A health product promotion sounds too good to be true. But you really want it to be true. How can you keep from getting duped and swindled?

As it turns out, there are some good ways to do your homework before sacrificing your credit card and your health to satisfy your curiosity.

Unfortunately, there are many fraudulent products in the weight-loss and dietary supplement marketplace — especially online. Part of the problem stems from current regulations that place the responsibility for product safety and efficacy completely on the manufacturer. Unlike drugs, these products can legally be marketed without prior review or approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Although many major dietary supplement producers take the responsibility for safety seriously, others do not.

The FDA recently released an online article titled "6 Tip-offs to Rip-offs" about how to avoid health fraud. The article points out that fraudulent products, besides not doing what they claim to do, can cause serious harm. For example, in 2010, the prescription weight-loss drug Meridia was removed from the market due to risks of heart attack and stroke. After Meridia’s removal from the market, the FDA found sibutramine (the active ingredient in Meridia) illegally present in more than 100 weight-loss dietary supplement products.

Here are the FDA’s key tip-offs that a product is suspicious:

» Claims that a single product will cure a number of diseases

» Inclusion of personal testimonials

» Quick-fix promises;

» Use of the term "all natural";

» Use of the term "miracle cure";

» Claims that the drug industry and government are conspiring to hide information about the "miracle cure."

For more consumer protection information, visit www.fda.gov.

To reduce the risk of being a health-fraud victim, learn to be diligent in finding useful and truthful information before you purchase a product.

Begin by conducting Web searches to find critical reviews of the product. But don’t just search the product name: Instead, include the product name along with terms like "scam," "rip-off" and "lawsuit."

For example, a search on the pre-workout supplement Cellucor C4 brings up a list of websites for companies that sell the product. Add the words "lawsuit" and "settlement" to the search and you will find articles on the settlement of a lawsuit alleging illegal and risky substances previously included in the product.

Keep in mind that some online product reviews are actually scams. Be skeptical about your sources. There is a great deal of confusing and misleading product information on the Internet.

Be suspicious about product comment sections that are supposedly from customers. See if it is possible to submit a comment yourself. If you can’t add a comment, don’t trust the existing comments. Even if you can submit a comment, don’t take the published ones too seriously. You clearly run the risk of "the blind leading the blind."

If a product claims to be based on research, go to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed website to see if a search of more than 22 million citations of biomedical literature retrieves study summaries about the product or its key ingredients.

To further bullet-proof yourself from scams and rip-offs, explore the following reliable sites: www.fda.gov, medlineplus.gov, healthfinder.gov, ftc.gov and womenshealth.gov.

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Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., and Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., are nutritionists in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii-Manoa. Dobbs also works with University Health Services.