Product Claims for GOLO
Another ubiquitous commercial on television is for a weight loss program called GOLO for Life, a dietary supplement and a weight loss program. It’s the one that uses an illustration to explain insulin resistance: the muscle in the abdominal area is blocked from using belly fat by a barrier. Insulin resistance is much more complicated than that, but I guess it makes a point. The claim in an expanded version of the commercial on the GOLO website is that “the program is clinically proven to reduce insulin resistance.” There are many more claims, but I’m going to stick with that one.
The company supported four studies on the GOLO for Life program; I’ll cover the two pilot studies today—one in the U.S. and another in South Africa—and the remainder on Saturday.
The U.S. pilot study did not have a control group, had a significant number of dropouts, and did not report the caloric intake of the subjects. The subjects lost a significant amount of weight and lowered their HbA1c by 4%.
The South African study was not so much a study as a series of GOLO programs conducted as part of wellness programs in businesses. The data were combined for analysis. Again, there were significant dropouts and caloric intake was not reported. The subjects using the supplement lost more weight than the controls.
Why did I make a big deal about caloric intake? If we don’t know how much they claimed they ate, we don’t know whether to attribute the results to the supplement or the weight loss program or both. The purpose of pilot studies is to help set up clinical trials, and we’ll take a look at those on Saturday.
What are you prepared to do today?
