News January 2007

Bra Tycoon Launches Slimming Pill Business

BRA TYCOON Michelle Mone looks set to have a new business hit after being inundated with "thousands" of telephone calls about a diet pill she is launching this spring with a renowned herbalist.

The entrepreneur and her business partner, leading herbalist Jan de Vries, received the inquiries after Mone mentioned the new product in a newspaper interview.

Mone attributed a recent dramatic weight loss to herbal diet pills during an interview published last week in the Sunday Herald's sister paper, the Evening Times.

She will be selling Trim Secrets herbal pills, developed by de Vries, from April through major high street retailers and online through a new website.

Although the herbal formula is being kept a closely guarded secret for now, Mone says the magic active ingredient has changed her life.

She said: "I was a size 20 ten months ago - now I've lost four-and-a-half stone. Jan has found the cure for obesity, I'm proof of that, he has changed my life."

Mone began putting on weight four years ago after her business - and her marriage - went through a rocky patch. After trying various regimes including the Atkins diet, WeightWatchers and Slimmers World she sought help from de Vries, who had already begun work on a weight-loss pill for his clients, The pill, taken twice a day along with following a healthy eating plan and drinking 1.5 litres of water a day, has, says Mone, "transformed everything".

"What person doesn't wake up in the morning and want to lose weight?" she said.

"When you are on a diet you are depressed and deprived, but with these pills I had lots of energy. It gives you loads of energy, suppresses your appetite and burns cellulite - it has certainly burned mine.

"I was hiding it well in pictures and things, but I was really overweight."

De Vries, who runs 10 clinics across Scotland, said he "tinkered" with a herbal formula he had developed from research trips to the Mediterranean until he found the right combination of herbs that made "weight fall off" Mone.

He said: "I have worked on this for years - it took several attempts to get the formula right.

"Although I don't want to publicise what is in it at the moment, the herb is totally safe."

De Vries added the pills have been tested on 240 people without any signs of side effects.

Since news of the pill came to light in the past week, de Vries and Mone say they have been inundated with phone calls about the new product. In response, Mone has now set up a waiting list for Trim Secrets which will alert customers when the pills are ready for distribution.

Mone added her new business with de Vries was "completely unplanned".

"It's like with the bra - I wanted a cleavage enhancing bra, so I made one. I wanted to lose weight and now I have a new business out of it," she said. "This is a completely different business for us, and my prediction is that it will be a success. I wouldn't put any money into it if it didn't work."

However Sue Baic, a dietitian and nutritionist from the British Dietetic Association (BDA) said that if Trim Secrets does produce such dramatic weight loss it should be reclassified as a medicine, not a food, the category it will be sold under to meet regulations.

She said: "If a pill that caused dramatic though successful weight loss existed - especially if it were a herbal one - then the health service would welcome it with open arms. But I would challenge Jan de Vries to prove that it really works. The history of diet pills is controversial and I doubt they could work alone.

Source http://www.sundayherald.com/news/