New Reviews Ready For Your Perusal!

Well, the newest series of fat burner reviews are up at UltimateFatBurner.com, and this time we've got a couple of great ones -- including the most requested hydroxycut hardcore! Check it out these excerpts...

1) Hydroxycut Hardcore: Over the years, Muscle Tech's popular Hydroxycut fat burner has been modified several times, mostly to deal with changing supplement laws. Initially, Hydroxycut was "the" ephedra stack, and many people who contact me still rue the day that this popular product was discontinued. Alas, there's nothing we can do about that, so instead we'll have to consider the newest version of hydroxycut... hydroxycut hardcore.

Read the full review here!

2) SesaThin: What is SesaThin? It's basically a sesame seed oil supplement, standardized for something called "sesamin." Sesamin is a "lignan" -- a phytoestrogen also found in cereals, fruits, vegetables, and flaxseed. Sesamin offers all sorts of benefits -- it protects the liver, demonstrates cholesterol-lowering effects and may help to prevent high blood pressure. It's also a potent antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory.

Read the full review here!

3) PediaLean: Pedilean is a fat burner "designed" specifically for children. It's manufactured and sold by Klein-Becker, a company well-known for its outrageously priced products. Advertising "claims" are interesting too.

Read the full review here!

Enjoy!

$3,000,000 In Penalties For Supplement Retailers!

If you've visited this blog before, you'll know I often write about supplement retailers who engage in deceptive marketing practices, and their ongoing battles with the U.S. FTC (Federal Trade Commission). Well, here's another incidence of the "good guys" winning...

Recently, the marketers of several weight loss products have agreed to pay $3 million in penalties and to "refrain from making unsubstantiated claims or misrepresenting studies in the future." The companies include Basic Research, LLC; A.G., Waterhouse, LLC; Klein Becker USA, LLC; NutraSport, LLC; Sovage, Dermalogic Laboratories, LLC, and BAN LLC. Three individuals were also involved -- Dennis Gay, Daniel Mowrey and Mitchell Friedlander.

Products deceptively promoted include the transdermal "cutting gels" Tummy Flattening Gel, Cutting Gel, and Dermalin AG (you can read a full review of these gels on UltimateFatBurner.com). Fat burners Leptoprin and Anorex were also under the gun, as was PediaLean, the fat burner for overweight children.

In a nutshell, the FTC indicated these retailers had nothing on which to base their claims. From the FTC press release...

"The FTC alleged the marketers lacked a reasonable basis to back up these claims. In addition, the FTC alleged the ads falsely claimed that clinical testing proved those claims for four of the challenged products and misrepresented their spokesperson as a medical doctor."

You can review the full FTC press release here...

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/basicresearch.htm

What's the morale of the story?

As usual, if a product claims sound too good to be true, you can bet they are. An unfortunate number of supplement retailers are more interested in generating revenue than providing real solutions for their clients. And they'll stop at nothing to market their products.

Buyer beware!

Underhanded Behavior From Supplement Retailers

As the webmaster of UltimateFatBurner.com, I receive a lot of comments and feedback from individuals who have experimented with various fat burning supplements -- many of which were sold via radio and television ads, as well as on the Internet. More often than not, these products promise amazing results (with little or no efforts on the part of the user), and are usually backed by a 100% money-back guarantee. While not all products sold in this manner are sold by unethical marketers, many are.

For example, many people have complained that they were added (without consent) to a recurring billing program. In other words, these people continue to receive product each and every month (and accompanying charges on their credit cards) even though they have not requested such a service. Then, when they try to cancel the service, it's nearly impossible to do so. Same goes for dissatisfied customers trying to take advantage of a 100% money-back guarantee... good luck with that.

So how often does this happen? From my experiences, far too often. For example, the Better Business Bureau of Utah recently issued a warning about Ultralife Fitness (this company sells supplements from web sites trugenixhoodia.com and trugenixfitness.com). In a single year, the Better Business Bureau received in excess of 500 complaints about this company. What did they do? From the BBB report...

" Consumers who filed complaints with the BBB indicate this company offers free diet pills or a 30 day trial and then charges the consumer without authorization. If the consumer receives the 30 day trial they have been unable to contact the company in order to cancel the product before they are charged."

Yup, hapless customers suddenly found they had signed up for recurring charges up to $99.

Nice, eh? And the moral of this story...

If you are considering purchasing a "As Seen On TV" (or radio or Internet advertised) product, it's important to take steps to protect yourself. Please review this article on UltimateFatBurner.com to find out how!

To Weigh Or Not To Weigh...

Using the scales as the sole indicator of success for your weight loss program is not the best idea. After all, weight can fluctuate almost daily, and exercises like resistance training, for instance, can actually raise your bodyweight as you become thinner (that's because muscle is more dense, and weighs more than fat). That's why tracking your bodyfat percentage (see this article for more details) is a much better indicator of success than a complete reliance on the bathroom scales. However, researchers have found that using the bathroom scales may indeed help your program...

For instance, a study led by researchers from the Minnesota found that when it comes to weight loss success, the bathroom scales do play a big role. For instance, researchers found that people who weighed themselves daily lost two times the amount of weight as those who weighed themselves only occassionally. Those individuals who never weighed themselves actually gained weight during the study (Ann Behav Med, 30:210-216, 2005).

So, while the scales aren't perfect, they do play a role... it seems they certainly keep focused on the task hand -- your diet and weight loss plan!

The Food Industry's Role in Rising Childhood Obesity Rates!

A few weeks ago, I wrote a little bit about rising obesity rates in children and adolescents (see this post for more details!) On May 6, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, outlining a series of steps the food industry can take to help in the battle against childhood obesity. As I indicated in my earlier post, the levels of childhood obesity have been skyrocketing since the early 80's. The report was the result of a workshop in which participants were urged "to examine the role of the private sector in addressing rising childhood obesity rates in the United States." The bottom line was simple -- although there are many causes for the increasing childhood obesity rates, "responsible marketing can play a positive role in improving children’s diets and exercise behavior."

Although the complete press release can be found here...

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/childhoodobesity.htm

Some of the report's recommendations include that food companies...

• Intensify their efforts to create new products and reformulate existing products to make them lower in calories, more nutritious, more appealing to children, and more convenient to prepare and eat
• Help consumers control portion sizes and calories through smaller portions, single-serving packages, and other packaging cues;
• Explore labeling initiatives, including icons and seals, to identify lower-calorie, nutritious foods clearly and in a manner that does not mislead consumers
• Review and revise their marketing practices with the goal of improving the overall nutritional profile of the foods marketed to children, for example, by adopting minimum nutritional standards for the foods they market to children, or by otherwise shifting emphasis to lower-calorie, more nutritious products
• Generally explore ways to improve efforts to educate consumers about nutrition and fitness, with simple and effective messages
• Review and revise their policies to improve the overall nutritional profile of the products they market and sell in schools.

If you're interested at all in the issue of rising obesity rates in children and adolscents, and the food industry's role in preventing the continuation of this trend, please see the FTC press release for more details...

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/childhoodobesity.htm