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Old 02-06-2012, 05:49 PM   #1  
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Default Raspberry Ketones?

I was watching Dr. Oz today and he said that taking 100-200 mg of raspberry keytones a day with a healthy breakfast can help with weightloss (along with your healthy diet and exercise regime of course). Has anyone tried this and does it work?
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Old 02-06-2012, 06:24 PM   #2  
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I've read about it, and there have been no human trials, and not even a lot of animal research. It apparently works in mice, and people using it says it works. How it is supposed to work on fat break-down in mice involves its effect on norepinephrine ( supposedly stimulating norepinephrine release).

I couldn't find enough information to consider it safe. Norepinephrine is both a hormone and a neurotransmitter, so I didn't feel it was something to "mess with" without a whole lot more research.

It concerns me that Dr. Oz. seems to reccommend or at least partially endorse the use of so many supplements. Supplements are still chemicals, so they should be treated like drugs. The difference is that drugs have to be proven safe before they can be sold, whereas supplements from "natural" sources have to be proven unsafe before they can be taken off the market.

In my experience, from what I've studied, all of the substances that truly improve metabolism and fat-burning have potentially dangerous side-effects.

This might be the miracle exception, but I'd rather not be a front-line guinea pig.

I do take quite a few drugs and supplements for my health issues, so I'm not being hypocritical - all those that I've added have been well-researched, which is why I felt safe in taking them at my doctor's reccomendations or after asking my doctor if I could take them after reading the research.

To some degree I have to be scientist and lab rat with my health and weight (as we all have to be). I'd just rather not be in the front-line so to speak. I'd like to see more animal studies and human studies before throwing it into the chemical cocktail I'm already on.
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Old 02-06-2012, 06:28 PM   #3  
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Thanks for the reply! I'm usually weary of supplements myself, especially ones that haven't been more researched, but I figured since it was Dr. Oz endorsing it that maybe it would work... and he seemed really adamant about it working. I'll have to do more reading up on it before I decide anything
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Old 02-06-2012, 06:47 PM   #4  
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Dr Oz definitely seems to have gone the way of quackery lately and I'd be wary of anything he recommends.
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Old 02-06-2012, 06:57 PM   #5  
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My concern with Dr. Oz, is his reputation makes people trust him more than they should, and believe that anything he says is not only true, it's safe- not because of his medical credentials, but because he is famous (celebrities are usually right, so celebrity doctors must always be right).

There has been a lot of controversy in the medical community about many of the things he has recommended. Firstly, if you took every supplement he recommends or considers interesting, you'd have no room for food. Not to mention that many of the supplements are so concentrated they really need to be considered drugs - and therefore drug interactions have to be considered as well.

Before trying anything Dr. Oz or anyone on tv (or anyone at all, for that matter) recommends in way of supplements or alternative medicine, a person really needs to ask their own doctor (who knows the person's medical history).

On Dr. Oz's website (in extremely small print at the bottom of the screen) is the disclaimer:

This website is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.


You'll see a similar disclaimer on the television show, which basically means "if you try this at home, you're on your own - consult your doctor or take your chances."

And yet, folks still assume that if it's on tv, and someone as famous and apparently nice as Dr. Oz is recommending it, it must be effective and safe.

It's not so, though a lot of people will be mad at me for saying so. I find Dr. Oz very entertaining, I watch the show - and when I see something interesting I research it online, and then if it still seems promising, I ask my doctor, and that's what everyone needs to do.


I can tell you that my own doctors don't have a very good opinion of the show, because it encourages people to try treatments that can be dangerous. Even when Dr. Oz warns against a potentially dangerous treatment, the number of people who try the supplement or procedure drastically increases (and even more so if Dr. Oz is only mildly skeptical and exponentially more if he endorses it).

People do seem to assume that if it's even mentioned on Dr. Oz it must be effective and safe.

Before adding any supplement, a person should talk to their own doctor - even if they're very young and healthy, but most especially if a person is on any other supplements, tc or prescription medications or has any health issues or medical conditions,

Last edited by kaplods; 02-06-2012 at 07:08 PM.
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Old 02-06-2012, 07:06 PM   #6  
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Another thing to always keep in mind with edutainment shows, the entertainment trumps the education, because ratings keep a show on the air.

Every medical and informative talk show I've ever watched on tv has gotten nuttier and nuttier over time - because the headlines have to be more and more sensational to hold people's interest. Once you've dispensed with all the common sense advice, you've got to keep bringing in new stuff to hold the audience's attention - because people don't want the same common sense information repeated constantly - they want "new" and "more exciting" stuff.

Entertainment not only comes first (or there would be no show) - truth gets obscured and even destroyed in the process.
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Old 02-06-2012, 07:49 PM   #7  
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You ladies are very right and I feel foolish now to think that just because Dr. Oz endorses them that they are good for me. I definitely need to consult my doctor first. I was just curious to see if anyone had tried it
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Old 02-06-2012, 10:32 PM   #8  
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Remember too (this is probably obvious, but for anyone reading who might forget) that even testimonials from random people don't mean much, either in effectiveness or safety. Just because you meet people who tried it, think it works, and haven't noticed any side effects yet - also doesn't mean it's safe.

A lady made up a diet based on Atkins, but with virtually no fat, and under 500 calories. It even got into Woman's World magazine. I can't even tell you the name of the diet, because this websites censor will censor it out. She claimed to have lost over a hundred pounds on the diet (turns out she didn't). She used false testemonials on her site, and the diet was so dangerous that multiple people became quite ill and at least one person died on the diet - and yet you will still find people who defend the diet, because they lost weight on it, and didn't happen to experience the organ failure or other terrible side effects that were common.

Her virtually no-carb, no-fat diet wasn't "new" it has been called "rabbit starvation" and doctors, dietitians and history buffs have known of it's extreme dangers for 150 years or longer. Early pioneers discovered that a diet of animal protein but extremely low in fat and carbohydrates was dangerous - often allegedly killing people faster than having no food at all. They named it "rabbit starvation" because it was seen in people on wagon trains who had run out of supplies in locations or during seasons when rabbits were the only available food source. Rabbits are very lean animals, and without fat or carbohydrates, a diet of only rabbit (or other lean animal protein) causes extreme illness relatively quickly. Probably electrolyte depletion or imbalance is the biggest risk - which can cause cardiac arrest.

Cruelly, the woman that created this diet (that she obviously wasn't following herself, when private investigation determined that she was not only still very overweight - she also used fraudulent, stolen photos and testimonials on the website, and would kick people off her website if they disagreed with her, without refunding the lifetime membership fees the people had paid) told people that the signs of illness were signs that the diet was working (the first symptoms being constant nauseousness).

To this day, there are people who will religiously defend the diet (which is also a reason people often will not criticise a diet, even if they almost died from it).

Hearing someone say (especially from someone we know or trust) "I've tried it, and it worked for me, and I didn't get ill or hurt (at least I haven't yet or don't think I have)" isn't a very good testimonial - even though we all tend to be persuaded by such arguments It's natural for us (probably all mammals, and maybe birds and reptiles too) to think "if a creature sort of like us ate it without apparent harm, we probably can eat it too," but that's not an ironclad strategy. Evolutionarily it's a better strategy than nothing, but it's not as good as good science. We're just not used to thinking in terms of science.

When you look at drugs that have been pulled from the market, or are endanger of being pulled from the market because one person in every ten thousand or even fifty thousand has a terrible reaction to it, you see why testimonials don't really help much. And yet, our human instincts persuade us that if even three or four people tell us they've had luck with it, we're very likely to consider trying it (even if we're told that people we don't know were harmed by it. Even if we're told that a lot of people were harmed by it).

If we hear that 9 people out of 10 die from something, but we know only people who have done it and not obviously been hurted, we tend to think of it as safe, even if we really know better.

I think that's part of the problem with the entire obesity "epidemic," we know being overweight has some very severe health risks, but we see fat people every day (more and more every day) who seem relatively healthy, so we start to think that "it can't be that bad."

And on the other hand, we're also taught to consider severe obesity a fate so much worse than death, that the risks really don't matter. To this day, even though I've tried to research it, and have asked my doctors (who agree with me) there's no way to tell whether the health issues I have and the damage I've done to my body was done by the obesity or by the radical and dangerous methods I used to attempt to lose the weight over the years (probably a combination of both).

Last edited by kaplods; 02-06-2012 at 10:46 PM.
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Old 02-07-2012, 11:13 AM   #9  
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I saw "raspberry ketones" and knew someone watched Dr. Oz yesterday!

I also think he goes a little nuts with the supplements - if you took all the ones he recommended you'd have to start swallowing pills in the morning and not stop until you went to bed!

Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. T

hat woman's clients were taking them, sure, but what else were they doing? They were working out and eating right (even though they didn't say that explicitly, the pictures were of them in a gym!)

It might just be the placebo effect!

Something that would require 90 lbs of whole raspberries to replicate is not something that is vital to the process, IMO.

I watch his show, but I listen to him with an entire mountain of grains of salt...
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Old 02-07-2012, 12:47 PM   #10  
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Informative post, kaplods!

I know the diet you are talking about, it starts with a K. I believe there are many lawsuits against this woman. If I remember correctly, she stole her 'after' photos from a Russian male order bride website.

When I first heard of the diet, I wondered how people could not see the danger in it and why no one was suspicious of the fact that people get banned from the support site for questioning the diet or stating they got sick on it.
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Old 02-07-2012, 01:27 PM   #11  
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I'm usually sitting through Dr. Oz's drivel due to my mother's insistance to watch it. The show seemed interesting early on but he's slowly gone downhill and off onto a quest for more viewers. Each and every show seems to be about a magic way to lose weight.

I have to say though, there is about 5 minutes worth of good stuff on his show every so often. Maybe a good recipe here and there to try. It's not really worth it to watch his entire show though.

Kaplods has given more insight into this than I ever could, but just know this: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There is no magic diet, there is no magic pill. Good old fashioned hard work is how you lose weight.

Quote:
When I first heard of the diet, I wondered how people could not see the danger in it and why no one was suspicious of the fact that people get banned from the support site for questioning the diet or stating they got sick on it.
I think some people are so desperate for an easy way to lose weight that they'll try anything and ignore the warning signs.

Last edited by sontaikle; 02-07-2012 at 01:28 PM.
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Old 02-07-2012, 01:33 PM   #12  
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Well...sheepishly, I admit I ordered them. BUT!!!!!

I feel like I need a little help. I know my hormones are out of whack of from BCP, or at least I suspect they are. I didn't have issues losing weight until I started taking it again, and years ago BCP is what had me gaining pound after pound in the first place. In any case, without boring you all with the details, I figure with my current strict diet and strict workout regime, a little experiment with raspberry ketones may be just the ticket.

But I am skeptical. And yeah, I agree that you really have to watch Dr. Oz and all his supplements. I'd rather eat my supplements, thank you. But this one...I don't know. I know what it's like for a previously fat persons body to continue behaving as if it's fat. The idea that my body may act as though it's thin again...that sounds refreshing.

I'm giving it a try.

P.S. I've been waiting for just such a thread today. I too just knew there were some fellow Dr. Oz watching friends out there.

Last edited by Eliana; 02-07-2012 at 01:34 PM.
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Old 02-09-2012, 05:04 PM   #13  
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I know a bit about ketones, my boyfriend is doing his master degree on a project based on ketosis.

Ketones are a source of energy that the body can rely on when the body is lacking glucose (exemple : starvation mode, or diabetics person). Some studies also showed that the use of ketone can even be more effective as an energy source than the actual glucose (like workout training in starvation mode, in experimental studies)...

ONLY if the person is lacking glucose though.

If the person as glucose in the food intake, the body won't use the ketones (that are produced by your own body during a process following starvation of deprivation in glucose). So if you take a ketone supplement, your body just won't use it...

I look for the product on the Internet and I wouldn't trust it, they don't say what molecules specifically there is in that.

Natural product can be good sometimes, but when they hide what there is in it, it's never a good sign. And most of the time, there was no clinical trial on it.

I don't say it might be dangerous (it's probably not). I just think that it wouldn't worth waisting money on it, in my opinion...
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Old 02-09-2012, 06:17 PM   #14  
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A lot of natural diet products are unsafe, and that's my concern here. Because "natural" supplements don't have to be proven safe to be sold - they have to be proven unsafe (and terribly unsafe) before they can be pulled from the market.

Virtually all of the supplements that have a proven track record as weight loss aids - do have negative and even dangerous side effects.

It almost inevitably turns out that if it's safe - it's ineffective, and if it's effective, it's not entirely safe.

At least with the "proven" supplements like caffeine and other stimulant herbs, the dangers are well-known and well-documented.

I am currently on disability for multiple health problems, and I strongly suspect that some of these issues were caused or severely worsened by decades of "giving it a try."

I really thought "what do I have to lose," because I didn't realize what the risks really were.

We hear "raspberries," and think nothing can be unsafe if it's made from raspberries, but that's not logic, that's emotion.

After all oranges don't have a reputation as being dangerous either, and bitter-orange is a popular weight loss aid (and effective, but at a cost.)

Any substance powerful enough to be significantly effective, is going to have potentially dangerous side effects, which is why it really is so terribly important to talk to your doctor (even if you're not on medications, but especially if you are), and ideally a dietitian too.

Last edited by kaplods; 02-09-2012 at 06:19 PM.
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Old 02-10-2012, 09:44 AM   #15  
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Default Raspberry Ketones

Newbie Here - Has anyone tried the Raspberry Ketones that Dr. Oz recommended. Does it work?
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