What is it? A chemical compound, extracted from raspberries, that can help you to lose weight, so long as you like swallowing expensive capsules throughout the day and don’t mind not losing much weight.

How much does it cost? I tried Bio-Synergy’s Body Perfect Raspberry Ketone capsules, which cost about £19 for 60 capsules.

What does it promise? An aid to weight loss, theoretically. Studies on mice have suggested that ketones can speed up the processing of fat and reduce existing fatty tissue. However, no studies have been carried out on humans, and even the packaging of my pills was careful not to promise much, suggesting only that it was a “talked-about potential breakthrough” in weight loss.

What’s it actually like? I recently made the mistake of going on honeymoon near a shop that sold several interesting variations of Jaffa Cakes. As such, I packed on somewhere between 3kg and 5kg in a fortnight, and when I got home embarked on 30-day course of raspberry ketones in a desperate attempt to shift it, taking a capsule twice a day before meals. By the end of my course, I’d lost 1kg, which a) isn’t a lot, and b) probably has more to do with diet and exercise than anything else. That’s not to say they were completely useless – I did find myself farting a whole lot more than usual on them.

Best and worst bit The worst bit is probably the fact that they almost definitely do not work at all.

The best bit? They’re pink. That’s good if you like pink things, right?

Is it worth it? Absolutely not. If you want to lose weight, do some exercise, you lazy git.