COLUMN ONE : Cashing In on Thigh Anxiety : An L.A. doctor and entrepreneur helps turn an obscure ointment into a flab-reduction industry. But outside researchers don’t know how--or even if--the stuff works.

Any time now it is coming--a lotion that can painlessly, effectively melt flab from your stomach or your rump or your, well, you name it, without dieting or exercise.

Sound incredible? Not to Dr. Bruce M. Frome.

Appearing on national TV last winter, the Los Angeles physician declared that he had developed just such a silver bullet of an ointment--one that can, as he put it, remove “as much weight as you want from anywhere you want to lose it.”

Frome assured celebrity interviewer Larry King that the product would hit the market within five years. But why was King discussing flab with a certified pain specialist and anesthesiologist?

Because Frome is the hurricane force behind thigh cream, an asthma medication-laced ointment touted as the cellulite cure-all women have been waiting for.

Thigh creams didn’t exist a year ago--and they still have not been proven to work. The federal Food and Drug Administration, concerned that not enough is known about the product’s effects, is monitoring thigh cream closely.

But thanks in large part to Frome’s energetic legwork, Skinny Dip, Slim-Thigh and dozens of other brands, some based on the asthma drug and some not, have taken cosmetic counters by storm. Christian Dior has Svelte, a cellulite-buster for people with money to spend. Charlene Tilton, the chunky star of the old soap opera “Dallas,” is pitching her own cream in an infomercial.

The creams are so popular that “they are no longer a fad,” insists Howard Kay, an executive at a Los Angeles company called An-Kar that was among the first to jump into the business.

Although not an expert on fat, Frome is a veteran entrepreneur. Over the last 20 years, he has tried his luck with photo-developing stores, a correspondence school, an unconventional AIDS treatment and beachfront property--with decidedly mixed success. He has been bankrupt twice and a millionaire several times over.

But it is with thigh cream that Frome is making his biggest splash.

With a series of whirlwind interviews and a trio of licensing deals, Frome has transformed the obscure ointment into an annual $150-million industry dedicated to sleeker thighs.

He has made the rounds of national TV, appearing not just on King’s show but also on “Hard Copy” and “Good Morning America.” He has touted the cream in dozens of publications, ranging from Vogue to the National Enquirer.

The weight-loss business has always been long on promises; even so, Frome’s pronouncements stand out. Some women using the cream report larger breasts, Frome told the Enquirer. “The fat,” he said, “has to go somewhere.”

The Canadian-born physician acquired rights to thigh cream from its two inventors two years ago and in turn licensed the formula to three companies: Herbalife, Nutra/Systems’ parent Heico Corp. and a Newport Beach start-up business called Right Solution.

Together, the three companies account for more than 30% of thigh cream sales, according to Frome. The creams have become the hottest addition to a cabinet full of cellulite “cures,” from plastic surgery to thigh massage to other special ointments. All are part of the more than $30 billion that weight-conscious Americans spend to look thinner each year.

Frome says thigh cream hasn’t put him in Fat City. In an interview three months ago, he declined to reveal how much he has made on the cream, but said: “No one is getting rich.” Between them, its inventors say they’ve made just $5,000 in royalties, though millions of tubes have been sold.

And what are women buying for $12 to $45 a jar?

Its developers contend that the cream can shed an inch of fat from thighs--”not enough to make you look twice,” admits co-developer Dr. Frank L. Greenway, a Marina del Rey endocrinologist. Thighs return to their former size once you stop using the cream, he says.

And there is a ferocious debate among researchers over whether thigh creams do even that much.

Scientists have known for a decade that, under the right conditions, the asthma medication in the cream--and substances like it--can reduce the size of fat cells in the laboratory. But no one knows what they do inside the body.

Thigh cream’s developers--Greenway and Dr. George Bray, director of Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Institute--measured thigh circumference in one study, but did not look at what happened to fat cells inside the body. When testing their concoction on women volunteers, the doctors did not measure changes in body fat. Nor did they try to find out whether the cream reaches fat cells.

Greenway said he and Bray did not do the tests because they are expensive. (He said the pair funded the experiments themselves). In any event, they are clearly irritated with doubters. “It is my hypothesis that it works,” Bray says. “I can’t prove it, but I believe it does.”

Other scientists say that without additional testing, the thigh cream phenomenon is based on incomplete research.

“I’ve said to myself, ‘Why didn’t they at least do a pinch test--something?’ ” said Gilbert Kaats, a researcher who is trying to duplicate the results at his San Antonio laboratory. “It’s hard to understand.”

Patrick O’Neil, a weight-loss expert at the Medical University of South Carolina, is among those who speculate that the cream reduces water in the body, not fat. Aminophylline, the asthma drug in thigh cream, is a diuretic.

Dr. Jules Hirsch, an obesity expert at Rockefeller University in New York, sees no proof that the cream does anything. “I’m not for it or against it, but I’d like to see some evidence,” he says. “What I’ve seen so far is a lot of hand waving.”

Frome straddles the scientific debate, contending that the cream breaks up water or fat, depending on the strength of the formula. He says 2%-aminophylline formulas melt fat, while less powerful formulas drain water.

But no matter how they work, Frome says, the result is the same. The creams reduce the appearance of cellulite, “smoothing the hills and valleys,” he says.

“I can’t tell by looking if someone has reduced their girth,” Frome says. “But I can tell if their skin is nice and smooth or dimpled and cottage cheese-looking.”

Some women seem to believe the creams do something.

“Thank you for a real product that works!” a Texas woman said in her letter to a Chicago company. Crowed another writer: “I believe the cream has made a difference. . . . As soon as I get more, I’m going to give some to my mother so she can try it.”

Thigh cream first received attention a year ago when Greenway and Bray presented their work at an obesity conference in Milwaukee. The doctors’ one-page abstract--widely reported in the media--said that 11 of 12 women using their cream for five weeks shed an inch from their thighs.

Greenway credits Frome with funding the effort to find a suitable cream to mix with aminophylline. The original formula was greasy, Greenway says, and women in the test complained that it “messed up their sheets and bedclothes.”

Thigh cream companies cannot claim the products reduce fat or cellulite without running into problems with the FDA. The agency says any product that claims to make changes below the skin must be approved as a drug--a process that may take up to 12 years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Consequently, thigh cream makers stress its superficial, cosmetic effects.

The label on Herbalife’s cream, for example, says the product “promotes a feeling of silky suppleness,” giving the skin “a sleek, youthful appearance.” However, in response to questions about the cream, two Herbalife salespeople provided copies of a National Enquirer story with the headline: “Amazing cream slims thighs in just 5 weeks!”

Frome has gone to court to prevent unlicensed companies from citing research on the cream as a marketing hook. Earlier this year, he obtained an order in Los Angeles federal court barring Neways, the Utah firm that sells Skinny Dip, from citing the Bray and Greenway study in its advertising. Neways President Tom Mower has denied additional allegations about misleading advertising and unfair competition. A lawsuit is ongoing.

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Just who is the man behind the svelte promises?

Frome received his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 1962 and came to Los Angeles to complete his training at what is now County-USC Medical Center. He eventually joined the staff of Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital in Marina del Rey, serving as its chief of anesthesiology in 1987-88.

Besides medicine, Frome pursued his avocation--deal-making. In the 1970s, he headed a clinic that served the poor under a pilot Medi-Cal program. When it failed, Frome helped to establish the University of Beverly Hills, an unaccredited correspondence school. It was sold at a loss.

Then he founded Fromex, a chain of one-hour photo-processing stores that expanded to 56 outlets from New York and Florida to Hawaii before filing for bankruptcy liquidation in 1983. When creditors demanded that Frome make good on personal guarantees for Fromex’s debt, he sought personal bankruptcy protection. He eventually agreed to pay $60,000 to satisfy $3 million in claims.

Recovering from that disaster, Frome started a medical clinic in Marina del Rey that specialized in workers’ compensation cases. He aggressively built the business, sending a van as far as Bakersfield to pick up patients. He sold the clinic in 1990, but stayed on to run it as the new owner’s vice president of medical affairs. He received a $6-million severance payment when Premier Anesthesia of Atlanta acquired the clinic’s parent company in 1992.

Frome now runs a pain clinic in Beverly Hills where he has explored biofeedback therapy and offered some unorthodox treatments. Last year, he administered electric shocks to AIDS patients to relieve their symptoms. Experts questioned the value of the therapy, which Frome has abandoned.

He also recently patented the concept of using a specific geranium oil as a topical anesthetic. In his patent application, Frome said he had tried the oil on 200 patients with success.

Dr. Stephen August, a Los Angeles physician who has known him for years, says Frome is a consummate salesman, whether pitching thigh cream, photo stores or condo deals. “He has a very outstanding ability to figure out what people want and what to tell them. . . ,” said August, who lost about $50,000 investing in Fromex. “He disarms you. He’s very convincing.”

Frome’s business career has not been without controversy. In a lawsuit over unpaid wages, an acupuncturist from the Marina del Rey clinic charged that Frome “converted funds to his own use and (his) medical corporation to solve cash-flow needs and problems.” Frome denied the allegations; the woman said she accepted half the $70,000 she sought to settle the case.

In December, 1992, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office raided Frome’s Marina del Rey clinic as part of an investigation of workers’ compensation fraud. No charges have been filed as a result of that probe, which is continuing.

Through his attorney, the once-accessible Frome declined to discuss his business history after freely talking about thigh cream in an earlier interview. He recently retained the prominent Santa Monica criminal law firm of Chaleff, English & Catalano. Attorney Audrey Winograde said Frome hired the firm because of its expertise in administrative matters.

Frome has loyal defenders. Retired surgeon Dr. Theodore Haller, a longtime friend who lost money investing in the University of Beverly Hills, said Frome is a victim of people who are envious of his success.

“Bruce is a front-runner,” said Haller. “When you’re out in front, the people behind attack you.”

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It won’t be easy for Frome to stay out in front in his latest endeavor. His licensees say they are losing sales as competing thigh creams become more available in traditional retail outlets.

Mark Guest, director of operations for Right Solution, said sales are down 40% from eight months ago and that the company has lost much of its sales force. Right Solution is a multilevel marketing company that, like Amway and similar firms, sells to customers through a network of sales people.

Meanwhile, Heico executive Vince Diraddo said a flood of new brands has forced his company to take two price cuts. A four-ounce tube that sold for $39.95 in January goes for $19.95. Heico sells its thigh cream through Nutra/Systems and several dozen beauty supply stores.

The third licensee, Herbalife, also a multilevel marketer, declined comment on thigh cream sales.

Meanwhile, cracks are developing in Frome’s alliance with the thigh cream’s developers.

Greenway says he is displeased with how the cream is being marketed, although he says his deal with Frome does not allow him to interfere.

He said Herbalife’s product contains rose hips, magnolia blossoms, horsetail and other herbs not in the original formula. And Right Solution’s formula contains four times more aminophylline than Heico’s cream. Greenway said that in tests he and Bray conducted, one of 12 women using the cream developed a rash with the stronger solution.

“It seems to me that if we found a formula that was safe and effective, people wouldn’t want to go screwing around with it,” Greenway said.

Guest referred inquiries to Right Solution’s public relations representative or its president, neither of whom returned calls.

Another lingering question about thigh cream is the result of long-term use. Bray and Greenway’s study spanned five weeks, not long enough to assess the effect of daily use, government regulators and obesity experts say.

The FDA is concerned about the possibility that frequent users may develop an allergy to aminophylline. While most people could stop using the cream, an asthmatic who developed an allergy no longer would be able to take aminophylline to relieve attacks, said John Bailey, director of the FDA’s office of cosmetics and colors.

In addition, he said, the agency is unhappy that the cream contains a prescription drug that never has been used as a cosmetic--an action without precedent in the cosmetic business.

Bailey said the agency is monitoring the cream closely, reviewing claims made by manufacturers and checking reports of adverse reactions.

So far, he said, there have been only temporary skin rashes. The FDA cannot recall a cosmetic unless there is evidence it is harmful.

Dr. Hirsch, the Rockefeller University expert, argues that even if--a big if, he says--the thigh creams work, fat cells will eventually adjust to daily does of aminophylline. At some point, he says, the cream would become ineffective.

Would that change the looks of the thigh cream business?

It’s hard to say. The creams are marketed as cosmetics, Frome notes, not as miracle drugs. And by definition, he says, “cosmetics aren’t supposed to work.”

The Frome File

Los Angeles anesthesiologist Dr. Bruce M. Frome has been an aggressive entrepreneur, both in medicine and unrelated fields. Some key points in his business career:

1971: Heads group that forms Marvin Medical, a practice catering to Medi-Cal patients. Financial problems cause it to seek bankruptcy protection in 1975. (Frome sought personal bankruptcy protection in 1974.)

1978: University of Beverly Hills, an unaccredited correspondence school, opens with Frome as investor.

1980: Forms Fromex one-hour photo stores. After expanding to more than 50 stores, the company is forced to seek bankruptcy protection in 1983. Frome again files for personal bankruptcy.

1987: Frome opens pain clinic with two other doctors in Marina del Rey. He buys out his partners in 1990 and later that year sells the assets to National Pain Institute, staying on as an NPI vice president.

1992: The Los Angeles County District Atty.’s office raids the Marina del Rey clinic as part of criminal investigation into workers’ compensation fraud. Frome later receives an estimated $6 million when NPI is acquired by Premier Anesthesia of Atlanta.

1994: Thigh creams hit the market, with Frome leading publicity wave. Frome owns rights to the “original” cream, which he has licensed to three other companies.