Are Raspberry Ketones Another Health Scam?

Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on nutritional and dietary supplements. Unfortunately, consumer fraud lawyers find that many of those millions are spent on products whose health benefits have not been properly established. Many of these products can even promote unhealthy means of losing weight such as diet pills, caffeine pills, skipping multiple meals, or foregoing foods your body thrives on.

The newest entry to the health food market is raspberry ketone, and everybody, from American nutritionists to Japanese researchers, is singing its praises.

According to promoters, raspberry ketone is the natural primary aroma compound of red raspberries. It is used in the cosmetic industry, and in perfumes. It is also used very often in the food additive industry because of its distinctive fruity flavor.

Promoters of the health benefits of raspberry ketones include Japanese researchers who reported back in 2005, that the ketones prevent obesity. Korean researchers followed in 2010, reporting that the ketones increased the property of fat cells to secrete hormones that help regulate the processing of fats and sugars. Raspberry ketone causes the fat within your cells to be broken up more efficiently, helping your body burn fat more quickly. The “recommended dose” for weight loss varies, but typically nears 100 mg per day. To get the same benefit from the whole fruit, one would have to consume 90 pounds of raspberries.

There has been much drum beating about the weight-loss benefits of raspberry ketones, and many claims that the compound encourages weight-loss, by absorbing fat and removing fat from the body cells.

The raspberry ketones seem to prevent weight gain when provided to mice in very high doses. However, according to scientific research, there seems to be no established evidence of a weight-loss effect in human beings, even when taking doses up to 200 times greater than the recommended dosage for humans. Although these products like this are marketed as weight loss supplements, there is no clinical evident showing that they help with weight loss in humans. For now, however, this looks like just another weight loss scam.

The attention surrounding raspberry ketones reminds consumer fraud lawyers about the euphoria surrounding a açaí berry a few years ago. TV’s Dr. Oz promoted A cai berry’s age-fighting and weight-loss powers on his show, and marketers raked untold millions based on those claims. However, most researchers now agree that there is no evidence to indicate that açaí berry promotes weight loss, or has any other kind of health benefits.

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