“I Love it When They Take the Time to Learn a Little About Us First”

Posted By elissa on Jul 2, 2009 | 2 comments

That’s what Paul wrote on the e-mail he forwarded to me this morning.  He was being sarcastic, of course, but I could hardly blame him.  Here’s the message he received:

I would like to introduce UltimateFatBurner.com, and your valued customers, to Cellulean, the most effective Active Cellulite Solution on the market.  I believe Cellulean is a perfect complimentary product to be utilized with all your weight loss and fat burning products. Your clients are motivated and focused to improve their overall body image and appearance; Cellulean will help.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience so we may discuss this opportunity in more detail.  I look forward to hearing back from you and helping you to become an authorized Cellulean Wholesaler.

Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this picture? 😀

Since we don’t sell ANY products here, we don’t have “customers” or “clients”, either… and it would have taken the sender – who was the VP of Marketing – less than 5 minutes on the site to figure that out.  Needless to state, this stellar bit of marketing research and outreach didn’t exactly leave us with a very good impression of him.

Or his product… Prior to receiving a copy of the above message, I’d never heard of “Cellulean” before.  But once my consciousness had been raised, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to “discuss this opportunity in more detail”.

Let’s start with the obvious: what is cellulite – and why is it such an issue for women?  This recent New York Times article gives a pretty good explanation:

CELLULITE is a telltale sign that life is a crapshoot. Most women get cellulite after puberty. But men usually don’t, not even if they’ve got the girth to qualify for “The Biggest Loser.”

That’s because the connective tissue bands under men’s skin are crisscrossed like a net, keeping their fat more evenly restrained. By contrast, women’s tissue bands are organized in vertical columns, so fat may bulge irregularly.

“At a normal weight your fat cells fall nicely into valleys of connective tissue,” said Dr. Michael D. Jensen, a clinical professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, who has studied fat for 25 years. “When you get too many fat cells or too big of fat cells now they push up on the roof.” Or, your skin.

What’s more, women don’t have as thick a roof as men, all the better to show dimples. And thanks to estrogen, women have more fatty reserves.

It doesn’t stop there. As we age, the connective tissue strands between our skin and muscle, which used to stretch to accommodate weight fluctuations, become inflexible. “Some of the bands tighten down and you get pockmarks with bulges next to them,” said Dr. Brian M. Kinney, an assistant professor of plastic surgery at the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California. Voilà, cottage cheese.

In other words, cellulite is a structural problem… it only appears to be superficial.  As such, superficial treatments generally don’t do a whole lot to get rid of it.

“At this point, there is no outstanding treatment for cellulite,” said Dr. Molly Wanner, an instructor in dermatology at Harvard Medical School and an author of an evidence-based review of existing treatments in 2008. A lasting remedy would have to address the interplay between skin, fat, connective tissue and underlying muscle.

In other words, curing cellulite requires nothing short of changing the structure of skin.

Still, treatments abound, from contour-refining lotions and liposuction to massage machines with lasers and light sources. And there’s no shortage of takers. The market for cellulite-reduction devices in the United States was more than $47 million in 2008, said Amy Krohn, a spokeswoman for the Millennium Research Group. It is projected to grow to $62 million by 2013.

But no treatment has emerged as the gold standard. “Most studies show a 25 to 50 percent improvement after multiple treatments,” Dr. Wanner said. “Some patients have even less improvement, and the effects may go away over time so patients may require additional treatments.”

The reality is that – photoshopped models notwithstanding – most women have – or will have – some cellulite on their bodies, even those of us who are unusually lean (and yes, that “us” is inclusive… I have some too. 😉 )

So let’s return to Cellulean now, and see what the product has to offer.

Cellulean features a range of ingredients, but the principal one is aminophylline – an asthma medication composed of theophylline (a methylxanthine compound similar to caffeine) and ethylenediamine.  Since it also stimulates lipolysis, it’s used in mesotherapy solutions and over-the-counter topical fat reduction products.  As you might imagine, aminophylline isn’t unique to Cellulean… in fact, there are a number of aminophylline creams out there, including some that have been targeted by the Federal Trade Commission.

What’s the deal with aminophylline?  The Cellulean web site states that there have been nine clinical trials conducted on it, but only one relevant study is cited or discussed on the site.

RESULTS: At week 12, there was a significant reduction in BMI from baseline that was not different between the groups. The reduction in waist circumference was 11 +/- 1.0 cm in the aminophylline cream group and 5.0 +/- 0.6 cm in the control group (p < 0.001). The reduction in waist circumference was significant for both women and men, but the women lost significantly more waist girth. The waist to hip ratio, a measure of fat distribution, declined. Aminophylline levels were undetectable, and there were no adverse events. DISCUSSION: Aminophylline cream offers a safe and effective method for cosmetic local fat reduction from the waist.

Ok, so the aminophylline group lost an extra 6 cm vs. the control group. I have to admit, that’s a pretty impressive result. Unfortunately, there were also some problems with the study that could have influenced those results, as noted by one medical reviewer:

The study has several limitations. It did not include a placebo group, and there is no mention of blinding of investigators who assessed study outcomes. The much larger proportion of women in the study and their improved outcomes vs men leaves open the possibility that aminophylline cream may not be as effective in males. Finally, the authors did not include an analysis of the efficacy of aminophylline cream based on study subjects’ degree of weight loss. All participants in this study received a structured weight-loss program that was generally successful. Aminophylline may not be as effective without such a program in place.

While aminophylline was effective in the current study, not all fat is created equal, and aminophylline has a mixed record of efficacy in other trials. In a study of aminophylline cream vs placebo among a group of women, application to the buttocks and thighs failed to improve BMI, thigh circumference, or fat depth within the thigh as measured by ultrasound. Moreover, less than 10% of patients felt that aminophylline improved the appearance of their cellulite…

Emphasis mine. The failure to use a placebo, or blind the subjects/experimenters are pretty important omissions, as the researchers’ feedback and expectations could have affected the subjects’ compliance to the strict diet program they were  on.  As noted above, not all trials of topical aminophylline have had such dramatic results.

Nor have all Cellulean users.  There are some interesting reviews of this product at Amazon.com… 3 of them are positive, and the other 8 are resoundingly negative.

There’s even more consumer feedback summarized here:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTiwJAz6-So]

Sure, it’s a small sample, but two points were clear: a) the results were quite modest; and b) the $12.00 Nivea edged out the $69.00 Cellulean.

So much for “the most effective Active Cellulite Solution on the market”.

To make a long story short, even if we DID market fat/weight loss products here at UltimateFatBurner.com, I doubt we’d carry Cellulean… or any other topical fat loss/cellulite cream either.  They might make your skin feel a little tighter/smoother, but they’re simply not worth investing a lot of hope – or money – in.