This ice water hack is causing people to shed money, I mean pounds!

I've been getting YouTube ads constantly lately telling me how people having been losing weight with this incredible hack of drinking ice water before bed. It annoyed me immensely because it was very obviously a scam, but I didn't understand how it was a scam. Money is being spent on these YouTube ads, there must be an expectation of a return on investment, but how were they going to make money off just telling people to drink ice water? Eventually I just had to click on the ad.

This lead me to a long, unskippable video about the secret the diet industry doesn't want you to know. One Zack Miller told how being fat had ruined his wife's life and how nothing seemed to work. Until one day he met a Dr. Patla who revealed the secrets to thinness. At first the secret is from the Alps, but then its from the Himalayas-- they're both mountain ranges, stop asking so many questions. He claims the people in the Himalayas are so naturally thin that they don't have a word for obesity. The Himalayan mountain range goes over five countries with different languages (Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan) so I'm not really sure who he is referring to.

Then the sacred water stuff starts to get sidelined to talk about other things, things that can be sold. They are specifically golden algae, dika nut, drumstick tree leaf, bigarade orange, ginger and turmeric. These six ingredients combined will supposedly raise your internal body temperature (which is apparently different from your body temperature that you can measure with a thermometer, so don't bother checking) causing you to burn fat and lose weight. And you can get them all in convenient capsule form from Alpilean, just $59 a bottle.

The Alpilean reveal gave me pause, I thought people were supposed to drink ice water, but that wouldn't seem to have the opposite effect if your goal was to raise your body temperature. Then I realized there had simply been a bait and switch. The bait was the ice water hack: free, easy, quick results. The switch had been to the Alpilean pills: expensive, dubious, and recommended for at least 180 days.

The Alpilean website has a dozen academic references to back up their claims. They don't provide actual links and you can't even copy paste the titles into Google, but they are all real articles, which are:

1. Anti-obesity activity of the marine carotenoid fucoxanthin

2. Fucoxanthin from edible seaweed, Undaria pinnatifida, shows antiobesity effect through UCP1 expression in white adipose tissues

3. Effects of Red Pepper, Ginger, and Turmeric on Energy Metabolism

4. Curcumin improves insulin sensitivity and increases energy expenditure in high-fat-diet–induced obese mice associated with activation of FNDC5/irisin

5. A novel seed extract of the West African plant Irvingia gabonensis, significantly reduces body weight and improves metabolic parameters in overweight humans in a randomized double-blind placebo controlled investigation

6. Inhibition of Irvingia gabonensis seed extract (OB131) on adipogenesis as mediated via down regulation of the PPARgamma and leptin genes and up-regulation of the adiponectin gene

7. Intervention with citrus flavonoids reverses obesity and improves metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis in obese mice

8. Bitter Orange (Citrus aurantium Linné) Improves Obesity by Regulating Adipogenesis and Thermogenesis through AMPK Activation

9 Isothiocyanate-rich Moringa oleifera extract reduces weight gain, insulin resistance, and hepatic gluconeogenesis in mice

10. Anti-obesity potential of Moringa olifera seed extract and lycopene on high fat diet induced obesity in male Sprauge Dawely rats

11. Ginger consumption enhances the thermic effect of food and promotes feelings of satiety without affecting metabolic and hormonal parameters in overweight men: A pilot study

12. Ginger prevents obesity through regulation of energy metabolism and activation of browning in high-fat diet-induced obese mice

Of the 12 studies, seven of them just show results in mice or rats. These kinds of results are so meaningless that it’s a bit of a wonder why the studies are actually done. Unless you’re going to force people to live the rest of their lives in labs and eat only what scientists give them, studies on mice aren’t going to prove anything.

Two of the studies are talking about effects at a cellular level, which is not the same thing as weight loss.

One found that a hot ginger drink lead to feeling full, which is not the same thing as weight loss. Besides Alpilean is a pill, not a hot drink.

The study on “Effects of Red Pepper, Ginger, and Turmeric on Energy Metabolism” analyzed other papers and found the spices “affect energy metabolism through various mechanisms.” but also “These spices haven't been assigned appropriate doses and periods of use, and no definite judgments can be made on their use.” Which is science talk for “We don’t know how much you should use, how long you should use them or if they really work.”

The only study that actually showed some real results with people was “Novel seed extract of the West African plant Irvingia gabonensis, significantly reduces body weight and improves metabolic parameters in overweight humans in a randomized double-blind placebo controlled investigation.” The title kind of says it all. There aren’t more studies like this because its way easier to study mice than people. I would caution though that a single study doesn’t really prove anything. But hey, if you want to try it, you don't need Alpilean to get irvingia gabonensis, better known as dika nut.

Speaking of dika nut, it is from Western Africa. Bigarade orange is from Southeast Asia. Ginger is from Maritime Southeast Asia. Geography nerds might recognize these places as neither the Himalayas nor the Alps.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that the Alpilean video talks at length about how the diet industry is a scam. Even if people lose weight, they just tend to gain it right back. The fact that people stay fat isn't a problem for the billion dollar diet industry--it means repeat customers. This is all true. It's just that Alpilean isn't some secret that the industry has been suppressing, it's just another peddler of false dreams.