A Review of Popular Diet Pills

We've all seen the TV commercials with the miracle fat loss cures. The lose 19 pounds in 5 days or eat all you want and still lose weight. Some of you will just roll your eyes at them and others will want to truly know if they work but may be afraid to buy them.

Common questions that I get:

Do these miracle weight loss pills work?

Are they safe?

How do you choose one?

These are all good questions and to make it even more challenging there are over a thousand different diet pills on the market vying for your money.

Before buying anything, know that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert on 28 brands that they considered tainted weight loss pills in December 2008 and as of January 2009 that list has expanded to a staggering 41. If you ask me that's pretty scary to think about.

Most people have no clue what they are taking. We've all been suckered at one time or another by fancy marketing but with the right information we can make better educated choices.

Red Flags:

• Any time you see fancy advertising on a product with a lot of fancy "scientific" words be skeptical.
• Look at the ingredients. Many times these shady companies will hide there ingredients behind special proprietary blends and not tell you what those blends are made of.
• If it sounds too good to be true...IT IS!
• Scientific claims made by these companies and clinical studies cited are usually heavily stretched truths or outright lies.

Be very weary of the new wonder diet pill and make sure to do your homework. The most important thing you can learn about weight loss supplements are the ingredients. Most ingredients in these supplements have little to no benefit. To list all of the ingredients out there would make this article very long and tedious to read so I'll list a few that are pretty well known and have clinical studies to back them.

• Garcinia cambogia/Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA)
• Green Tea
• Citrus Aurantium/Bitter Orange/Synephrine
• Caffeine/DiCaffeine Malate

Stop wasting your money on marketing gimmicks and learn about what actually works.

Darrin R. King, D.C.