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Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:06 pm  |
Can a spoonful of sprinkles help your weight go down?By Claire Coleman
Last updated at 6:01 PM on 17th August 2009
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Could it really be true? Might sprinkling flakes of some magic compound over your food actually help you shift pounds by tricking you into thinking you're full?
If you believe the testimonies of hundreds of former fatties across the States then, yes, this really is the Holy Grail that millions of desperate dieters have been seeking.
Meet Sensa, a dramatic new diet-free approach to fat-busting that launched in the U.S. last summer and could be hitting UK shores before the end of the year.
Holy Grail: Calorie-free Sensa sprinkles are a chemical compound that enhances the smell and taste of what you're eating
With staggering claims from those who have tried it ('Dolly lost 53lb - "I didn't have to think about it, and I lost weight!"; Joey lost 120lb - "I didn't have to change my diet!" ') you can understand why this revolutionary system has got weight-loss chatrooms across the internet buzzing.
The appeal of Sensa is that it's not actually a diet. You don't have to cut out foods, count calories or put in hours at the gym. According to its manufacturers, all you have to do is lace your usual meals with calorie-free Sensa sprinkles - chemical compounds that enhance the smell and taste of what you're eating.
Sensa wasn't developed by a dietician, but by a neurologist, Dr Alan Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.
He identified that patients with head injuries who had lost their sense of smell and taste, gained weight. He theorised that if a lack of smell and taste could lead to weight gain, conversely, a surfeit of both might lead to weight loss.
What he came up with was Sensa Tastants, the sprinkles that you shake over the surface of everything you consume.
They enhance the smell and taste of what you're eating, stimulating the area of the brain responsible for identifying when you're full. Ultimately, you'll feel full, even though you've eaten less than usual.
Sweet tooth: Sensa sprinkles are the latest weight-loss solution from the U.S.
There are two variants of the sprinkles - a salty one that you add to savoury food, and a sweet one for sweet food.
According to Dr Hirsch's data, 1,436 men and women used Sensa over a six-month period and, on average, lost an average of 30.5lb - about 2st 2lb.
This sounds impressive, but Heather Caswell of the British Nutrition Foundation has some concerns. 'For a start, they only looked at the subjects over six months,' she says. 'That's a very short period of time to assess weight change.
'There's no information about whether or not the subjects maintained that level of weight loss after they stopped using the product.
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'I find it odd that they used a control group of only 100 people - that's small for a study of this size. There's also no information about whether the control group were asked to sprinkle anything over their food.
'Without that sort of information, it's hard to know if the weight loss was entirely down to the product, or whether it was due to the fact that people knew their eating habits were being observed.'
Sensa is sold as a six-month programme: you hand over $235 (about £142) and they send you '12 [six salty, six sweet] different patent-pending scent/flavour combinations that are proven to help trigger the brain mechanism that signals when you are full'.
Apparently, it's important to have new Tastants every month as your body 'can become accustomed to the Tastants and they will not be as effective if you use them for longer than 30 days'.
Gimmick? If Sensa isn't intended for continuous use, why is there a purchase programme that sends you a six-month supply twice a year?
The manufacturers claim that over time, you will 'intuitively understand portion control' and not have to rely on Tastants. But Heather Caswell is sceptical.
Moreover, if Sensa isn't intended for continuous use, why do the manufacturers offer a purchase programme that automatically debits your account and sends you a six-monthly supply twice a year?
And, if you are going to sprinkle Tastants on every meal for the next 30 years or more, shouldn't there be some long-term studies into their effects?
Come to think of it, what is actually in these Tastants? They sound slightly reminiscent of the food additive MSG, with the claims that they enhance the taste and flavour experience. But the company insists that Tastants don't contain any MSG, drugs or stimulants and are free of sodium, sugar and gluten.
The ingredients listed are maltodextrin (derived from corn from the U.S.), tricalcium phosphate, silica, natural and artificial flavours, FD&C yellow 5 and carmine (types of food dyes), as well as soy and milk.
Quite how a product whose first ingredient is a form of carbohydrate can be 'calorie-free' is not exactly clear, and those 'flavours' could hide a multitude of sins. But issues like this aside, if Sensa really can help a nation of fatties fight the flab, is it such a bad thing?
Yes, according to Heather Caswell. 'This isn't healthy weight loss,' she says.
'This programme lets you carry on eating rubbish, just maybe less rubbish than you did before. There's nothing about exercise or making healthy, balanced choices.
'Staying lean is just one reason why diet is important, but losing weight in itself is not enough. People need to ensure they're getting enough nutrients, and that they're not fuelling their bodies with foods that can cause problems in the long-term. This doesn't address any of those issues. It's not really getting people to take responsibility for what they eat and why.'
So while at first glance Sensa might look like a Holy Grail, it could well leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
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