Hook, line, and cheerios: when labels and ads don't quite add up

Nutrition Action Healthletter, Oct, 2005 by David Schardt

Lose those extra pounds. Watch your cholesterol fall. Keep your mind sharp. Laugh at infections.

Deceptive ads come in all stripes--out and out lies, half truths, and exaggerations. Some of the products in these ads are worthless, while others are worth less than their ads would have you believe.

Three Cheerios?

The hook: "I lowered my cholesterol," the annoying characters tell startled strangers in the TV ads for Cheerios.

The truth: Cheerios doesn't lower cholesterol very much.

Based largely on studies of oatmeal, in 1997 the Food and Drug Administration approved a health claim that the soluble fiber in oats can help lower cholesterol. (That's the claim you'll see on Cheerios boxes.) Are there any studies on the cereal itself?

In a General-Mills-sponsored study published in 1998, people with high cholesterol levels were told to follow an American Heart Association diet (which is low in saturated fat) for six weeks. Those who were assigned to eat three cups of Cheerios a day lowered their cholesterol more than those who ate three cups of cornflakes.

But the average LDL ("bad") cholesterol of the Cheerios eaters fell by only 7 points (from 160 to 153). To look at the ecstatic people in the Cheerios ad, you'd think their LDL had tumbled all the way down to the recommended level (100 or below).

In fact, a 7-point fall would be a decent drop from just one food, but it was actually three servings of one food. On average, participants ate 450 calories' worth of cereal a day (3 cups of Cheerios plus 1 1/2 cups of fat-free milk). That's a big chunk of the average American's 2,200-calorie diet, especially for such a modest payoff.

And it would take even more than 450 calories to get the same LDL drop from Honey Nut or Berry Burst Cheerios (both of which contain less soluble fiber and more sugar than regular Cheerios).

There's nothing wrong with people who have high cholesterol eating a bowl of Cheerios every morning. There's everything wrong with General Mills trying to make consumers think that Cheerios is the key to a healthy heart.

(1) Nutrition in Clinical Care 1: 6, 1998.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Garlique Guile

The hook: Garlique brand garlic powder is "Cholesterol's Natural Enemy."

The truth: Most companies have gotten the message by now: you can't claim that garlic lowers cholesterol.

Since the early 1990s, the vast majority of studies have found that garlic has little or no impact on cholesterol levels. The quasi-governmental German Commission E, which is an authority on botanical claims, disavowed the garlic-cholesterol link years ago.

Looks like the news hasn't yet reached Tennessee. Chattanooga-based Chattem Inc. continues to make the cholesterol claim in TV ads for its Garlique pills.

The company cites a 2001 meta-analysis that pooled data from 37 studies and found that garlic slightly lowered high cholesterol levels when taken for three months. (1) What

Chattem doesn't tell its customers is that garlic had no effect on cholesterol when taken for six months or more, according Health* to a follow-up analysis by the same researchers. (2)

Nor does Chattem acknowledge that when a national panel of experts, including many experts on herbs, examined the two meta-analyses, they concluded that garlic's impact on cholesterol was "unclear." (2)

Guess "Cholesterol's Unclear Enemy" doesn't have quite the same bite to it.

(1) Archives of Internal Medicine 161: 813,2001.

(2) Evidence Report Technology Assessment (Summ.) 20:1,2000 (www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/garlicsum.htm).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

brainBust

The hook: "Wouldn't you just love to have your brain performing at its peak? Our exclusive scientific formulations found in Natrol brainSpeed can help to do just that." How do you know it's working? Try the free online "brainSpeedOmeter" ("a tool for consumers to verify results on an individual basis").

The truth: BrainSpeed has no more scientific evidence than any of the other supplements that prey on baby boomers' fear of losing their mental edge.

The three brainSpeed products (Attention, Memory, and Perform) all have the same core blend of five ingredients--three B-vitamins (thiamin, niacin, and pantothenic acid), an amino acid derivative (DMAE), and a plant extract (huperzine A). Natrol claims that taking brainSpeed increases levels of acetylcholine, a chemical that carries signals between brain cells.

Yet there's not a single published study in healthy people showing that any of the five ingredients never mind the combination--increases acetylcholine levels or mental performance. Natrol says that it has conducted its own unpublished "pilot" study of the blend, but won't say what it found.

Natrol adds the amino acid theanine to brainSpeed Attention (for "an alert mental state"), theanine plus vitamins B-6 and B-12 and folic acid to brainSpeed Memory (to "promote recall and maintain memory"), and the herb rhodolia to Perform (helps "increase work productivity"). The company doesn't profess to have any good evidence--pilot or otherwise that the three products actually do any of that.