Can cocoa butter remove stretch marks?

The problem afflicts most pregnant women, not to mention many body builders, teenagers going through puberty and people who are overweight. Cocoa butter is a popular solution, but studies have found that it produces rather unimpressive results.

A recent study followed 175 women in their first pregnancies, some randomly assigned to apply a cocoa butter lotion each day and others assigned to use a placebo.  After many months, the researchers found no difference in the development or severity of marks, known medically as striae, over the abdomen, breasts or thighs.

In a similarly double-blinded study of 100 pregnant women in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in 2000,  researchers found that those who were assigned to use a cream containing alpha tocopherol, a form of vitamin E, developed fewer marks than those given a placebo.

The verdict:
Surgical and radiofrequency treatments are available, too, but they carry a higher price.

NYT