As statistical studies conducted in high-income countries indicate, 65% of adolescents are not comfortable with their bodies.. This figure for adult women is much higher, due to social standards and gender impositions that we will not discuss here: 84% of females are not comfortable with their body shape. Despite social advances, the above figures show us that roles and stereotypes are still present in society.
This body dissatisfaction goes hand in hand with other data of great interest: in 2017, in the United States, 57.6% of the adult population (50% men, 64% women) indicated having consumed a dietary supplement in the last 30 days. Private companies know that the bulk of the population is not entirely happy with their habits and body shapes and, as a result, more and more brands are appearing every day offering oral tablets aimed at slimming, purifying the body, building muscle mass and much more besides.
More and more products are appearing on supermarket shelves with the aim of reducing body weight with minimum effort: Sliminazer, Reduslim, Chitosan, Reductor Complex Bio and XLS medical are some of them. Today we put Idealica, another of these slimming supplements that promise miracles at low cost, to the test.. Don’t miss it.
- You may be interested in: “Sliminazer: does it really work or is it a fraud?”
What is a slimming supplement?
Slimming pills, tablets and patches are not drugs. A slimming supplement is a compound consisting of (at least one) of these ingredients: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbal elements and concentrates, metabolites or extracts of all of the above. of all of the above. Since we are moving into the realm of ingredients available to the general population in the form of foods and plants, these substances are not considered drugs and fall into the category of dietary supplements.
To put it bluntly, a slimming supplement is a food, not a drug, despite being sold as such and presented in a typical drug format. This small gap may seem anecdotal, but nothing could be further from the truth: since these supplements are not drugs, no prior studies have to be conducted with them to prove their efficacy. A seller does not have to prove that his product works, so go carefully.
Due to this legal problem, lawsuits have been filed on multiple occasions against slimming supplements for false advertising, unregistered damages and a long etcetera. Without going any further, in 2018, the OCU (Spanish Consumers’ Association) denounced 23 slimming products for misrepresentation of the truth., in particular for failing to comply with the section of Royal Decree 1907/1996 as far as honest advertising is concerned.
Finally, it is interesting to note that, at least in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can indeed withdraw from the market a slimming supplement that is shown to be pathogenic or dishonest. It is not the first time that health agencies have had to ban the sale of a supplement, either because of the falsity of its claims or because of hepatotoxicity and other clinical events.
Idealica: does it work?
As you can see, in these areas we must tread carefully, as we must remember that the seller does not have to demonstrate the efficacy of its product.. For its part, Idealica is another of the slimming supplements that promises miracles on its website, but without providing a single study and research to prove what is being said. We are off to a bad start, as each of these points can be easily refuted:
- It destroys fat cells.There are only two proven processes that eliminate fat cells in the pharmacological field, liposuction and cryolipolysis. To say that a natural extract destroys fat cells is not true.
- Improves immunityImmune strengthening is achieved with repeated exposure to pathogens and a complete diet. If a person is immunosuppressed, specialized drugs are required. Immunization with such a compound cannot be justified.
- Reduces appetiteAgain, without exact concentrations of the active ingredients in hand and studies to prove it, claims like this cannot be made.
- Cleanses the body: some active compounds in past slimming agents have been shown to be toxic to the liver. Far from cleansing the body, some prevent the body from functioning properly.
- Natural productThe only concession in the whole list. If it were not made from natural products, it would be considered a non-legislated drug and would be banned.
As you can see, it is enough to enter the product’s website to be suspicious. Not a single one of these claims is supported by a study, so at the very least, it is untrue by concealment of the data.
Ingredients and properties of Idealica
On the other hand, it should be noted that Idealica, unlike other products, is marketed in the form of drops (not tablets). It is necessary to dissolve 20-25 milliliters in 200 milliliters of water and consume this dose twice a day.. Beyond possible lies and deception techniques, things get complicated at the monetary level: to achieve a complete cycle of the “treatment”, a person must pay approximately 300 euros, since the amount of concentrate in each bottle is very small and each one costs 30 to 40 euros.
Among Idealica’s ingredients, we find many that are already famous in the world of dietary supplements: orange extract, cordyceps extract, green coffee and green tea extract and a myriad of fruit compounds, as well as L-carnitine and certain vitamins. Again, the sellers play a game of deception, as they do not give the actual concentration of any of these compounds in the solution.
It has been established that some of the more famous dietary ingredients may work, but only in the right doses. For example, the study Effects of l-carnitine supplementation on weight loss and body composition found that L-carnitine could be useful for weight loss in certain sample groups, but with the administration of 2,000 milligrams in pill form per day. As the sellers of these supplements do not clarify the minimum dose of action, it is impossible to justify their performance..
As far as Idealica is concerned, none of its constituent ingredients have been shown to be truly lipolytic or thermogenic. The only ones that have historically aroused interest are coffee and green tea extracts, but even these have not produced conclusive results. For example, the research Can green tea preparations help with weight loss? cites that green tea consumers who were already on a diet could lose 0.2 to 3.5 kilos more than the rest, but these data were not significant and cannot be taken as reality.
In addition, curiously, the supplement’s own website contradicts itself: it states that it works without dieting, but the portals that offer Idealica for sale say the opposite. As indicated in the legal note of the product, for maximum effects, the person must already be on a diet with a negative caloric balance of 500 calories. It is also recommended to exercise 4 times a week for the drops to be more effective.. So what makes the “treatment” with Idealica different from a normal diet, if you have to follow all the steps of a diet for it to work?
Summary
As always in these cases, we can only recommend that you do not buy Idealica and spend your money on a nutritionist or physical trainer.. Health professionals have no interest in selling you products, so they will look after your well-being beyond invented figures and fantasy realities. Don’t get carried away by advertising and keep your critical spirit.
Lastly, we wanted to make a small reflection: entering these websites to consult the products is almost painful, because all the images represent happy, slim, “perfect” women before and after the supposed treatment. The body shaming that these sellers resort to in order to sell you their product is scandalous, and exceeds the limits that we consider ethical as people who are dedicated to disseminate and communicate.
Don’t let the socially imposed image make you feel bad in front of the mirror.. As long as you do not incur in a pathological condition, we encourage you to channel your energy into learning to love yourself as you are and to live according to the physiological needs of your body, not based on the stretch marks you may have or those accumulations of fat on your belly. Having body fat is not being imperfect, but a sign that we are healthy and alive.