If diets and diet pills don't work, why are they lawfully allowed to advertise and scam people into buying them?

The law can’t protect u from everythng. I mean people can make choices to buy or not to buy. Plus for some they say it works. Maybe they do work for some maybe its just a placebo effect.

They are sold as “food supplements,” which are not regulated by the government. Many people, myself included, think they should be regulated. Each time the issue comes up, the manufacturers lobby Congress really hard, because regulation would cost them profits. They also convince people who use supplements that they won’t be able to get them if the legislation is passed.

If it was passed, sources and amounts of active ingredients would be standardized, which would be a very good thing!

As to whether they work or not, generally if they do work, it is for the short term. Nothing works except changing your life style: fewer calories and more exercise. If you make that decision, a diet pill might help. You should check its safety carefully before taking one, though. Remember fen-fen? A lot of young women ended dying of congestive heart failure.

As Marina said, supplements are completely unregulated. That is why you can also go to the pharmacy and buy 50 different kinds of “vitamins”, “supplements”, “herbal remedies”, all of which have not been proven to work. Moreover, except for rare conditions, people are not deficient in most of the vitamins and minerals sold over the counter in pure form or in the form of multivitamins.

I’ve always thought of condensing urine into urea and selling it as a health product… i.e. Dr. Smith’s Urea, a miracle cure for fatigue, anxiety and obesity. No reason not to. Its all legal.

On second thought, I think I’ve already been beaten to the punch. Dammit!

supplements are b.s. get some real diet pills prescribed like phentermine or something similar. its pretty much meth in a pill. ive seen it work for a couple of people i know. granted it is bad for your heart. its an amphetamine.

Its called advertising

This is why advertising is such a popular industry. If you listen closely to their statements, they’re not actually promising much. And what does “Scientists increasingly believe” mean anyway when it comes to proving effects of a product?

At the end of the day, trust a product if your research confirms their claims. The company selling it is not exactly objective in the matter…