The BBB routinely advises consulting your doctor before starting any weight-loss regimen or ingesting diet pills or supplements. Many diet promoters make claims concerning the safety or effectiveness of the products they promote that appear to be based on science or medical studies. In most cases, claims made in weight loss ads are actually exploitations of popular misconceptions about your health, cleverly used to maximize profits for the promoter.
A healthy dose of skepticism and a little investigating can help you avoid wasting money or jeopardizing your health on fad diets, or fad diet products. To avoid losing money on unproven remedies, watch out for promises of "quick and painless" results. Other marketing strategies routinely used by fraudulent promoters might be claims of "scientific breakthroughs," "special," "secret" or "ancient" formulas available only for a short time, and only from one supplier. Be skeptical of testimonials reporting incredible weight loss results from "satisfied users," especially if no substantive medical support for the claim is offered.