I did a double take when I saw Pierce Brosnan, the suave former James Bond, endorsing a mouth freshener on the front page of an Indian newspaper.

I had never paid much attention when Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan or Fardeen, or his father, super heartthrob and “curry Western” star Feroze Khan, endorsed the product when it still had the chewing tobacco additive, as it was normal for these stars to advertise unhealthy stuff for money.

If you have eaten at an Indian restaurant in Dubai, you may or may not have noticed people stopping at the exit and taking a tiny spoon of something in the palm of their hand and tossing it into their mouth.

It is a traditional mouth freshener and has nearly the same ingredients as Pan Bahar that is endorsed by Mr Bond, such as areca nuts (betel nuts), sandalwood oil, cardamom and fennel seeds. It is chewed after food as a digestive and can be very addictive. Fortunately, Dubai has banned betel leaves and it has helped stop people spitting the red juice on the streets.

Not many people know that betel nuts cause cancer. In Taiwan, for instance, betel nut is known as “Taiwan’s chewing gum”, and is responsible for thousands of deaths every year.

Has Bond perhaps given up his violent ways of killing people with his German pistol, the Walther PKK, and is instead killing them softly by betel nut? Ambitabh Bachan, the “Emperor (‘Shahanshah’) of Bollywood”, went on an advertising spree during his bad times when he went broke making unwise investments into an events management company and got cheated out of his money.

He had endorsed products such as hair oil, pens and chocolates in trying to recoup as much money as possible. It seemed embarrassing that such a revered star needed to stoop to such a level, but mostly people did not begrudge him the money he was making.

Shah Rukh Khan, the Bollywood star who is not only popular across the border in Pakistan, but also across the globe wherever there is a large population of the Indian diaspora, got some flak when he endorsed a cream that promised to turn women “fair” and that men would fall for you now that you are not black or dark brown. The advert was quickly condemned and a woman’s association lamented the fact that it equated fairness with beauty.

“It is a very racist campaign,” said the head of the association. That advert was soon withdrawn, but unfortunately it did not change the mindset of people who believe that being fair is being lovely.

Such a blatant racist product would surely have caught the attention of the body that is dealing with advertising codes and regulations in other countries, but in many countries such an organisation does not exist and you have plastic surgeons promising thin noses and instant weight loss.

In India there is the Advertising Standards Council of India that has helped withdraw many adverts of dubious universities, coaching classes and even an institute of banking and finance that make exaggerated and dubious claims of a product or service.

Yet, you see advertisements all over India by alternative medicine practitioners, palm readers and astrologers making wild claims to cure killer diseases such as cancer and turn a bald head into a head lush with hair, and promise an auspicious future ahead with a good job, a car and a good wife.

Celebrities have a short shelf life and they need to rake in the money as fast as they can before they disappear from the scene, but that does not mean you help people get addicted to something that is unhealthy and unhygienic. The world may not be enough for some, but for most of us, this is all we have.

Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ mahmood_saberi.