Tru Raspberry Ketones Review (sort of) and update on Green Coffee Bean story
[Update 9/13/12 10pm: The owner has offered me a sample of the raspberry ketone pills to test out. I haven't received them yet, but I will let you know what I think when I get them.]
Hey guys -
Some of you may be new readers, who found my blog after searching for information on the Tru Raspberry Ketones supplement being offered by Groupon today, while others of you are regulars around here.
As far as the Raspberry supplement goes – I haven’t tried it, so I really don’t have a specific opinion on the matter so if you were looking for a definitive yes or no, sorry you aren’t going to find it here. I can tell you that this supplement is produced by the same company that produces the Tru Green Coffee Bean Extract pills which have been sold on Groupon many times and which I have previously written about. (links here and here and here).
Raspberry Ketone’s claim to fame is an endorsement from Dr. Oz – who by the way is a Cardiothoracic surgeon (which I guess is how he got into nutrition and supplements? make sense to you? me neither.). From my experience specialized medical practitioners (like surgeons) tend to know a whole lot about their area, and not much about others. He would have had 2 years of preclinical curriculum, 2 years of clinical rotations, and then probably 5-7 years training in his surgery area. He would have taken a few classes on pharmacology during his preclinical curriculum, and then any drug information he learned after that would be learned on the job and related to the field he was in (i.e. not diet supplements). If anyone has more information on where/how Dr. Oz was educated on alternative medicine please send it my way.
Raspberry Ketone has been shown in some (small) studies (published in relatively obscure journals) to affect body fat, however no experiements have been published that have been completed in humans, and the only experiments used rodents (which doesn’t always translate to mean it will work the same in people). The Globe and Mail did a relatively short writeup on the science, and my buddies over at Science-Based Medicine also did a write up on Dr. Oz and his weight loss supplements (which I’ve linked to previously but if you haven’t checked it out it is a good read)
You should note however that many of the first few links that pop up if you search google for “Tru Raspberry Ketone” are websites that are made to look like a review but in reality are attempting to sell you a different brand of Raspberry Ketone supplement. I will not be doing this just an FYI (though in the interest of full disclosure I did link to the product so just a heads up if you purchase it from my link I will get Groupon credit for it – don’t let this sway you though)
BIG NEWS: Here’s the update on the Green Coffee Bean story that I promised in the title – after my most recent post about the pills, I received an email from Adam Hagaman (the owner of Healthy Body LLLP) requesting that we talk because he wanted to clear some stuff up and present his side of the story – and as an act of good faith he passed along one of his lab test results for me to look at. I am of course willing to hear the other side of the story, and will be interviewing him in the next week or so and then writing it up for you guys to see. I am also attempting to talk to the company that does the quality control testing for the supplements, but I’m waiting on Adam to provide them with his permission for me to speak to them. So keep an eye out for my upcoming feature!
If you do decide to go ahead and purchase these please check back in with us on the elements of summer and tell us how it worked for you! (Same goes for those of you who have tried the Green Coffee Bean Extract)