These days there are pills that claim to get rid of your cellulite, reduce your appetite, metabolise your fat, cleanse your liver and build muscle. Another popular product, JuicePlus+, is supposed to be the next best thing to fruits and vegetables.
Rosemary looked at some of the ingredients. They include things like grapeseed bioflavonoids, which are antioxidants and won’t do you any harm, but there’s no scientific evidence that they’ll reduce cellulite. Nor was there any evidence that other ingredients in the cellulite pills, like dried sweet clover, ginkgo biloba, soy lecithin, or fucus vesiculosis work against cellulite. The iodine in kelp or seaweed is said to stimulate the thyroid gland and increase metabolism. In people with normal thyroid action (most people) it doesn’t work, and if it did it would actually slow down the action of the thyroid. The fat metabolisers have: guarana – which contributes caffeine, just like tea and coffee brindleberry (sometimes called hydroxycitric acid or HCA) – a scientific trial of brindleberry extract found that it had no effect on weight at all chromium picolinate – might be good for you if you happened to be deficient in chromium, but studies have shown that it does not decrease fat and build muscle escin (horse chestnut) – might help circulation in the veins, but it certainly won’t remove cellulite oligofructose – a type of carbohydrate which has no effect on body fat pectin – a form of fibre that’s supposed to make you feel full – you can actually get pectin from fruits such as apple, and from marmalade amino acids – which you can find heaps of in meat, fish, chicken, yoghurt, cheese or even bread
A recent UK study supports claims that JuicePlus+ contains antioxidants from fruits and vegetables. Each capsule has the equivalent antioxidant content of 10 grams, so the recommended daily dose of 4 capsules (RRP JuicePlus+ is $16 per week) is equal to about 40 grams of fruits and vegetables. The problem is that our minimum daily requirement is at least 600 grams. Fruit and vegetables are also valuable for their bulk and fibre, which you can’t get from a pill.
Many people are convinced that these supplements are wonderful, and sometimes faith in the pills we’re taking is enough to make us feel better. Make no mistake though, there is no magic involved. Rosemary recommends that you eat properly, get plenty of exercise and save your money.
Rosemary Stanton’s Complete Book of Food & Nutrition (Simon & Schuster, revised edition 1995, rrp $29.95).