Wouldn't it be great if losing weight was as simple as visiting your chemist, health food store or even supermarket to pick up a jar of slimming pills. However, there's little evidence that common vitamin, herbal or other supplements containing strange and exotic substances are effective for weight loss.
According to a recent review of popular non-prescription weight loss supplements by Professor Garry Egger, Dr David Cameron-Smith and Rosemary Stanton in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA Vol 171, December 1999) there is “limited support for capsaicin, caffeine and fibre, but only when consumed in foods and, even so, the evidence is not strong.” They concluded that only caffeine combined with ephedrine appears to be effective, but with potential negative side effects.
