Cellulite Hype

Want to sell lots of your new product? Here's a classic formula. First, imply that it cures some baby-boomer malady, like the dimming of memory or sex drive. Then hint that there might be a shortage of the miracle elixir. Sundown Vitamins seems to be taking both approaches with Cellasene, an herbal remedy imported from Italy that it claims "helps eliminate" cellulite, the dimply, cottage-cheese-textured deposits of fat that gather on the hips, thighs and buttocks of most women past their 30s.

Cellasene contains, among other things, extracts of Ginkgo biloba, sweet clover and bladder wrack (a seaweed). It arrived in...