Two obesity doctors believe the government should regulate the commercial weight-loss industry, in order to prevent Canadians from the misleading claims of fad diets, diet pills and weight-loss devices.

Yoni Freedhoff and Arya Sharma, in this week's Canadian Medical Association Journal wrote that weight-loss providers are exploiting and taking advantage of vulnerable consumers desperate to lose weight.

Freedhoff, the medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, Ottawa, and Sharma, the medical director of a weight-management programme, including Professor & Chairman of Obesity Research & Management, University of Alberta claim, there is an 'unregulated weight-loss wilderness' in Canada, which makes it possible for weight-loss patients to swindled, including endangering their health, with 'administration of ephedra4 and medically unsupervised very-low-calorie diets', putting them at risk of fatal consequences.

The doctors call losing weight quickly with vitamin B injections, or of 'magical' herbal supplements curbing appetite as claims that are nothing but 'preposterous', and ask for both doctors and governments to regulate the weight-loss industry to protect consumers.

'Failure to impose and enforce penalties for false or misleading weight-loss claims results in a major public health hazard,' they say. The changes they would like to see include:

• Formal accreditation for weight-loss providers, as a way to ensure quality and help consumers determine which methods are based on evidence.
• Legislation subjecting weight-loss products to regulatory approval based on proper clinical testing before being marketed.   
• Requirement for weight-loss supplement manufacturers to substantiate their claims scientifically.
• Health professionals to be educated on weight loss advice and therapy backed up by scientific study.

Sharma, writing on his blog, Obesity Notes says weight can only be lost through long-term dietary caloric intake management combined with increased exercise, with medication and surgery are recommended in some cases, but even these are not cures, just treatments.

Consumers are warned that they should mistrust any weight loss products that promise:

• Weight loss of two pounds or more a week for a month, or more without dieting or exercise.
• Substantial weight loss no matter what one or how one eats.
• Permanent weight loss.
• Loss of more than three pounds per week for more than four weeks.
• Substantial weight loss for all users.
• Substantial weight loss by wearing products on the body or rubbing it into the skin.