Archive for Inane

Zylotrim ad on TV? Does Zlyotrim work? Zylo-trim?

If you think Zylotrim is the elusive magic pill that will allow you to eat whatever you want, never exercise and still shed the pounds, you may as well stop reading now. In fact, you may as well stop browsing the web, because it doesn’t exist.

Of course, you’d never think so reading the advertising hype for Zylotrim. Anyone gullible enough to swallow their claims would swear they’d uncovered the holy grail of diet aids.

The dubious makers of Zylotrim is a company by the name of Obesity Research Institute LLC. They also make Fiberthin, Lipozene and Propolene all weight loss products. Obesity Research Institute LLC was recently fined 1.5 million dollars for making misleading weight-loss claims. The federal trade commission has received numerous complaints about the products manufactured by this company. And hundreds of consumer complains file with the Nevada Better Business Bureau.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/06/fiberthin.htm

What Is Zylotrim?

It is very diffiuclt to tell what is actually in Zylotrim. The ingredients in the product are not found anywhere on the website. Even when you call their customer service number, you can’t get a straight answer. The only thing they can tell you is that the ingredient is a compound derived from a yam in Latin America. This compound is supposed to increase fat burning enzymes in your body to increase your fat burning potential by 200%. There is “clinical evidence” in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals magazine. Unfortunately, there is no information on this magazine or that this magazine even exists. It seems that this company is up to its old tricks that landed them in hot water previously.

What Diet Pills Are Truly Effective?

If you shop for such products in a health store or pharmacy or on the Internet, you’ll find hundreds of different brands containing a confusing array of ingredients. You may be tempted to experiment with different diet aids until you find one that works. But this approach may be expensive. The health magazine Consumer Health Digest had a great review on diet pills and their actual effectiveness in a recent feature, the results are quite surprising . Click on this link to read their review:

There are hundreds of weight loss products on the market today. Just turn on your television or flip through any magazine and you will get bombarded with ads for products that claim unbelievable weight loss results. With all of the hype, it’s impossible to tell what’s what and which products are based more on marketing hype rather than true effectiveness.

There is no question that some of these products offer the potential for real weight loss benefits. The scientific research on the association between supplements and weight loss is accumulating rapidly.

Weight Loss Products

Unfortunately, unfounded or exaggerated claims leads to confusion for the consumer. Having adequate information about the efficacy and safety of weight loss products is paramount to making a well-informed decision.

With those facts in mind, realize one of the most important facts is if you’re overweight, you probably eat too much. By “too much,” we mean more than your body needs. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to keep itself going, and if you eat more than that amount, you will gain weight. For an effective weight loss product to assist you in making weight loss occur faster and easier, it would need to increase lipolysis and/or fat oxidation. It would also need to aid in reducing one’s appetite.

In this article, we offer our readers a comprehensive list and evaluation of those diet supplements which we feel have the greatest potential to help you burn off the fat quickly, effectively and safely. We looked at hundreds of weight loss products from the most popular name brands to the nondescript one’s. We focused on each products’ ingredient quality, metabolic enhancing potential, and the ability to safely suppress one’s appetite and we ranked each product accordingly.

Despite their popularity - not all weight loss supplements are equal or equally effective. Many times it is hard to differentiate which product offers the best overall weight loss potential - that is unless you have done your homework. Because many of the ingredients used in products marketed for weight loss can differ drastically in efficacy, we scrutinized the most current, comprehensive and well-respected supplement and herb information sources to find those products that had key ingredients that boosted metabolism, suppressed appetite and had the greatest overall weight loss potential on the market today. See our evaluation below of the top 20 products that we feel are your best options for maximizing your weight loss potential.

Question: I saw some information on a product called Zylotrim on television. It is sold by a company called The Obesity Research Institute. The Obesity Research Institute state that 80% of the weight that was lost was pure body fat and can increase your fat burning potential by 200%. How can this be possible? Does it really work? Do you recommend it?

Answer: Not much information is available about Zylotrim. I can tell you that it was very difficult to find the active ingredient in this product. It is claimed to have the “Rated #1 Weight Loss Active Ingredient”. What this active ingredient is, however, is not disclosed anywhere on their website. Discreetly hidden within their FAQ section they do state that this “anonymous” ingredient is derived from a Latin American yam but nothing more.

Question & Answer

Zylotrim Zylotrim will “increase the activity of fat burning enzymes up to 10 times their normal level so you can burn excess body weight”. Yet, the makers do not describe how exactly this is done nor do they make reference to any study or other pertinent research that validates these claims. The consumer truly has no idea what it is he/she is purchasing. The website claims there is “clinical evidence” in Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals Magazine but I could not find any such magazine anywhere.

Another problem that Zylotrim has is a credibility issue. After further research online, it was found that Obesity Research Institute, LLC was recently fined by the FTC for making false and unsubstantiated claims about some of their other weight loss supplements. These unreliable claims violated federal laws and eventually, they would settle with the FTC to the tune of a $1.5 million fine. Although Zylotrim was not one of these supplements in question, the claims made about Zylotrim without any valid evidence is certainly reason to believe they are making false claims a habit. This doesn’t bode well for Zylotrim.

If you do shop for a weight loss product in a health store, pharmacy or on the Internet, you’ll often find hundreds of different brands containing a confusing array of ingredients. You may be tempted to experiment with different diet aids until you find one that works. But this approach may be expensive. Jennifer Berniello, a respected nutritional writer from Health News Minute did a fantastic review on diet pills and their actual effectiveness in a recent feature, the results are quite surprising.

Vatican Adds Seven New Deadly Sins

After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalization. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

The new deadly sins include polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia and causing social injustice.

The Catholic Church divides sins into venial, or less serious, sins and mortal sins, which threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence.

It holds mortal sins to be “grave violations of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes,” including murder, contraception, abortion, perjury, adultery and lust.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell.”

Although there is no definitive list of mortal sins, many believers accept the broad seven deadly sins or capital vices laid down in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and popularized in the Middle Ages by Dante in “The Inferno”: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride.

Christians are exhorted instead to adhere to the seven holy virtues: chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.

Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican body which oversees confessions and plenary indulgences, said after a week-long Lenten seminar for priests that surveys showed 60 percent of Catholics in Italy no longer went to confession.

He said that priests must take account of “new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalization.” Whereas sin in the past was thought of as being an individual matter, it now has “social resonance.”

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.

Bishop Girotti said that mortal sins also included taking or dealing in drugs, and social injustice which caused poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few.”

He said that two mortal sins which continued to preoccupy the Vatican were abortion, which offended “the dignity and rights of women,” and pedophilia, which had even infected the clergy itself and so had exposed the “human and institutional fragility of the Church.”

The mass media had “blown up” the issue “to discredit the Church,” but the Church itself was taking steps to deal with it, according to Girotti.

Addressing the Apostolic Penitentiary seminar, the Pope said there was “a certain disaffection” with confession among the faithful. Priests had to show “divine tenderness for penitent sinners” and admit their own failings.

“Those who trust in themselves and in their own merits are, as it were, blinded by their own ‘I’, and their hearts harden in sin. Those who recognize themselves as weak and sinful entrust themselves to God, and from Him obtain grace and forgiveness.”

The Pope also complained that an increasing number of people in the secularized West were “making do without God.”

He said that hedonism and consumerism had even invaded “the bosom of the Church itself, deeply undermining the Christian faith from within, and undermining the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.”

Eastern Catholics do not recognize the same distinction between mortal and venial sins as the Western or Latin Church does, nor do they believe that those people who die in a state of sin are condemned to automatic damnation.

Top 20 things that are dangerous to children and what you can do!

The top 20 things that are more dangerous to children than lead paint in Mattel toys

1. Mercury fillings
Often called “silver fillings” to hide the fact that they’re made from mercury, these highly toxic fillings are placed directly into the mouths of children where they are inhaled (mercury vapor) and swallowed, causing systemic mercury poisoning to the child and leading to long-term neurological damage. Visit www.IAOMT.org and watch the “Smoking Teeth = Poison Gas” video to learn more.

2. Vaccines
Think vaccines are safe? You’ve been hoodwinked by the popular media parroting drug company propaganda. Vaccines are preserved with methyl mercury, one of the most dangerous chemical forms of the toxic heavy metal. This mercury is injected directly into the bodies of children where it causes severe neurological damage. And yes, it does cause Autism, despite what you’ve read in the dumbed-down press. Only a fool would inject their child with mercury-preserved vaccines.

3. Hot Dogs are made with horrifying processed meat parts, then preserved with a cancer-causing ingredient called sodium nitrite. As detailed in my book Grocery Warning, this ingredient causes brain tumors in children, not to mention leukemia, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and other cancers. Hot dogs are far more dangerous to a child’s health than lead paint in my opinion, and yet parents keep feeding them to their children!

4. Antibacterial soap
How about a little nerve toxin in your soap? That’s what’s found in antibacterial soap. It’s a toxic cocktail of chemicals designed to kill life. That’s how it kills bacteria. The problem is that it also harms people — especially infants and children who are trying to develop healthy nervous systems. Avoid all products claiming to be “antibacterial.” You’re better off using natural soap and letting your child’s immune system fight off common bacteria. The world isn’t sterile, after all. You can’t turn your house into a germ-free bubble.

5. ADHD drugs
Would you give your child street drugs like speed or meth? Probably not, but what if your doctor wrote you a prescription for speed and said your child needed it because he was ADHD? If you’re like most parents, you’d fall in step and start giving your child speed. But wait, you say: ADHD drugs are not speed, are they? But of course they are. They belong to a class of drugs called amphetamines. They used to be illegally sold as speed. Now they’re prescription drugs, and they’re given to children in schools all across America (and elsewhere). Psychiatrists and drug companies are making a killing dosing up kids and infants on substances that used to be considered illegal street drugs (and that have no legitimate medical use whatsoever).

6. Sports drinks
For some reason, parents irrationally believe sports drinks are healthy because they contain the word “sports.” Didn’t they notice the neon green artificial coloring? Sports drinks are, in my opinion, a nutritional joke. Made from salt water, processed sweeteners and petrochemical coloring, many of their ingredients are actually harmful. Drinking water would be smarter, and feeding your child some healthy trace minerals would be even better. Low on potassium? Eat a banana.

7. Cough syrup and over-the-counter medicines
Nearly all children’s over-the-counter medicines contain multiple toxic substances such as chemical sweeteners, preservatives and additives. Cough syrup, in particular, has been scientifically proven to be absolutely worthless in preventing coughs. Many “children’s” medicines are actually more toxic than their adult counterparts because they’re sweetened up and cosmetically enhanced with artificial colors made from petrochemicals. Yet parents poison their children every day with over-the-counter medicine.

8. Sunscreen
The sunscreen industry is a huge scam. Most popular sunscreen products actually cause skin cancer due to the numerous toxic chemicals they contain (which are quickly absorbed into the skin where they cause DNA mutations that lead to cancer). Even worse, sunscreen blocks the UV radiation that allows the skin to manufacture all-important vitamin D — the most powerful anti-cancer nutrient yet known to modern science. It prevents over a dozen different cancers, yet parents block it by slathering toxic sunscreen on their children, all while mistakenly believing they’re “protecting their children from cancer!” What a scam.

9. Fluoride in the water
I’ve always found it amazing that city water officials were dumb enough to actually buy a toxic waste substance and arrange to have it dripped into the public water supply where it would be ingested by infants and children. The result? Mass fluorosis and toxicity to children everywhere. Didn’t these people realize that fluoride only works topically? (That is, it only works if you rub it on your teeth, then spit it out, and even that only works if you’re using natural fluoride, not the chemicals spit out as byproducts of the fertilizer industry, which is what city water departments are buying and dripping into the water supply.)
Whoever heard of drinking a topical medication in the first place? It’s like swallowing sunscreen to prevent sunburn. Even worse, putting this into the public water supply effectively mass medicates everyone with a bioactive chemical substance that no one has been given a prescription for. This is all done with no regard for the level of natural fluoride children might already be ingesting from other sources. The situation is so crazy that it’s difficult to find a more insane example of medical tyranny than the mass fluoridation of public water supplies. The fact that doctors and dentists so vehemently support it demonstrates just how crazy they really are.

10. Processed milk
Children as young as 10 years old are now being diagnosed with heart disease and clogged arteries. Ever wonder how it happened? It’s due in part, I believe, to all the processed milk children are swallowing these days. Not only is the milk contaminated with pus, blood and detectable levels of pesticides and other chemicals, it’s also homogenized, meaning the fats are artificially modified in a way that makes them stay in suspension. This homogenization also makes milk fats dangerous to cardiovascular health. While I support the consumption of raw, unprocessed milk, I think that consuming processed, homogenized milk is dangerous to the health of infants, children and adults alike!

11. Fast food
Fast food is extremely unhealthy for children. Not only are the foods often fried, homogenized, hydrogenated and otherwise altered, they’re also laced with chemical additives, taste enhancers, processed sugars, petrochemical food coloring and other unhealthy substances. Strangely, many parents actually reward their children for good behavior by buying them unhealthy fast food meals, thereby creating a psychological association between good feelings and junk food. (Fast food restaurants further exploit this psychological link by building playgrounds and running feel-good advertisements that emphasize friends and fun, then link those good vibes to their food products.)

12. Antidepressant drugs
Children as young as six months old are now being put on psychotropic drugs such as SSRIs (antidepressants). These drugs, we now know, cause suicidal thoughts and violent behavior, especially in young boys. They imbalance brain chemistry and even alter the body’s metabolism of sugar, promoting diabetes and leading to rapid weight gain. These drugs are so dangerous that feeding them to children should be considered a crime. Every single school shooting involving a child in the United States in the last 15 years has been linked to antidepressant drug use. Need I say more?

13. Chemical laundry detergents
Parents are shown fancy ads on television depicting how wonderful and clean their clothes will be if they wash them in brand-name laundry detergent. What they’re not shown, however, is the toxicity of all the synthetic chemicals that go into most laundry detergent products. The fragrance chemicals alone are often carcinogenic, and they’re just as bad for the environment as they are children’s health. A new alternative has appeared, however: Soap berries! It’s laundry soap that grows on trees.
14. Flame retardant chemicals
Did you know that new mattresses for infants and children are often sprayed with extremely toxic flame retardant chemicals? These are easily absorbed through the skin of infants and children where they contribute to numerous neurological disorders and immune suppression. Many clothing products are also sprayed with flame retardants, as are some carpeting products. In the push to make everything fireproof, state regulators (who have mandated the flame retardant chemicals in states like California) have created a toxic environment for everyone. I suppose if you’re a politician, it’s always better for a million people to die of a mysterious disease that can’t be linked to you than to have one baby burning up on the evening news with fingers of blame pointed directly at you.

15. Soda
Aside from directly promoting diabetes and obesity, sodas also contain high amounts of phosphoric acid, a substance that dissolves bones and causes a loss of bone mineral density. This causes massive tooth decay as well as a shrinking jaw bone and overall skeletal fragility. Diet sodas are even worse, since they contain chemical sweeteners linked to neurological disorders and learning disabilities.

16. Air fresheners
Air fresheners contain cancer-causing chemicals. Unleashing them in the house exposes children to these chemicals, promoting asthma and other respiratory problems. If you value the health of your children, avoid air freshener products and just use essential oils or citrus peels instead. (Peel an orange and hang the peel in your kitchen.)

17. Synthetic vitamins
Many children’s vitamins are made with cheap, synthetic “vitamin” chemicals that actually harm people who take them. Plus, many are loaded up with artificial colors, sucrose and chemical sweeteners. Avoid cheap, store-bought children’s vitamins or anything containing cyanocobalamin (a toxic form of vitamin B12). Quality children’s vitamins are available through sources like Nordic Naturals.

18. Dryer sheets
Most popular dryer sheets and fabric softeners are made with toxic synthetic chemicals that are not safe to use on children’s clothing. The fragrance chemicals alone are often highly carcinogenic, and the other chemicals contribute additional toxicity to the clothing. Children’s clothes should never be washed or dried in chemicals. Only use natural detergents and fabric softeners, or avoid the fabric softeners altogether.

19. Bacon
Most bacon and sausage are processed meat products made with sodium nitrite (like the hot dogs, above) and contaminated with various chemicals lodged in the animal fats. Conventionally-raised beef, pork and chicken products are, in my opinion, extremely toxic to the human body and contribute to colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and many other diseases and disorders. If you make meat for your children, shop for 100% organic, free-range, antibiotic-free meats that have no nitrites or nitrates.

20. Shampoo and bath products
Virtually all popular shampoo and bath products sold on the market contain cancer-causing chemicals. The ingredients read like a top-40 list of toxic chemicals. Virtually none of these chemicals have ever been tested or approved for use on humans (they are simply ignored because the FDA astonishingly believes the skin won’t absorb chemicals). If you want healthy products, use the shampoo I recommend: Pure Essentials Fragrance-Free Shampoo from Earth Science