycut Products. N.p., 1 May
2009. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
Park, Alice. "Qsymia: What You Need to Know About the New Diet Pill | TIME.com." Time.
Time, 18 July 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
Ciocan, Laura. "Diet Pills Health Risks." Diet Pills Health Risks. Health Guidance, n.d. Web. 29
Jan. 2013.
Fiore, Kristina. "FDA Yanks More Diet Pills for Undeclared Drugs." MedPage Today. 20 Mar.
2009. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.Website
"Best Fat Burner of 2013 - Lipofuze.com - The Best Fat Burners Available." Best Fat Burner of
2013 - Lipofuze.com - The Best Fat Burners Available. Lipofuze, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
"Hardcore Weight Loss | Zydrex | 90-Day Money Back Guarantee." Hardcore Weight Loss |
Zydrex | 90-Day Money Back Guarantee. Zydrex, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
Lipovox, Lipovox Official Site. Lipovox, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
"10 Best Weight Loss Pills | WeightLossDietPills.com." WeightLossDietPillscom 10 Best
Weight Loss Pills Comments. Weightlosspills.com, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
"Diet Pills - WebMD: Prescription Weight Loss Drugs, Appetite Suppressants." WebMD.
WebMD, 11 Dec. 2006. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
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