Fast Metabolism

Alternative Medicine
1

I tuned into my local PBS station the other night, looking for a Nova program on Neil Armstrong, but instead they ran a program called “The Fast Metabolism Revolution” by a nutritionist named Hayley Pomroy. Among other things, she claimed that there were no such things as calories, you could eat as much as you wanted and still loose pounds, reverse diabetes (yes she said REVERSE it), cure high blood pressure, etc. I watched for about twenty minutes and all I saw were claims and testimonials. Supposedly you had to buy her book to get more information. Does anybody know anything about this?

2

Diet scams are a dime a dozen, and folks with legitimate expertise in nutrition couldn’t possible keep up with evaluating and debunking each one. This has all the hallmarks of quackery], including marketing through testimonials, “too good to be true” claims, claims to overturn established science, an appearance on Dr. Oz, and so on… But I have found any detailed evaluations from mainstream nutrition experts. There are a couple of skeptic blogs that challenge the claims Pomroy makes, but I can’t vouch for the authors’ credentials.
Evidence-based weight loss]
McGill Univ. Office for Science & Society]

3

I don’t know much about this particular individuals claims. As McKenzie has already said there are far too many people trying to make a buck from the latest diet book or supplement that its nearly impossible to keep up with them.
There are a few easily recognizable clues that a particular diet or supplement purveyor is a fraud

  1. They claim that they know something the rest of the medical community does not
  2. They claim that you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. There is no such thing a free lunch.
  3. They make you purchase their book to learn the secret. Legitimate medical information doesn’t travel that way. It is open source and available to everyone free of charge
    Finally, anyone who claims that there is “no such thing as calories” is by definition a fraud since they are denying well established basic principals of physics and biology going back to the time of Newton. But if you want to sell a book you have to claim something radical and appear to have some secret no one else knows about.
4
Diet scams are a dime a dozen, and folks with legitimate expertise in nutrition couldn't possible keep up with evaluating and debunking each one. This has all the hallmarks of quackery], including marketing through testimonials, "too good to be true" claims, claims to overturn established science, an appearance on Dr. Oz, and so on... But I have found any detailed evaluations from mainstream nutrition experts. There are a couple of skeptic blogs that challenge the claims Pomroy makes, but I can't vouch for the authors' credentials.
These kinds of scams will probably go on forever. By the time they are debunked, the author of the book has already made his profit. They are in it for the short term profits, whoch are driven by clever marketing. It's as much a scam as pyramid schemes. Lois
5

When I tried to respond to McKenzie’s post, my response was rejected as “possible spam”. So I took out McKenzie’s links. But, I wonder, how did McKenzie manage to post the links in the first place?
Usually if I take out “http/” it will go through, but it wouldn’t this time.
Lois

6

I appreciate the links, sir. Just listening to the woman talk, she sounded very persuasive. But at the same time there was an air of “too good to be true” about it all. The biggest thing that depressed me was wondering why this was on Public Television!