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Pharmaceuticals July 29, 2009, 6:45PM EST

Resveratrol: The Hard Sell on Anti-Aging

Online ads for resveratrol are using fake endorsements from experts and celebrities to promote the unproven anti-aging product

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Sinclair's name is being used without his permission in ads for Resveratrol CJ Gunther/New York Times/Redux

By Arlene Weintraub

Andrew Popper

Editor's note: For related a report on CBS Evening News, done in collaboration with BusinessWeek, click here, or go to CBS Evening News and search for resveratrol.

When Harvard University scientist David Sinclair discovered that a substance in red wine called resveratrol might explain the life-extending powers attributed to the beverage, he became an instant celebrity. Barbara Walters featured the youthful Australian in a 2008 ABC News TV special called Live to Be 150: Can You Do It? Sinclair also appeared on 60 Minutes and other news shows. In April 2008, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) bought Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, the company Sinclair co-founded, for $720 million.

The media interviews were celebrations of scientific discoveries, not product promotions. But to Sinclair's chagrin, he was quickly turned into a pitchman by companies selling resveratrol supplements on the Internet. Their ads, placed alongside search results when people typed in "anti-aging" or "resveratrol," contained links with titles such as "dr-sinclair-resveratrol.com." This particular site, which appeared on the Web in June, could fool the most savvy shopper into thinking Sinclair was selling the product. "If you have been following 60 Minutes, you would have seen my segment on resveratrol, and everything it can do for you," read the text beside a photo of Sinclair. "As mentioned, I take resveratrol myself, and love it."

The site offered a free trial to anyone who typed in their credit-card number. Those who tried to click off the ad were stopped by a large boxed message, which read: "Wait! Dr. Sinclair wants to make sure you take advantage of this limited time opportunity!"

The doctor never uttered any of the words attributed to him. In fact, Sinclair is the first to admit that the whole resveratrol story has never been clear-cut. Although that name is on the label of red-grape extracts sold in health food stores everywhere, such resveratrol pills have never been proven effective in large-scale clinical trials. Resveratrol probably has some effect, Sinclair says. His lab showed that mice fed the chemicals live at least 15% longer than normal mice. But to get such benefits, human beings might have to consume up to 5 grams of resveratrol a day, he says. That's about 80 pills, at doses found in a typical bottle.

All this helps explain why resveratrol concoctions have never been endorsed by Sinclair, Sirtris, or Glaxo. The compounds Glaxo is currently developing aren't resveratrol at all; they're synthesized molecules that appear to have a much more potent biological effect—at least in lab animals. What's more, Glaxo's drugs based on Sinclair's work aren't being tested against aging, but rather to treat diseases common in the elderly such as cancer and diabetes. Asked about the resveratrol ads invoking Sinclair and Sirtris, Glaxo spokeswoman Mary Anne Rhyne said: "We're investigating the situation."

"Free" Trials

FWM Laboratories of Hollywood, Fla., which sells Resveratrol Ultra, is behind many of the ads—and has taken the brunt of customers' ire. The company sells monthly subscriptions to a handful of supplements, including açai, a Brazilian berry it promotes as a weight-loss treatment. A recent search on consumer site Complaintsboard.com brought up 1,200 posts from agitated FWM customers. The company offers 15-day free trials, but many customers don't realize the trials start when they type in their credit-card numbers, not when they receive their first shipment. It's in the fine print of the "terms and conditions" document on the company's Web site, but that can be hard to find. Some customers report that they continue to incur monthly charges long after they cancel. And when they call FWM's 800 number to complain, they're often put on hold interminably.

FWM CEO Brian Weiss says FWM doesn't create the ads, approve them, or place them on the Net. It delegates those tasks to ad networks, which the company pays to spread the word about its products. He declined to name which networks FWM uses. As for the content of the ads, Weiss says: "We don't control them." But he adds that he has five employees who troll the Internet all day for improper promotions. If they find any, they contact the network's managers and ask them to "please cease this immediately."

Internet marketing abuses have been around since the birth of the Web, but few match resveratrol when it comes to entangling dubious products with specious celebrity endorsements. Oprah Winfrey and Mehmet Oz, a Columbia University medical professor who appears regularly on her show, have both been invoked in resveratrol ads, as has TV chef Rachael Ray. The ads, served up by Google (GOOG) and other search engines, sometimes pop up as "sponsored links" on health portals and even on legitimate Web sites associated with the celebrities. And there's little these luminaries have been able to do about it—a problem that highlights certain flaws in the controversial ad-placement software used by Google and some of its competitors.

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