Metabolics Ltd - Colon Cleansers

Metabolics Ltd are offering a marvellous nutritional supplement called "Bright Eyes".

To my great disappointment, the main ingredient did not turn out to be chopped rabbit eyeballs.

(Image credit)

The subject of this ASA complaint is not the product pictured above, but a supplement called Colon Cleanse which, we are assured,

"...detoxifies the bowel..."

As I have reminded the ASA on about a million different occasions, detox treatments do not work.

In case their memory is fading, here's yet another ASA complaint! (Flyer available here and here)

"I write to complain about a leaflet I picked up at the CamExpo exhibition in London on 24th October this year.

The leaflet, for Metabolics Ltd, promotes a number of nutritional supplements.

I suspect that the leaflet may be in breach the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code). I can provide the original leaflet by post, if necessary.

1. The UK's leading authority on complementary medicine, Professor Edzard Ernst, has recently written about "detox" therapies [1]:

"Detox, as used in alternative medicine, is based on ill-conceived ideas about human physiology, metabolism, toxicology etc. There is no evidence that it does any good and some treatments...can be harmful. The only substance that is being removed from a patient is usually money."

2. Therefore, under Section 12.1, I challenge whether the advertisers can substantiate their claim that the "COLON CLEANSE" product can "detoxify the bowel".

3. I confirm I have no connections with the advertiser. I confirm I am not involved in legal proceedings with the advertiser.

Footnotes:

[1] Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst, "Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial", American edition 2008, p308
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