Be very, very careful if you decide to sign up for one of those “free trials” of açai-berry/colon-cleansing pills. The order page includes a “warning,” typically in tiny gray print, that by agreeing to the “free trial,” you’re enrolling in a “membership program” that sends you various products you don’t want or need and automatically bills your credit-card account up to $90 per month. So you end up paying plenty for the “free trial.” It’s impossible to cancel or get a refund from the company. The only way to put a stop to the billing is to change your credit-card number.

As for the benefits of the açai pills, I believe that açai is a good source of antioxidants, but there is NO legitimate medical evidence that it’s a miracle fat-burning weight-loss supplement. And as for the colon-cleansing pills, I read actual testimonies from those who consumed them and said it caused stomach cramps and bloating. These widely-advertised “miracle” diet pills are pretty much a scam. The “diet blogs” with their before-and-after photos are fake (using stock photos and Photoshopping), the so-called successful dieters are nonexistent, and the claims made on these blogs are phony. So are the “comments.” That goes for Judy’s Diet Blog, Sarah’s Diet Blog, and the rest of them. Fake. You’d be better off buying real açai pulp at your local natural-food store, incorporating it into a common-sense diet, and doing things like exercising regularly and cutting down on fats and carbs . . . the non-miracle stuff.

Similar scams are posted all over the Internet for teeth whiteners, wrinkle removers, and Google grants. The bloggers, blogs, reviews, and claims are all bogus. All of them. I suspect that there’s one company behind them all, since the M.O is so similar: e.g., the fake first-person blog using stock photos. Someone is getting filthy-rich on all of this. And the only things that have been cleaned out aren’t dieters’ colons but their checking accounts.