State study to explore grapefruit as diet aid

The Citrus Department wants to know if the fruit really can help people lose weight, which could boost drooping sales.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 4, 2003

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Citrus Department is paying $150,000 to find out whether one of the oldest fad diets in America, the Grapefruit Diet, actually works.

The contract for the study went to researchers in California -- Florida's rival in citrus sales.

The researchers will give overweight people grapefruits, grapefruit pills and grapefruit juice to see if it makes them lose weight, even if they continue to chow down on bacon and eggs and cheeseburgers.

If grapefruit is proven to be a flab fighter, citrus officials say, it might help boost sales. Florida produces 80 percent of the world's grapefruit, but sales have been down the past three years.

Older people have been the biggest grapefruit fans, and promoters are trying to position grapefruit juice as a health drink for young mothers. One marketing plan shows that the Citrus Department went to beauty magazines and promoted grapefruit juice as a way to fight bloating "so you look and feel great in your little black dress."

For bridal magazines, the Citrus Department promoted grapefruit juice as "the hottest trend in entertaining" and recommended it as part of a "pre-wedding beauty regime."

As for the Grapefruit Diet, it's been around since the 1930s. It had one incarnation as the Hollywood Diet. Dieters are supposed to eat a lot of grapefruit, a little protein and not much else.

"Every single time there's been a promotion of grapefruit as a weight loss product, there's been an increase in grapefruit sales," said Dr. Joseph Ahrens, director of research for Florida's Department of Citrus. "We cannot make any claim unless it's based on a scientific study."

The Department of Citrus implies on its Web site that grapefruit is a diet aid. It features the "Heart Healthy Florida Grapefruit Diet," recommended by television fitness diva Denise Austin.

"We do promote a diet, but we never say that grapefruit causes weight loss," Ahrens said. "We've always couched it in those terms -- that you can enjoy grapefruit as part of a heart-healthy diet."

The diet is a regular low-calorie eating plan that features lots of fruits and vegetables, including grapefruit. One suggested dinner: shrimp scampi sauteed in Florida grapefruit juice.

The Web site says that "a prestigious East Coast University has released the results of their study incorporating the new heart Healthy Florida Grapefruit Diet."

That study, done for the Citrus Department by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, wasn't particularly valuable in proving whether grapefruit works as a weight-loss aid, said Ahrens. There was no control group of people who didn't eat any grapefruit, he said. The study participants went on a low-calorie diet and ate grapefruit, so it wasn't clear whether they lost weight because of the low-calorie diet or because of the grapefruit.

In 1975, an administrative law judge ruled that the makers of the "Grapefruit Pill Diet" misled consumers by saying grapefruit caused weight loss, when there's no scientific study to prove it.

"Right now, grapefruit is associated with weight loss," Ahrens said, "but that's not as powerful as saying grapefruit causes weight loss. Our aim is to nail it down."

In December, the Citrus Department sought researchers who would study "the effect of grapefruit products on 'bloating,' and if initial weight loss, if any, is due in part or whole as a diuretic/bloat reliever."

The study -- and the entire Citrus Department -- are paid for by a tax on every box of citrus sold in Florida.

Researchers at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego were awarded the state contract.

They plan to enroll 100 people in the study and include a control group who will take fake grapefruit pills. The participants won't change their diet in any other way.

"We'll find out of there really is some chemical that's doing something metabolically," said Judith Sheard, manager of the Scripps study.

One Web site devoted to dissecting various fad diets, dietreviews.com, posts a warning: "There is no one food that has magical properties to cause fat to melt off. If there were, we would have known about it before now!"

The Grapefruit Diet

There are many versions of the Grapefruit Diet, which began in the 1930s as the Hollywood Diet. This diet claims that grapefruit contains a special fat-burning enzyme, activated when you eat half a grapefruit for each meal, along with small amounts of other food.

Does grapefruit have a special fat-burning enzyme?

No. There is no scientific basis to this claim. Grapefruit is a good food, but so are other healthy foods like vegetables and other fruits.

Does the diet work?

It works because people cut their calories. If you consume fewer calories than your body uses, you will lose weight.

Source: Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, www.webmd.com

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