Ann Louise Gittleman is an American author and proponent of

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

, especially

fad diets A fad diet is a diet that becomes popular for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements. There is no single defin ...

. She regards herself as a

nutritionist A nutritionist is a person who advises others on matters of food and nutrition and their impacts on health. Some people specialize in particular areas, such as sports nutrition, public health, or animal nutrition, among other disciplines. In many c ...

. Gittleman has written more than two dozen books and is known for ''The Fat Flush Plan'', a "detox" diet and exercise program that she developed into a series of books. Gittleman's ideas on health and nutrition are regarded as

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...

Education and career

In 2002, she was given a Ph.D. in holistic nutrition from

Clayton College of Natural Health The Clayton College of Natural Health was a non-accredited American distance-learning college based in Birmingham, Alabama, offering classes in various forms of alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve t ...

, an unaccredited and now defunct

diploma mill A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is a company or organization that claims to be a higher education institution but provides illegitimate academic degrees and diplomas for a fee. The degrees can be fabricated (made-up), falsified (fa ...

. In 1994, she was featured in an advertising campaign for Rejuvex, a

dietary supplement A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...

for

menopause Menopause, also known as the climacteric, is the time in women's lives when menstrual periods stop permanently, and they are no longer able to bear children. Menopause usually occurs between the age of 47 and 54. Medical professionals often d ...

symptoms that is not supported by scientific or clinical evidence. Gittleman has written many books on alternative medical ideas for health and nutrition. Her books have appeared on popular television programs, including ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

'', ''

Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased rene ...

'', ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...

'', and ''

The Early Show ''The Early Show'' is an American morning television show that aired on CBS from November 1, 1999 to January 7, 2012, and the ninth attempt at a morning news-talk program by the network since 1954. The program aired Monday through Friday from ...

''. She has been criticized for promoting incorrect notions about medicine, diet, and electromagnetic radiation.

Books

In 2001, she released her book ''The Fat Flush Plan'', which became a ''New York Times'' best seller, reaching #14 on the "Hardcover Advice" list. In May 2004, ''The Fat Flush Plan'' was described along with other low carbohydrate diets in a ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine story, ''The Skinny on Low Carbs''. Gittleman's books have been criticized as inconsistent with the best understanding of health and nutrition, and for presenting scientific research in a simplistic and one-sided manner. According to

Healthline Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, relaunched in 2006, and established as a standalone entity in January 2016. Accuracy There ar ...

, Gittleman's ''Fat Flush Plan'' is a fad diet that uses "convoluted science and gimmicky logic to sell its products", and that the bulk of the plan should be skipped because "a two-week juice fast is never healthy." Gittleman's suggestion to detoxify as part of the ''Fat Flush Plan'' has made her diet the subject of criticism from some nutritionists and medical doctors. Dr. Judith Stern, vice president of the American Obesity Society, has called the ''Fat Flush Plan'' "pseudoscience" that promises everything, but is "a fantasy". Gittleman's 2010 book ''Zapped'' has been met with skepticism by reviewers who say the book incorporates non-scientific concepts to assert the danger of

electromagnetic fields An electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by (stationary or moving) electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classical co ...

, and presents evidence in a biased manner. Gittleman has written more than two dozen books advocating an

approach to health and nutrition. Select titles: * ( ''New York Times'' bestseller) * * * * * * Top 10 Notable New Diet Books of 2010 by ''Time'' magazine

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gittleman, Ann Louise 1949 births Living people American women nutritionists American nutritionists Jewish American writers American health and wellness writers American women non-fiction writers Alternative detoxification promoters Pseudoscientific diet advocates Teachers College, Columbia University alumni 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women