13/04/2026
When ‘Swiss Science’ Becomes Marketing: The New Face of Menopause Misinformation
Prof. Julie Cwikel, Director of the Center for Women’s Health Studies and Promotion
In recent days, I encountered an online advertisement that illustrates a broader and troubling development: the increasing use of scientific language, institutional authority, and even implicit references to Nobel laureates in the marketing of unproven health products.
The advertisement presents a “Swiss solution” for weight loss after menopause and features a supposed professor introduced in Hebrew as “Prof. Tzachanover”—a name strikingly similar to that of Prof. Aaron Ciechanover Nobel Laurate in Chemistry in 2004. The resemblance invites an association with scientific credibility that the product itself does not appear to warrant.
The structure of the presentation is equally telling. It follows a familiar digital marketing pattern: a promise to reveal a “secret formula in 30 seconds,” followed by a prolonged monologue lasting 10 to 15 minutes before any substantive information is disclosed. This is not incidental. It reflects a well-known engagement strategy designed to keep viewers within a persuasive environment long enough to increase the likelihood of conversion.
Along the way, the narrative expands. The “professor” claims that pharmaceutical companies are preventing him from publishing his discovery. He asserts that he conducted “200 experiments” to adapt the method specifically to Israeli women living under chronic stress. He suggests that the findings have already been covered by major Israeli media outlets, though no verifiable evidence is provided. Each of these claims reinforces a sense of exclusivity, urgency, and suppressed knowledge.
At the same time, there is a striking mismatch between the target audience and the imagery used. While the product is marketed to post-menopausal women, testimonials feature women in their 20s and 30s displaying dramatic weight loss. In another segment, an overweight woman describes her husband’s declining attraction and the threat of abandonment—an appeal that draws not on medical evidence, but on emotional vulnerability.
Taken together, these elements point less to scientific communication than to a structured sales funnel designed to maximize engagement, trust, and urgency.
It is difficult to ignore the broader context in which such messages are received. In recent weeks, Israeli civilians have been living under repeated missile alerts—from Iran and from Houthi forces in Yemen. Nights are interrupted, routines are unstable, and uncertainty is constant. In such conditions, the appeal of a simple, immediate solution—whether to anxiety, health, or weight—is not surprising. What is concerning is how precisely this vulnerability is being targeted. When an advertisement claims to have been “adapted to Israeli women under stress,” it is not offering science. It is leveraging lived reality to increase persuasion.
This would be less concerning if the underlying claims were supported by evidence. However, current scientific understanding of menopause and metabolism suggests otherwise. Weight changes during menopause are associated with hormonal shifts, particularly declining estrogen levels, which influence fat distribution, energy expenditure, and metabolic regulation. These processes are complex and not amenable to rapid modification through a single dietary component or supplement.
Decades of research in endocrinology—from the discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting to later work on hormonal regulators such as leptin—have consistently demonstrated that body weight is governed by integrated biological systems. These systems are adaptive and resistant to simple, short-term interventions.
Against this background, the promise of a “secret formula” capable of producing effortless and sustained weight loss is not merely optimistic—it is biologically implausible.
The broader concern is not any single advertisement, but what it reflects. Women in midlife often face significant physiological changes while receiving limited, fragmented, or insufficiently tailored medical guidance. In that context, the appeal of clear, simple solutions is understandable. However, this also creates a space in which marketing can appropriate the language of science without adhering to its standards.
If there is a lesson to be drawn, it is not only about skepticism toward specific claims, but about recognizing patterns. When messages combine urgency, secrecy, and borrowed authority, they merit careful scrutiny.
