Because many people were fooled into thinking that they could become slim by eating this citrus fruit, one manufacturer even developed grapefruit tablets that he sold for a profit.
However, the British Advertising Standards Authority said that the same manufacturer couldn't produce any medical or scientific evidence that his tablets worked. What about the diet's other ingredients?
Kelp is falsely promoted as a reducing aid. One ad praises kelp as a "rejuvenator" rich in vitamins and minerals that will supposedly melt fat.
In reality, there are hundreds of varieties of kelp or seaweed. Most kelp tablets are made from the bladder wrack or laminaria, according to Arnold Bender in "Health or Hoax?"
With regard to nutrients, 25 grams (about an ounce) of kelp contain only 3/4 grams of protein and 3/4 grams of fat together with 80 milligrams of phosphate, 1.75 grams of potassium and as much as one gram of sodium. This is enough to raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels.
"Statements have been made in health food literature to the effect that kelp contains vitamins A, B, D, and E. Even if this were true, the amounts provided by a tablet or so would not be of any significance," Bender said.
What about kelp's alleged ability to melt fat? One "secret slim bath" that uses kelp powder mixed with boiling water will certainly make you sweat a lot. This will help your body lose water, not fat. This makes kelp as useless as steam baths, saunas, and sweat suits, said Kurt Butler and Dr. Lynne Rayner of the University of Hawaii in "The Best Medicine."
Kelp salesmen claim that this substance has iodine, a mineral needed by the thyroid gland to secrete a special hormone called thyroxin which influences body growth. While lack of thyroxin leads to goiter, it can easily be obtained from fish and other sea foods. Insufficient thyroxin does slow down the metabolic rate but increased amounts of iodine cannot speed up the normal rate. Thus, the iodine content of kelp cannot make you slim.
Taking kelp may also be dangerous because it has harmful substances like arsenic. Traces of this poison are found in the urine of people who regularly take kelp tablets. Considering that this seaweed has 100 times more arsenic than other foods, kelp tablets may be fatal rather than a "rejuvenator."
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Does The Grapefruit Diet Work
The most famous diet lately has been the Atkins diet and its many copycats: the South Beach diet, GI, and the rest. These are basically high-protein diets that tell you carbohydrate (‘carbs’) are evil, and you should cut right down on them or even cut them out of your diet completely. While nutritionists are incredulous that anyone would seriously consider cutting an entire food group out of their diets, the books have sold in the millions.
The dirty little secret of protein diets is that they do help you lose weight, but only in the short term. They do this by causing you to give yourself a disease called ketosis, caused by lack of carbohydrate, that makes you lose weight, feel bad and have terrible breath. As soon as you go off the diet and back to your old ways, however, you will simply put all your weight back on again.
It is a similar situation with many other diets, including weight loss milkshakes, which rarely contain anything resembling a balanced meal. Instead, they flood your body with protein and little else, forcing it to burn fat – but again, the effect quickly wears off if you stop using the shakes.
A cynic might say that they’re not really trying to help you lose weight or eat healthily, so much as they are trying to keep you on their dodgy diets forever. If you want to eat healthily, stick to balance – no matter what anyone tells you, that’s never going to change.
Both Janet Martin & John Gibb are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Janet Martin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Womens Health, Pregnancy Problems and Asthma. Janet Martin is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premiere online news magazine
