Nutrition stores' shelves are lined with products bragging their effectiveness: Lose weight fast, trim inches in days, gain energy, drop pounds.
And now, the bottles have a new slogan to boast: ephedra-free.
Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned ephedra, saying it was linked to dozens of strokes and heart attacks, and even death, dieters are searching for alternatives.
The FDA issued a consumer alert Dec. 30 asking consumers to avoid the substance, and soon will pull ephedra out of the market completely. Visitors to http://ephedra.com will find themselves redirected. Due to "liability issues," ephedra is no longer sold at the site.
But ephedra users weren't convinced by the warning - local nutrition stores said shelves emptied after the FDA announced its ban. Internet searches easily bring up sellers willing to ship ephedra to consumers before it's completely gone.
Despite its popularity, researchers question not only ephedra's side effects, but also its effectiveness.
Patrick Johnson, a kinesiology graduate student, co-investigated a study while he was at Eastern Michigan University evaluating ephedra's weight-loss-inducing abilities.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Exercise Physiology in 2001, observed overweight people during a controlled timespan and asked them to exercise three times per week and evaluated their body composition before and after.
One group used ephedra while the other did not.
"(Ephedra) showed some effect," Johnson said. "People lost a little more weight with the ephedra, but nothing substantial."
Ephedra works by stimulating norepinephrine in the body, a nerve release similar to adrenaline, which causes your heart rate to increase.
Participants in the study also recorded their dietary intake, and results showed that ephedra did not reduce food intake.
"That's a resounding 'no' for curbing appetite," Johnson said.
After the study, Johnson said he had difficulty understanding why people would use ephedra, which proved rather ineffective, when side effects were so numerous. They include risks of kidney stones, psychiatric symptoms, manic syndromes, seizures and, at extremely high dosages, even death.
After the announcement of the ban, marketers were quick to jump on a new bandwagon - alternatives.
Johnson said one popular alternative is bitter orange, an herb with similar effects to ephedra.
"Very often they'll mix it with caffeine," he said.
Companies are taking an aggressive approach to advertising these products. Anna Nicole Smith promotes her new line, TrimSpa. Another line of pills, Dream Shape, claims to help dieters "lose weight while you sleep."
Olin Health Center nutritionist Ronda Bokram said she is relieved the FDA has banned ephedra, but she still resists most of the diet-pill alternatives.
Instead, she dotes on daily exercise, nutritious diets and a healthy body image.
"Why do people even bother with diet pills?" she said. "They could use that money for a gym membership. It really points to our whole cultural issue: 'I need to lose weight; that's what matters most.' This is not something to take lightly."
She said the diet obsession in society comes down to one thing.
"It's all about money," she said, pointing out an endless stream of radio and television commercials for the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet and tables and tables of do-it-yourself diet books at even the local Barnes & Noble.
She said if students choose to use diet pills, she hopes they'll look carefully at the ingredients before taking them and show them to someone who understands. Bokram added that if students bring bottles to her office on the third floor of Olin, she'll examine the contents.
"Most of them are relatively safe," she said. "They just don't work."
Child development sophomore Charrelle Thomas said she sees all the media hype - but she doesn't buy into it.
"There's so many commercials and advertisements," she said. "But it just seems like it would be a waste of money."
Dietary supplements can run anywhere from $10 a bottle to more than $150, depending on the brand name, ingredients and other factors.
Animal science sophomore Beth Ventura agreed, saying she's also never considered diet pills.
"I don't diet," she said. "But even if I did, I wouldn't try that.
"I just think they're unhealthy."
Tara May can be reached at maytara@msu.edu.
