Docs in ads: friends or faux?(up front)

Ever see the doctors in ads for diet pills or products to enhance sexual pleasure and wonder who they are? So did we. We pulled nine print ads and tried to identify the folks in the white coats. We checked licensing through state medical boards, and to learn if the doctor was board-certified, we checked through the American Board of Medical Specialties.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

What we found. The ad docs were indeed M.D.s. But there were a couple of incongruous pairings-an OB-GYN endorsing Heavy Air shoes for weight loss and a psychiatry resident pitching a fat-burning supplement.

Among the other doctors was a man in a print ad for Magna-RX+, a cream to increase penis size. He was identified as "the genius behind Magna-RX+": George Aguilar, M.D., a "board certified urologist" and member of "the College of Urology." We couldn't find a George Aguilar practicing medicine in the U.S., but the manufacturer verified that he's a board-certified doctor in Mexico and documented that he's a paid endorser, though not the product's creator.

A doctor who endorses the weight-loss supplement Hydroxycut received her M.D. from Yale University, wrote a fitness book ("Look Hot, Live Long"), and appeared on the cover of Playboy's Hardbodies and in the movie "Vampires of Sorority Row." Hydroxycut says she's now in Canada, where she operates a health and wellness consulting practice. We were unable to obtain contact information for her.

Rent-a-doc. Some doctors are very familiar with offers to plug a product for pay. "I'm approached all the time," says Michael Fiorillo, M.D., a board-certified plastic surgeon in Rockland County, N.Y. Fiorillo himself appears in an ad for an eye cream of his ...