More people than ever are overweight, and I would guess that the percentage of people on diets has gone up proportionally as well. Add the number of dieters who really do need to lose weight to those who diet out of some misguided desire to be skeletal, and you've got a lot of people. Weight loss is big business as a result, and companies keep coming out with new and exciting products which claim to put you on the path to slenderness.

Do any of them work? This column and the next will be devoted to this question, and along the way we'll have a look at some good old-fashioned weight-loss techniques as well.

This fiber, derived from shellfish, has been showing up in weight-loss products for a while now. The premise behind its use: Chitosan binds with fat, then removes the fat from the body, because we cannot absorb the chitosan. Tests on animals have shown the substance to be effective, but as quantities used are much much greater than those recommended for humans -- up to 20 times greater -- scientists are not convinced of chitosan's efficacy as a weight-loss aid in humans. Humans apparently have shown little loss of weight with the use of chitosan, though there are those who claim it works for them.