Natural cellulite remedies may or may not be effective. Fortunately, some of them are. The key is to find out which ones are the best based on scientific evidence. And this depends on finding the right source of information. Fortunately, the best such information is free to the public through two U.S. government sites that maintain large databases of research. One is PubMed, which is the database of medical research that is maintained by the National Institutes of Health. The other is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. By just using these databases, you can search for whatever scientific evidence is known about exactly how good a cellulite treatment might be. In fact, these two sites are great sources for data that let you compare real scientific information with the often outrageous marketing claims that are typical of most cellulite remedies. This is a good way to gather information that can help you decide what products to buy.
U.S. Patent Searches
The government patent site is free, so you can do a search yourself, using the word 'cellulite' in a patent title search. By doing so, you will find nearly 40 patent titles. You can follow the links to each one to see what the main herbal composition is. (This does not give you a full copy of any patent, though. If you really want one, you can order it through the website. The last time I bought one it cost 6.00 dollars, which is a bargain.)
One caution about herbal patents to keep in mind is that they are composition patents. This just means that are not like drug patents that are allowed to make medical claims. Direct medical claims are not allowed in composition patents.
Searching PubMed
The PubMed database offers a wealth of information on medical research. By using simple search term such as 'cellulite', for example, you will get a list of more than 200 research articles on this topic. You can follow the link to each article in the search results to go to its published abstract, which is still free. Full articles are not usually free, although some are. If not, you can buy one that seems particularly important to you, either by subscribing to the journal that has published it or by order that particular article. Only buy the articles that are going to provide you with the best results, though, since the cost is usually pretty high - often starting at 30 dollars or more for just one article.
Finding Information
The reason that I am pursuing this topic is because a friend of mine recently pitched me on a new product that is supposed to shrink inches around your waist within an hour. In searching for the science behind this herb-based product, I found some pretty good indirect research for its efficacy. The product itself has not been studied directly in any scientific research that I could find, so I am reserving my recommendations on it until I feel confident that it either does or does not work and why.
Perhaps your best approach to digging up information on any product that you want to know about is to look for any science behind it in one or both of the two databases that I use frequently. The U.S. Patent and Trademark database gives you a potential commercial perspective, and the PubMed database gives you a medical research perspective. Both databases are extensive, so it may take a bit of searching before you find what you are looking for. The possibility of finding solid scientific information is worth it, though. However, it may turn out, as it often does, that you will find nothing on your product at all. In fact, this is the most common outcome regarding the majority of commercial products.
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