TrimSpa was a dietary supplement designed for weight loss, marketed by the company Goen Technologies and headed by Alexander Szynalski.
[1] The ephedra-based supplement was marketed by TrimSpa to help "stave off hunger",[2] until ephedra was banned from the United States.
The government expressed health concerns, advising against the use of ephedra in 2003, causing the company to seek a new formula.
In 2007, a class-action lawsuit came forward seeking an injunction against the company from advertising its formula as an effective weight loss product.
[6] On January 4, 2007, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced that the marketers of TrimSpa had agreed to pay a settlement of $1.5 million in response to an FTC complaint of making unsupported claims in advertisements and were prohibited "from making any claims about the health benefits, performance, efficacy, safety, or side effects of TrimSpa, Hoodia gordonii, or any dietary supplement, food, drug, or health-related service or program, unless the claims are true, not misleading, and substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence."