Adiphene weight loss pills - do they need, or have, MHRA approval?

Here's what the CAP code (what the Advertising Standards Authority uses to determine if an ad breaches guidelines) says, in relation to Sports supplements: Medicinal claims:

"We have previously been informed by the MHRA [the UK's Medicine & Healthcare products Regulatory Authority, it's a bit like the FDA] that all products containing citrus aurantium, white willow bark, chromium picolinate, cyanotis vaga, tribulus terrestris and variations of androstenediol are medicinal. Marketers should contact the MHRA if their products contain any of those ingredients before selling the product or preparing marketing campaigns for it. "

 Here's what CAP says in its Slimming guidelines for the press:

"8. Claims that products can, for example, boost metabolism, inhibit dietary fat absorption, melt fat, soak up fat, break down fat, suppress appetite, block fat etc,are almost always unproven and are likely to break the Code and may also be medicinal claims. Furtheradvice can be sought from the MHRA (www.mhra.gov.uk).

CAP has seen no evidence thatproducts containing the following can assist in weight loss; Aminopyline, Citrus Aurantia, Chitosan, Chromium Picolinate, CLA, Garcinia Cambogia, Guarana Extract, L-Carnitine, Lecithin, Ribose."

I don't know if these guidelines relate only to sports supplements and discussions in the press and mean that marketers are free to make these claims about different products and not in the press - I doubt it though.

Assuming that these guidelines do affect all marketers... it would seem, then, that the CAP guidelines are recommending that anyone selling a product containing chromium picolinate needs to check with the MHRA before marketing it (in the UK), while also mentioning that there doesn't seem to be any good evidence that chromium picolinate helps in weight loss.

The guidelines also highlight that claiming that implying that your product can boost metabolism or suppress appetite etc is 'likely to break the Code' and that such statements 'may also be medicinal claims' - ie, it's probably necessary to check with the MHRA.

So it seems that if your product contains chromium picolinate and / or makes claims about boosting metabolism etc then you might need MHRA approval before marketing that product.

Adiphene is a new (to me) weight loss product, from RDK Holdings (the same people who make Phen375 weight loss pills) and it contains chromium picolinate and makes precisely the claims on its website that the MHRA and CAP are a bit uncomfortable about. I have been trying to find out if permission from the MHRA is needed (in the first place) or if it has already been granted for Adiphene to be marketed in the UK (it's entirely possible that it has been given).

A website promoting another slimming pill, Proactol, has a page with the question "Is proactol plus approved by the MHRA?" however it doesn't appear that they've actually answered that question anywhere on the page... http://proactolplus-pills.co.uk/is-proactol-plus-approved-by-mhra

I didn't find any mention on the MHRA's pages for Proactol or Adiphene though I did find mentions for the Over The Counter weight loss pills 'Alli' (orlistat) and the prescription version Xenical. The MHRA also has an interesting list of herbal slimming products to avoid that have been found to contain the prescription-only medicine sibutramine (reductil).

Adiphene's parent website is probably based in the USA so I expect what it says on its own pages is its own business, although I'm not sure where the line needs to be drawn when the product is being shipped around the world (the site lets you tweak it to give you the prices in UK pounds). Also, the site is being promoted by MoreNiche affiliate marketers some of whom will (presumably) be promoting the product's sale to people in Britain.

(1) Adiphene official website: http://adiphene.com/en/ingredients.html
(2) Examples of affiliate marketers' UK (apparently) sites promoting Adiphene

• http://www.dietpillsbuy.co.uk/buy-adiphene-diet-pills/ - mentions boosting metabolism
• http://www.dietslimmingpills.org.uk/adiphene-review - mentions chromium picolinate, appetite suppression
• http://www.fat-burners-uk.co.uk/adiphene-natural-adipex-alternative/ - mentions chromium picolinate, inhibition of fat absorption

Further reading
Nuratrim on the naughty step for failing to provide evidence for their weight loss supplements (23 August 2012) - the ASA added Nuropharm Ltd to their list of non-compliant online advertisers.

Nuratrim on the naughty step for failing to provide evidence for their weight loss supplements

Nuropharm Limited, trading as Nuratrim (http://www.nuratrim.com) have been asked repeatedly by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to remove from their website "...claims that Nutratrim is scientifically proven to assist weight loss, burn fat, reduce cholesterol, increase metabolism and reduce appetite."

They didn't do this so the ASA has added the company to its list of non-compliant online advertisers on 27 July 2012 and I happened to notice it today. 

Although I've never reported to the ASA either the parent company or any of the affiliates that sell this product I've written a couple of blog posts on the Nuratrim weight loss supplement pills already, one of which yielded this rather snide comment but if you swap 'try eating less cake' for 'stop eating into my profit margins' I think that might clarify things somewhat ;) 

Further reading

Watch out for some PR about Nuratrim (21 December 2011)

This is a long blog post, added to over several months as new information became available - it's rather detailed.

Advanced Health Ltd (makers of Nuratrim & Capsiplex Plus) already have an ASA adjudication (2 January 2012)

Nuropharm Ltd appear to be the makers of the product but according to the Nuratrim website Advanced Health provide or support the online payment system. As do Newstel - I'm a bit confused.

Slendex claims revision (August 2012) 

Affiliate marketers have been contacted by the ASA and asked to amend their claims for this product, so no idea why the parent company of a different product (sold by the same affiliates) can't manage it.

MoreNiche affiliate marketing and the Office of Fair Trading

I have expressed concern previously about the quality of evidence used to support statements made about the products sold by MoreNiche affiliates and written about a number of products (see below). Ironically this means that I now get some of the keyword traffic although I'm not selling anything.

The Office of Fair Trading recently concluded an investigation into MoreNiche and determined that more needed to be done to make it clear to visitors to the affiliates' sites that affiliates will receive payment when someone clicks on the 'buy now' link. MoreNiche have already addressed this by providing guidance to their affiliates and the OFT noted that they engaged with the investigation and were keen to be transparent which is good.

What surprises me is that OFT didn't question the evidence (or irrelevant testimonials) used to sell products.

As an example, one capsule-based product contains a number of plant-based ingredients but instead of providing trial evidence of the complete product the marketing content talked only about evidence relating to the ingredients when investigated individually. This seems to be a fairly common technique, and it isn't good evidence unfortunately.

Some of my blog posts about MoreNiche products

• Phen375 weight loss pills "reviewed" (14 January 2012)

• Capsiplex Plus - yet more magic beans advertised in newspapers (31 December 2011) 

• Polite suggestion to people writing about diet pills, patches or other supplements (26 December 2011) 

• Watch out for some PR about "Nuratrim" - wonder where the evidence is (21 December 2011)

I'm hoping there'll be more to come on this later, but probably not from the OFT.

Further reading

MoreNiche must come clean about online plugs by Andrew Penman in Mail Online (25 April 2012), amusingly this was tagged as 'online scams'.

The Office of Fair Trading has investigated concerns that "reviews and product endorsements running on some affiliates' websites were presented as independent consumer reviews when they were actually commercial promotions".

Investigation into inadequate disclosures in respect of Affiliate Marketing businesses OFT website (April 2012)

MoreNiche discusses OFT's quest for transparency in affiliate marketing - Q&A by Simon Holland on Affiliates4U (April 2012) - interview with Andrew Slack, MoreNiche's Managing Director.

Phen375 weight loss pills "reviewed"

by @JoBrodie, brodiesnotes.blogspot.com
 
(A) What to do if you have bought similar weight-loss products
(B) Blog post about strategies used in advertising various pills and supplements online

(A) What to do if you have bought similar weight-loss products
1. Try and get your money back
If you bought Phen375 (or any other item) with a debit or credit card then you may be able to get your money back, have a look at the information on Section 75 and Chargeback at Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert page on Visa, Mastercard & Amex Chargeback: protection for debit card purchases.

2a. Report it to Action Fraud
If you have lost money in buying unevidenced weight loss pills you can report this to Action Fraud, who have this to say on Miracle Health Scams:

"Miracle health scams can include fake ‘miracle’ cures and weight loss products as well as bogus online pharmacies.

It is unlikely that such products have been properly tested or that there is any proof that they are medically effective. Some of these products may even be harmful.

Advertising for miracle health cures often include fake testimonials from apparently satisfied customers, have unproven claims about the product’s effectiveness, make false claims about clinical tests and have worthless ‘money back’ guarantees."

2b. Report it to the Advertising Standards Authority
How to complain - http://asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

Have a look at what the Committee of Advertising Practice (who produce the guidelines that the ASA uses to determine if marketing material on websites or leaflets is OK) has to say about various types of weight loss advertising too.

• Weight control: Herbalife and similar weight management products
• Weight control: Food and Food Supplements
• Weight control: Pills, medicines and patches

---

(B) Blog post about strategies used in advertising various pills and supplements online

There are a quite a few websites that advertise Phen375 fat burning slimming pills. There are probably quite a few more of the websites that don't. At least not as obviously. Instead those websites review diet and weight loss pills, or tell you 'the truth' about them. Or at least they imply that they do.

If someone has just heard about some new weight loss pills they might not be quite convinced that the pills are the real deal so, when looking on Google, they might be tempted to add words like 'scam' or 'fake' to their search keywords to find wesites that are critical (and perhaps they'll be reassured by not finding any).

However anyone searching for these terms is still likely to be taken to review sites which will help visitors to buy the product.

I can't remember when I first noticed the rather clever use, by pill sellers, of words like scam in blogs (subtly embedded in the text or address) to bring in the punters - it's what people are searching for after all. Genius ;) It also presumably swamps any legitimate sites that are providing genuine information about complaints, forcing them off the front page of Google results.

Phen375 seems to be a popular weight loss pill which is sold, along with tens of others, by the MoreNiche affiliate people. I'm not aware of any good quality evidence (patient testimonials just don't count I'm afraid) that can show if the product is safe or effective.

The briefest of Google searches found a selection of sites, many of which contain the words 'scam' or 'fake' in the website itself or its web address. All the websites in the list below contain a code that ensures that any sale made (when visitors click through to the selling site) will pay a dividend to an affiliate from MoreNiche. Commission varies but might be around 30 per cent.

In all cases remove D3L3TE to make the URL work

Some MoreNiche tracked sites for Phen375; they all point to http://phenD3L3TE375.com/ (1)

• http://bestfatburnD3L3TEerguide.com/phen375-reviews
• http://buyphen3D3L3TE75.co.uk/
• http://buyphentermine375hD3L3TEq.com/phen375/phen375-fake/ (2)
• http://dietpillD3L3TEsbest.net/diet-pills-best-phen375
• http://www.healthD3L3TEcaffe.com/phen375-reviews/
• http://phen375reD3L3TEviewed.net/
• http://phD3L3TEen375scam.blog.com/ (3)
• http://pheD3L3TEn375scam.info/
• http://phenD3L3TE375truth.com/

As far as I can tell there are probably hundreds (thousands?) of these affiliate sites and I assume one affiliate might have more than one site.

(1) ...that website doesn't have a particularly good rating on http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/phen375.com (nothing to do with me, I've not actually rated any MoreNiche merchant or affiliate sites but many of the ones I've come across have already been downvoted). Commenters (actually they do cross a line I think, rather racist) on Complaintwire aren't too happy with the company either.

(2) Most affiliate sites seem to hide or obscure the tracking code (it doesn't always show up in the page's source code but I might be missing something) but the website listed at (2) points to a TinyURL address and, if you've got preview switched on, you can see that it's clearly redirecting to  http://track.moreD3L3TEniche.com/hit.php?w=137484&s=157 which then redirects to the Phen375 website.

(3) The link in this one is http://track.moreD3L3TEniche.com/hit.php?w=149938&s=157

Noticing the s=157 (I presume this is a MoreNiche code for the product) I wondered if I could find any more. I may be quite wrong about some of these, they may not actually be the code for a product (they might just be found on the same website as the product's name).

s=24 appears to be Size Genetics (some sort of 'male enhancement')

s=156 might be Acai berry

s=157 is presumably Phen375

s=174 might be Tava Tea
s=178 might be Capsiplex

Searching for a few of these also brings up a lot of links to spam-tracking websites.

Goodness knows what phentemine actually is though. The main selling website spells it that way and also references phenteRmine which is definitely not recommended for weight loss according to the British National Formulary (BNF, the guidance that doctors and nurses use when prescribing legal medicines) as it has interactions with all sorts of other prescription medications and shouldn't be used by a whole bunch of poeple with various other conditions. If someone's going to buy unlicensed pills on the internet these aren't the ones I'd be recommending.

However according to the company's website the product doesn't contain phentermine at all - there's a list of ingredients and we're told what each does but (again, typically) no evidence is provided that the pills actually achieve any of this miraculous weight loss. There's reference to 'sympathomimetic amine' which is also named as norepinephrine (noradrenaline). Assuming this survives digestion that would presumably increase the heart rate... doesn't sound that much fun.

Yesterday I actually received email spam from someone selling Phen375. Unusually for spam this pleased me (I've been drafting this post on and off in spare moments for a couple of days so this is a nice finish for the post) and I've included a screenshot of it at the end. I think this might be the tracking code, but it's difficult to tell really, as I say they seem to be hidden and you have to 'triangulate' them a bit http://track.morenicD3L3TEhe.com/hit.php?w=227379&s=157

Unless I'm mistaken this affiliate code w=227379 also appears to be involved in selling something called IntiVar Renewal gel... the green and red circles to the right of the green tick relate to the Web of Trust rating system which I have installed on Chrome:

     

Edit: 3 April 2013

Rose Silk has left a couple of comments (too long to fit once I'd annotated them) that are peppered with active links (redacted) to various websites that seem to be selling a rival product to do with ketones. The intention behind this is to gather up Google brownie points by having other sites linking to their sites. Because I have redacted them that doesn't happen.

Here's the first.

"Raspberries acquire treatments make-up policy from a specifically items present and further improve the very quickly

deficiency ofofficial website bodyweight by using random advantages. experts clearly allows any particular one purchasers imagine that will this amazing asdoes raspberry ketones work you can think about by far the most amazing place for every eliminate your present get in touch with this amazing improves to help you people. Currently many men and some women, together with currently that may place considerably essential covers head out will probably be associated with bodyweight use reduce associated with scaled-down together with, make using does raspberry ketone really workwell-being. Because you shift the real functions best items assess carry out usually will probably be hard. Thus, a variety of us can quickly pun, the simplest way from the certain doing workouts, moreover to you will see there may be solution which have been the particular straightforward way to quick fat loss unbuttoned though even so progressively being experience padded.does the raspberry ketone work perform. Even so, despite the factor that we've been normally which might be dubious prepared keep on being devoted to your accurate course of action that may it goes without saying can be quite without drugs many, a while many men and some women does the raspberry ketone diet workexperience from the quick course of action. You additionally indisputably can quickly it goes without saying have a therapy offraspberry ketone dr ozering those that bodyweight use actually quickly undid his / her extend time together with, also, this amazing personal or even guy usually designed moreover to that will hoaxes. Other than progressively it is possible to break by using together with, as well as, to start with like activities, acquire factor results. Thus, so you can get allow interest to make available personal additional fat for you to problem the most beneficial confirm that will help people keep with your brand-new frequent solution.Raspberry Ketones are usually performed Discuss every better a new the dinner solution, which is to be seen to help minimize personal additional fat any particular one routine upon strength, dealing with considerably amazing fat-burning almost definitely. Malina may be Selma Authentic Lawn eco-friendly vegatables and fresh fruits and vegetables and veggies and fresh vegetables and fresh vegetables also treatments make using fat reduce, will come in the particular techniques of strength, meaning that your present choices comes about, plus a quickly will need. Additionally, circumstances can be quite every bare tangible floors base floors premade items reality : reality : reality : reality : blueberries usually allows you reduce the ineffective calorie consumption involved within with within due to your present epidermis."

The websites listed are (in call cases remove D3L3TE to get the correct URL:
1. http://doesraD3L3TEspberryketonework.blogspot.com/ - this appears to be web filler. It doesn't sell anything but contributes to the overall bulk of online information about the product, with relevant keywords. There seems to be only one article and it is very badly spun (google article spinning for more).
2. http://doraspberrykeD3L3TEtoneswork.blogspot.com/ - very similar to site above
3. http://howdoesrasD3L3TEpberryketonework.webs.com/ - appears to be more web filler
4. http://raspberrykeD3L3TEtonedoesitwork.webs.com/ - yet more web filler
5. http://whatdoraspberD3L3TEryketonesdo.webs.com/ - filler
6. http://www.raspberryketD3L3TEone.webs.com/ - aha. This is the one that links to the merchant's site and all the other five links are just padding to make it less obvious. Maria Wilson, the owner of the page, has the appropriate affiliate disclaimer badge on her site and clicking on any link on the page will take you to the 'Evolution Slimming' website http://www.evolution-sliD3L3TEmming.com/store/raspberry-ketone-advanced-cat_189.html, which is a MoreNiche merchant http://www.twD3L3TEistdirectory.com/directory/Health_and_Beauty/Weight_Loss/Slimming_Store/evolution_slimming_1479.html.

No evidence at all that it works of course...

Capsiplex Plus - yet more magic beans advertised in newspapers

Christmas and New Year means weight-loss-pill-season. It's the annual low-hanging fruit of evidence-based skepticism for stories in the news. Yawn :-) See "Watch out for some PR about Nuratrim"

The merchants who provide products for the MoreNiche affiliates tend to go into overdrive with new products or in this case new versions of older products and there's plenty of advertising PR in the newspapers and magazines. Over the last week we've had adverts for Nuratrim appearing in The Telegraph and the Daily Mail but there's a new thing for the New Year, of course.

Capsiplex Plus

Capsiplex has been around for a while I think but it has been upgraded to a more expensive version and the PR is apparently due to be published in the Daily Express (obviously I'd love it if they read this). 

According to the company's website the newer product contains 5HTP (5 hydroxytryptophan). You can see here www.capsiplex.com/capsiplex-plus/ how it apparently contributes to the overall product (would something that increases metabolism and enhances mood need a marketing license from the MHRA?).

My favourite bit on that page is the apology to (I assume) Angelina Jolie but whoever the apology's intended recipient is she's referred to only as Ms Jolie... this clarification doesn't appear to have been transmitted to the sites who are marketing Capsiplex. Oops. I understand the PR is also going to mention that it contains 'bioperine' although the website doesn't say that yet, but it does mention piperine.

The company's website has a page called /clinical-trials which doesn't yet mention anything about Capsiplex Plus yet so perhaps some further information will be added. The evidence, as provided for the original product (Capsiplex) is a bit sparse though, in that there's nothing referenced specifically for Capsiplex at all. The page does mention four clinical trials of Capsiplex (although none had more than 14 participants) but of course this isn't actually published. There are some references included but they're for the individual ingredients (this seems to be a feature of these types of products).

More tomorrow when the Daily Express publishes it then...

---

1 January 2012 - as yet, nothing that I can see on the Express website about Capsiplex Plus athough there's somethng about Capsiplex from 2009. Anyway I've trapped copies of the manufacturer's claims as this seems more like something for the MHRA than the ASA.

Update: still nothing on Daily Express site, maybe tomorrow.

It occurred to me that one could create a website with links that go to the company's website and allow readers to buy the product directly, bypassing any affiliates. Alternatively since the affiliate track IDs are easily findable one might be extra kind and pick a few at random and give some of them a random boost. Of course this means that more of this product is sold despite the fact that I've not found much good evidence for it yet...

Update 2: just checked the blog stats and amusingly there are rather a lot of Google searches that contain Nuratrim or Capsiplex (not many for Capsiplex Plus though) in the incoming list...

2 January 2012 - still haven't spotted anything in the papers about this yet. Although I did check the Advertising Standards Authority pages and spotted that Advanced Health Ltd, who make / market Capsiplex Plus, did have an ASA adjudication upheld against them earlier this year for another of their products called Meratol (they also make Nuratrim).

Watch out for some PR about "Nuratrim" - wonder where the evidence is

This post is now five years old so many links don't work, but here's what will probably be being advertised in newspapers in the New Year (2018): https://moreniche.com/offers/

---

Occasionally I take a look at the MoreNiche affiliate forum (see 'further reading' below) to see what new pills, potions or salves their members are flogging. Affiliates do this by setting up websites to promote a product and then linking these sites to a separate site that sells it. Each affiliate adds a piece of code to their promotional pages and if their site routes more customers to the selling site and secures a sale, then they receive a payment. Naturally people are trying ways of making their site more prominent so that people will find theirs and be routed through to the payment site.

Based on the evidence of last Christmas there seems to be a reasonably strong correlation between what's being discussed on the forums and what gets plugged in the Daily Mail post-Christmas relating to weight loss. The MoreNiche people don't deal just in weight loss pills, teas or patches though they also have stuff to flog for people with acne or erectile problems. 

Something called Nuratrim has apparently joined the MoreNiche family and we're to expect some post-festive PR for it.

The affiliates have already registered some websites which will be used to promote it - I've tried to avoid giving them any Google juice by deliberately not making these active links.

buynu//ratrim.net

nur//atrimreviews.com

nuratrimre//view.net 

nuratrimre//view.org and others a bit like this

and the main website for the product is here w//ww.nur//atrim.co//m /

It seems to be a herbal supplement containing the usual suspects and there are some claims made on the "Why Nuratrim works" page that I think are quite amusing. For one it says that the product "contains a blend of leading edge scientifically proven weight loss ingredients" - oh no it doesn't. These ingredients have cropped up in plenty of other products so I think that's just flannel. 

I'm really not sure about this "scientifically proven" bit - typically with these products a list of ingredients, and the evidence for them as individual ingredients, is given, rather than the evidence for the product. I don't know if anyone has done any testing on Nuratrim (a combination of four ingredients: glucomannan, licorice extract, green tea and capsicum extract) as a product rather than reporting information about the evidence for items individually. 

"Blatantly banking on customers not understanding that it's like a
Hollywood studio advertising that their new movie was 'watched by
Roger Ebert'" 

Interestingly the information given for capsicum refers to 'capsiplex' which is also another MoreNiche product.

Anyway, no evidence is given for Nuratrim, only for individual ingredients and none of that seems unusually impressive - certainly not enough to pin the sale of a product to, it all looks more like pilot studies.

No evidence at all offered for glucomannan, just information about what it is. Licorice extract is backed up with an 8 week study in 84 people - I'm not saying it's a bad study, more "steady on there, let's not sell products based on small short studies". There's actually a full reference given for the green coffee one (which looks interesting) so that might be worth looking at and finally I think there's enough information in the paragraphs on capsicum / capsiplex to find the study to which they refer, but again it seems like it might be a small study.

Last year the Mail was advertising products from Roduve (slimweight patch and Tava tea) but it looks like there were a lot of dissatisfied affiliates who didn't get payments in good time...

By the way, anyone can set up a website about this product ;-)

https://sites.google.com/site/nuratrimweightloss/

---

Here's how the story has unfolded... this is a kind of bloggytracker (idea pinched from The Guardian's Storytracker)

26 December 2011: because of the publication (well, less 'publication', more 'blurting') of a press release about this product in a newspaper today I wrote a brief follow-up post appealing to anyone writing about diet pills and patches to check the name of the product against the MoreNiche affiliate site. I think it's a safe bet that if it features there then the evidence might still be *cough* being gathered...

28 December 2011: yesterday (27 December 2011) I saw that the Daily Mail had written about the story and also checked the whois information for nuratrim.com and didn't find much (because I think they've made it private, which is fair enough) but did spot that Newstel Media Ltd had a mention there and from that company's own website it's conceivable that they are behind the PR and / or providing the telephone answering service for people to ring in to buy the product.

According to the cached version of the 'terms and conditions' the page used to say "We accept Credit Card, Debit Card payments via our secure on-line payment processing system, provided by Sage Pay and supported by Newstel Media Ltd." and now says "We accept Credit Card, Debit Card payments via our secure on-line payment processing system, provided by Sage Pay and supported by Advanced Health Ltd.". Advanced Health Ltd also have an Amazon store where they offer quite a range of products including Meratol, Capsiplex and things to grow eyelashes (!)

I added this story to the PRlapses blog (News that isn't).
Today (28 Dec) I spotted that the MoreNiche forum posse have clocked my blog posts (and page three) about their activity and have now made some posts on the forum private, including the ones I mentioned here. I've linked to the cached version of the forum post and of course I have a permanent copy (the cache will eventually disappear). A couple of the affiliates are also selling on their Nuratrim sites.

29 December 2011 
I re-read the Daily Mail article (Google suggests it was updated within the last 23 hours) and saw this line that I'd missed before, or it had been added. Quite cheering really "However, requests for the clinical evidence from the company has yet to be returned."  The Daily Mail doesn't seem to be that amenable to checking the cached pages so it may have been there all along and I just missed it, or they've added it in. I also hadn't seen the name of the company - Nuropharm Ltd which is behind the product, that info is available at Nuratrim's site but I hadn't noticed it.

30 December 2011
I caught wind of a new product - Capsiplex Plus - which is going to be advertised in the Daily Express (or probably the Sunday Express) on New Year's Day. Yet again evidence is offered for the individual ingredients yet the tiny pilot studies of the combined / complete product are mentioned but I failed to spot any publication details for these. 

31 December 2011
There's a member on the MoreNiche forum who seems to be of a skeptical mindset (no it's not me in disguise, honest!) and who has published several posts expressing concern about some of the marketing for Nuratrim (in particular the claims that it had been previously launched in the US). Today I spotted that he or she was concerned about fake nutritionists and doctors being used to lend credibility on websites, but according to the others commenting on his / her post they're real. No reason why they shouldn't be of course.

Results of a Google search for the text in bold

7 December 2012
After indirectly getting in touch with The Telegraph to ask them to sort out their unwitting advert for Nuratrim they've now removed it (although at the time of writing the URL still indicates what might have been there http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wirecopy/8977974/Weight-loss-pill-which-burns-calories-of-40-minute-jog-goes-on-sale.html). This isn't much of a victory in retrospect as the mere fact that it was published at all is what allows MoreNiche affiliates to write stuff like "The Telegraph is a reputable and popular media source and now it has published a full-fledged article on Nuratrim."

This was not a 'full-fledged' article by any stretch, it was 'wire copy' which is a press release sent by the company or its PR agency, ie written by someone who wants to sell a product in the hope that a newspaper will write about it. The MoreNiche affiliate's website implies a degree of journalistic appraisal rather than straightforward churnalism - hopefully all this sort of nonsense will be magically sorted out by the Leveson inquiry, one can hope ;)   

You can easily tell if an "independent review site" really is by clicking on the 'buy' link which will undoubtedly be there. You'll have to keep your wits about you and also have View / Taskbar enabled but, if you don't blink, once you've clicked 'buy' and the company's page loads you should see the tell-tale sign of track.moreniche.com appearing in the taskbar, see pic below.

The taskbar usually appears in the left hand side of the window... sometimes on the right hand side ;)

16 January 2012
From the King's Fund weekly email alert on health policy...

Food supplements: guidance and FAQs
The responsibility for legislation on food supplements in England transferred from the Food Standards Agency to the Department Health on 1 October 2010.  Guidance and summary documents have been updated to reflect this change and update references.

• Updated summary information
• Updated guidance
• Department of Health - publications

19 January 2012
On further investigation it appears that Nuropharm formulate the pills and print labels for them "Nuropharm can handle basic design and vitamin label printing as well as more complicated requests" and may well distribute them as well. A commenter below has highlighted that Amazon has stopped selling Nuratrim - presumably that makes it a bit easier for the affiliates to do so instead.

3 June 2012
http://www.prlog.org/11854449-ex-hollyoaks-actress-has-revealed-that-she-uses-nuratrim-to-stay-in-shape.html - my favourite line is "The product has been mentioned in so many popular publications like The Daily Mail and The Telegraph" although it was actually removed, fairly promptly, from the Telegraph after another blogger (no, not me) got in touch with them about it.

22 August 2012
I have just noticed that Nuropharm Ltd (trading as http://www.nuratrim.com the parent company of Nuratrim), has been added to the Advertising Standards Authority's list of 'non-compliant  online advertisers'.

"[The compliance team] has contacted Nuropharm Ltd several times about removing claims that Nutratrim is scientifically proven to assist weight loss, burn fat, reduce cholesterol, increase metabolism and reduce appetite." More details here.

Although this particular post gets most of its hits from people Googling for Nuratrim (along with other relevant keywords) this blog post has actually only received around 2,500 hits in total which is a bit pathetic really. I doubt Nuropharm's citation on the ASA's website will stop people sending money to buy a product for which there doesn't appear to be any good evidence though. As always, they win ;)

For independent reviews of the product I recommend having a look at its page on Amazon.

26 August 2012
Despite the 'advertorial' in The Telegraph for this product* was online for less than a week it seems to have done its work. I've had a look in the Amazon reviews (vastly negative) for the product and spotted a few references to the product being advertised in both the Tele and the Daily Mail. I've also found several copies of the Telegraph article (made available by MoreNiche as a banner) in use on a number of affiliates pages, for example this one.

* it was nothing more than a copy/pasted press release and the 'author' of the story was given as 'wire copy' which I believe means it wasn't written by anyone on the paper

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Further reading

Do slimweight patches work? How? (2 January 2011)

I discovered the MoreNiche forum at the end of December 2010 and wrote about a particular product that had been promoted in the Daily Mail. There's also a lot of information in there on how they use various forms of search engine optimisation (SEO) to flood Google with pages that lead anyone looking for these products to affiliate sites first of all. It's here that I learned about article spinning sites - Google doesn't tend to index identical content so by changing a few words here and there you can turn one article into tens, hundreds and increase your indexing and page rankings (all the pages link back to each other).

Seeding articles of woo with sensible information - an experiment (18 June 2011)

I noticed that a photograph I'd taken of an advert in Holland & Barrett for a tea had been picked up and used in sites that were trying to sell it. I also noticed that the comments I'd left below the photo on my own Flickr page were also picked up. This gave me the idea that if I created free images and added comments to them then these might be picked up as well - in this way I hoped to Trojan horse my way into scam sites by linking to something sensible and pointing out that there's no evidence for the product. It's been only mildly successful (in terms of stuff getting picked up) but I've honestly no idea if anyone's decided against buying something because they've seen one of my images and comments).