“It must be the heat” I tell myself, because nothing short of an over-heated brain could possibly induce anyone to believe the latest piece of nonsense from the dieting industry – the so-called “Gastric Hypno Band”.
For those of you who have not yet come across it, the claim is that you don’t actually need to have a gastric band; you just have to believe you do. Through a series of individual treatment sessions the “therapist” implants the belief that the band is in place and is being adjusted, leading to reduced food intake and weight loss.
Presumably by analogy, in order to get rich I don’t need to have a large amount of money in my bank account I just have to believe that I do. The trouble is that if I behave as though I’m a millionaire and I’m not, I have a quick reality check – it’s called a bank statement. And those who are gullible enough to pay for the Gastric Hypno Band will also encounter a reality check – it’s called weighing scales.
The Hypno Band has never been studied in the context of a properly organised clinical trial, for the obvious reason that those who pedal this sort of junk know that it doesn’t work. In fact there is no scientific evidence that hypnotherapy works for anything very much – and certainly not for weight loss. Of course there are lots of anecdotal reports about how wonderful it is, but in medicine we tend not to organize treatment on the basis of what a few people say; we tend to be more interested in unbiased reports from carefully conducted clinical trials. After all, what would you think if you were unfortunate enough to have cancer and I said that you didn’t actually need life-saving surgery to have the growth removed, you just had to believe you had already had it? I think I can guess what your answer would be.
So for those who may be unfamiliar with scientific method, here is a simple test to distinguish the snake oil from the real deal. For any claim – whether it’s about weight loss, hair restorer, cosmetics or any other “miracle” – if your immediate reaction is that it’s just too good to be true – it almost certainly is!
Dr David Ashton
20th July 2010
