Do Fatburners Work for Weight Loss?

Part 1 of a 2 Part Article on Fat burners and Weight Loss By Kevin Richardson

An honest answer is that you don’t need fat burner or any supplement for that matter if you are looking for sustained weight loss, and I say this not only as a NYC personal trainer that has helped hundreds lose weight for the past 18 years, but also as someone that has used supplements myself for several years earlier in my career. As astonishing as itmight sound but in fifteen years of taking multivitamins, fat burners, protein shakes and protein bars, and just about ever other other bodybuilding and fitness related products (with the exception of pro-hormones- those never apperaled to me and I always knew enough to avoid them like the plague!) all I have to say is their miraculous abilities to make changes in your physique are yet to be seen. We have all seen the before and after pictures, but hopefully by now most of you understand that they are all staged, and that the football/bodbyuilding/fitness star or model holding the product in the ads never used it a day in their life and that it had nothing to do with their success. As awful as that reality might be the real problem lies in the fact that nothing that has yet convinced me that these substances are truly safe for human consumption.

Keep in mind that ALL of your information regarding the safety and efficacy of these supplements come from business that have a vested interest in promoting them, not people or organizations intersted in maintaining your health or getting your abs to ripple. Bodybuilding, health and fitness magazines get paid millions of dollars to advertise these products. Did you ever wonder why the magazines seem to have more ads than articles? It isn’t an oversight, it is the only way to turn a profit in publishing a magazine. As somone that worked on the publishing side as well I can tell you this for a fact. What is even more alarming is that many products advertised are in fact owned by the same company that makes them! Not only the mediais paid and supported by supplement companies but also many of the so called scientific studies are conducted with funding from the manufacturers themselves. A serious conflict of interest all around.

The supplement industry is no different from special interest food lobbys and tobacco industries that wreak havoc on the public’s health. Profit is and always will be the bottom line of any corporation and every consumer must keep this in mind at all times. Profit, not your health, not your fitness goals and certainly not the truth is the goal. If you are naive enough to believe that the Federal Government wouldn't allow a company to make a product that could jeopardize your health, then you must have been in a coma for the past few years when they banned ephedra, pro-hormones and other fat burners. Bans that took effect after people had died and been seriously harmed by taking them. That’s how it works. You market a product and make as much money as possible before it finally ends up killing some poor citizen trying to lose weight or build muscle at which point the FDA steps in and investigates. Your prodcut has already been on the market for years, and the coorporation has already made billions fromthe product, so whatever fines as big as they may seem to us are simply a small cost of business. The next step is to reformulate the product and put another version right back on the market.

The problem starts with the cart before the horse policy in place by the Food & Drug Administration which regulates dietary supplements under a different set of regulations than those covering "conventional" food and drug products, both prescription and over-the-counter. Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the dietary supplement manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that a dietary supplement is safe before it is marketed. 1

So the FDA is only responsible for taking action against any unsafe dietary supplement product after it reaches the market. In addition manufacturers do not need to register their products with FDA nor get FDA approval before producing or selling dietary supplements. It is really a free for all and you would be surprised to learn how many supplements started off in someone’s basement.

Think about it; someone figures that there is money to be made from selling a particular product and they make it. It is just as simple as that. There are no long term independent double blind studies to verify effectiveness or more importantly the safety issue. In fact most of the studies quoted regarding supplement efficacy are either severely biased, purposefully misinterpreted or flawed. One aspect that always puzzled me was that whenever I took the time to actually seek out the studies quoted, and pay whatever subscription fees required to actually have access to it, (which is more than most would even contemplate doing, unfortunately) almost always the findings of the actual study were taken out of context to help promote whatever supplement was being promoted. It isn’t that hard to manipulate data interpretation, especially when no one bothers to read the full study themselves.

The other important part is that the scientfic method is completly ignored. Science is not about trying to prove that a particular supplement is effective, and those with a real background in the field know that the opposite is the case, namely that the idea is to disprove any possibilty that something does not work. When this is done, through numerous, large scale, long term and independent studies, and finally through independent and reputable peer review from instituions such as the Cochrane Group- then one can claim a finding as being scientifically verified. Otherwise, it really doesn’t mean much of anything.

Click here for Part 2 of Fat Burners Do They Really Work For Weight Loss

Information contained in this article is not meant to treat, diagnose illness, nor substitute for medical counsel and is intended for purposes of information and education only. Consult your physician before modifying your diet or starting any exercise program. Copyright 2009 by Kevin Richardson, Naturally Intense NYC Personal Trainer.

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