Comparison of Organo Gold and SoZo Select Coffee

We discovered a blog with the first comparison we've seen of SoZo Life's Select Coffee which contains the whole coffee fruit extract CoffeeBerry and Organo Gold's instant coffee containing ganoderma mushroom extract.  The comparison makes a strong argument in favor of SoZo's 100% Arabica premium, fresh roasted coffee when put next to Organo Gold's instant coffee.  In fact coffee and mushroom are the last ingredients listed on Organo's coffee, with sugar, vegetable fat and other preservatives such as the controversial aluminum silcates.  Take a look for yourself. Source: http://sozocoffeeberry.blogspot.com/2012/03/sozo-select-coffee-vs-organo-gold.html

Nutritionist: Organo Gold Ingredients Harmful

As an Nutritionist, I am so sorry to see this "healthy" coffee using unhealthy ingredients in the latte and mocha. One of the ingredients is sodium aluminum sulfate. This ingredient is called a mutagen, meaning it snips and mutates the DNA in the mitochondria of the cell. This is the same result that ganoderma is proported to counteract with it's antioxidant properties. Further more mono and digycerides are fatty acids that on a cellular level get imbeddeded into the cell membrane causing a variety of health concerns including interference with estrogen receptors and increased risk of diabetes. These are one of the most unhealthy additives available.  http://organolife.blogspot.com/

Mannatech Exposed in Wall Street Journal

The practices of Mannatech distributors were the focus of a detailed article in this morning's Wall Street Journal by Suzanne Sataline.

The Issue: Some consumers are using Mannatech nutritional supplements to seek relief from serious medical problems.

The Background: The company's free-lance salespeople sometimes suggest product uses that go well beyond recommendations on their labels.

What's Next: The Texas attorney general is scrutinizing the company, which also faces a class-action lawsuit from shareholders.

Dietary supplements like those sold by Mannatech are, in general, short on science and heavy on hype, anecdote, and testimonial. (Recall my earlier post where Nobel Laureate, Gunter Blobel, felt that his science was being misrepresented by the company.).

Some researchers says they doubt that [Mannatech's] Ambrotose offers any health benefits. Hudson Freeze, who studies complex carbohydrates as a professor of glycobiology at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, Calif., contends the body can't digest Ambrotose because humans lack the enzymes necessary to break down the plant fibers it contains into simple sugars.

Mannatech has said it has completed a study that shows the body can break down glyconutrients, and that it is slated for publication in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. The journal's managing editor, Barbara Nell Perrin, says it will publish an abstract of the study that will not be peer-reviewed.

Not peer-reviewed? Why? Even the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a peer-reviewed journal. But, I digress.

So, while the company itself may be in line with the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in not claiming disease treatment indications for their products, some of their distributors do not appear to be playing by the rule book.

When doctors found a tumor in Angie McHenry's bowel in the spring of 2006, they told her that her cervical cancer had become terminal. But her uncle, Stephan Huffman, gave her some hope.

Mr. Huffman, a retired high-school teacher, is a sales associate for Mannatech Inc., a publicly traded company that markets vitamins and nutritional supplements. He and his wife persuaded Ms. McHenry to swallow, each day, 32 Mannatech tablets and six scoopfuls of the company's Ambrotose, a derivative of aloe vera and larch-tree bark.

"He said it would knock the cancer away," recalled Ms. McHenry, a Coldwater, Ohio, mother of three, in an interview last month. "I would go into full remission. He said he had seen proof in other people."

As you might suspect, the expensive "glyconutrients" Mr. Huffman sold to his niece had little effect on her cancer. She passed away on April 20.

Why this article is in the WSJ is because Mannatech has been public for the last eight years and shareholders have brought action against the company because such practices were in part responsible for the stock price tanking in 2005:

After reports about the company's sales tactics caused its stock to drop in 2005, shareholders filed lawsuits in state and federal courts. Several have been consolidated as a federal class-action in Dallas federal court. It alleges that executives knew about and ignored improper health claims by employees and salespeople, and that [Mannatech Chairman and CEO] Mr. Caster overruled recommendations by the company's regulatory-compliance committee to discipline big sellers who made such claims.

Mr. Caster says the company has fined some associates as much as $25,000, and has terminated some for making improper claims. "Does something like this ever get away from us?" he says. "Well, of course. Those are the types of things that we're out there looking for, and that we'll catch." He says the company intends to vigorously defend itself in the litigation.

It is interesting that the market, and not the distortion of science, has caused the company to take action against renegade sales associates. This article reminded me that dietary supplements and multilevel marketing is big business. "Multilevel marketers accounted for $4.4 billion of $22 billion in sales of dietary supplements in 2006, says Grant Ferrier, editor ofNutrition Business Journal."

If questionable sales practices hit the bottom line, look for action by the company to ward off any legal action or otherwise bad publicity.

Too late for this article, though.

M.D. Critiques Isagenix

by Harriet Hall, M.D.

A friend inquired about a product, Isagenix (actually a whole family of products) that is being pushed by the leader of her weight loss group, claiming that “The Isagenix cleanse is unique because it not only removes impurities at the cellular level, it builds the body up with incredible nutrition. Besides detoxing the body, Isagenix teaches people a wonderful lesson that they don’t need to eat as much as they are accustom to and eating healthy choices are really important and also a lot of the food we are eating is nutritionally bankrupt.”

I went through the website (http://www.isagenix.com/) and watched the promotional videos. There is so much to criticize that I hardly know where to start. It’s all misinformation, unsupported claims, testimonials, and money-making ploys.

I couldn’t find a critique of Isagenix on the Web, but that’s not surprising. No serious medical scientist would take it seriously enough to bother about it. And it’s basically all been done before; it’s just a slightly new wrinkle on an old scam. You will find some information on related products at:http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/detox.html

You can also go to the quackwatch.org homepage and type in cleansing or type in detoxification.

The claims on the Isagenix website are a mishmash of pseudoscience, myth, misrepresentation, and outright lies. For example:

• Americans are sicker than ever before.
• Toxicity accounts for most diseases.
• The body protects itself from toxins by coating them with fat, causing obesity. [The truth: some toxins are soluble in fat and can be taken into existing fat cells, but no new fat cells are created.]
• The internal organs become clogged and deteriorate if you don’t cleanse.
• Nutrients that cleanse, revitalize, rejuvenate — what does this even mean?
• The human body needs cleansing like air conditioners that need their filters changed and car engines that need oil changes. [This is nonsense: the human body cannot be compared to a machine: it is a living, self-regulating organism that does its own maintenance.]

They engage in scare-mongering about toxins, but provide no data to show that the tiny amounts we ingest lead to any significant adverse health effects. They also provide no evidence that their treatment actually removes any toxins from the body. Or that doing so would have any significant impact on health. There have been no properly controlled scientific studies of their “cleansing” treatments, only testimonials of the sort that abound on the Internet for hundreds of other ineffective products.

There is absolutely no rationale for the particular combination of ingredients in their products. They have LOTS of different products, and have included just about every nutrient and herbal remedy in existence: 242 of them! Some of these we know to be useless, some are potentially harmful, and we have no idea how the particular ingredients in the mixtures might interact for better or for worse.

They offer “ionic” minerals from “ancient plant deposits.” Minerals are the same thing wherever they come from, and all “ionic” means is that it is in a form that can be absorbed — i.e. magnesium as milk of magnesia rather than as a lump of elemental magnesium metal.

They advertise “no caffeine added” for a product that contains green tea; green tea contains caffeine. They repeat the tired old myth that our food isn’t as nutritious as in the “good old days.” They put digestive enzymes in their products to help you assimilate them, not realizing that orally ingested digestive enzymes are themselves digested in the stomach before they can do anything. They say that their electrolytes “ignite the body’s electrical system” — I have no idea what this means, and it certainly is not scientific terminology.

Their antioxidant mixture contains 15,000 IU of vitamin A as beta carotene plus 5000 IU as palmitate. The Medical Letter recently reviewed vitamin A and warned that no one should take high-dose beta carotene supplements, and that women should not take vitamin A supplements at all during pregnancy or after menopause. Among other things, they said: Vitamin A may also have pro-oxidant effects in vivo. A high intake of vitamin A from supplements and food has been associated with an increased risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women and with teratogenicity when taken during early pregnancy. A placebo-controlled intervention trial in Finnish smokers found that 20 mg/day of a beta carotene supplement increased the incidence of lung cancer by 18%, which was statistically significant. Another large double blind intervention trial in smokers and asbestos exposed workers, terminated early because no benefit was demonstrated, found that combined therapy with 30 mg of beta carotene and 25,000 IU of vitamin A daily was associated with an increase in the incidence of lung cancer, cardiovascular mortality and total mortality.

The Medical Letter concluded: “A balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables may be safer than taking vitamin supplements. No biologically active substance taken for a long term can be assumed to be free of risk.”

Isagenix claims to promote weight loss. All “treatments” for [temporary] weight loss work the same way: they get people to ingest fewer calories than they expend. There is no reason to think that a person who restricts calorie intake and exercises will lose any more weight if they add Isagenix products. Diuretic and laxative effects, psychological factors, and enthusiasm for a new method may initially fool people into thinking they have benefited.

Their medical advisor, Becky Natrajan, MD, tells us on a video presentation that she is “excited about results” but she does not say what those results are or why she thinks the results are due to the product rather than to diet, exercise and other factors. Perhaps her funniest argument is that the $5 a day Isagenix costs you is less expensive than open heart surgery. As if it were a simple choice between the two!

She tells you to contact the person who told you about Isagenix. And one of the headings on the website is “Wealth.” There you will find out how you can sell products from your home and become an associate, a consultant or an executive with increasing levels of financial return. This sounds like a typical multilevel marketing scheme, typical of products that can’t be marketed effectively based purely on their merits.

In short, Isagenix is a slick marketing enterprise that lines the promoters’ pockets by selling baseless hope. There is a disclaimer on the website that should be taken very seriously: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Polyphenol-rich beverage shows anti-inflammatory potential

A functional beverage containing a patented coffee fruit extract may reduce markers of inflammation, according to findings from a pilot study.

Daily consumption of the commercially available SoZo beverage containin selected freeze-dried whole fruit and vegetable powders was associated with a 40 percent reduction in levels of a marker of inflammation implicated in many conditions including obesity, diabetes, arthritis and cardiovascular conditions.
“The collected data demonstrates the potential utility of acute biomarker measurements for evaluating antioxidant/anti-inflammatory effects of natural products such as polyphenol-rich beverage, and quantitatively shows that a mixture of polyphenol-rich fruit and vegetable components may work acutely on specific oxidative and inflammatory markers in human blood through apparently rapidly acting, though currently unidentified, mechanisms,” wrote researchers in the open-access Nutrition Journal .
Study details
Researchers from FutureCeuticals, NutraClinical (San Diego), Ohio State University, and Applied BioClinical (Irvine, CA) performed the pilot study with 31 overweight and obese volunteers aged between 45 and 55.
Volunteers received a single dose of the SoZo beverage or placebo.The test beverage contained extracts from coffee fruit (CoffeeBerry), calcium fructoborate (FruiteX B), grape seed, blueberry, quercetin, resveratrol, bilberry, raspberry, cranberry, prune, tart cherry, strawberry, broccoli sprouts, broccoli, tomato, carrot, spinach, kale, brussels sprout, pomegranate extract, and acai pulp. All ingredients were supplied by Illinois-based FutureCeuticals.
Results showed that the single dose of the test beverage reduced levels of 8-iso-PGF-alpha (isoprostanes) by 40 percent and this remained reduced for three hours after consumption.
In addition, a 39 percent reduction in advanced oxidation protein products was observed in the SoZo group. According to the researchers, high levels of such oxidation products have been linked with certain cardiovascular conditions.

“This result suggests that the acute effect on plasma 8-iso-PGF2-alpha is both rapid and sustained during first 4 hours after treatment, and justifies further studies using specified 8-iso-PGF2-alpha levels as an inclusion criterion, to both validate this result and explore related effects, such as if the polyphenol-rich beverage may reduce risk of cardiovascular conditions and/or other health problems,” wrote the researchers.
The study’s findings were welcomed by John Hunter, general manager of FutureCeuticals. “As we continue to clinically investigate our CoffeeBerry Brand line of products, we are understandably thrilled to be able to report good study results for a carefully designed end product such as SoZo that utilizes our CoffeeBerry technology,” he said.
IP
FutureCeuticals has acted to protect its intellectual property surrounding its CoffeeBerry-branded ingredient: Earlier this week the Momence-based company announced the filing of a lawsuit against Sandwich Isles Trading Co., maker of the KonaRed line of coffee fruit products, for patent infringement.
“It is our dedicated mission to protect and enforce our patent rights in CoffeeBerry and in our suite of proprietary products, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of our clients and partners who market individual products and whole product lines powered by our exclusive technologies,” said Hunter.
Source: Nutrition Journal
2011, 10:67, doi:10.1186/1475-2891-10-67
“Acute reduction of serum 8-iso-PGF2-alpha and advanced oxidation protein products in vivo by a polyphenol-rich beverage; a pilot clinical study with phytochemical and in vitro antioxidant characterization”
Authors: B.V. Nemzer, L.C. Rodriguez, L. Hammond, R. DiSilvestro, J.M. Hunter, Z. Pietrzkowski

Mannatech : Extreme Caution Advised

William T. Jarvis, Ph.D.

Mannatech, a multilevel marketing health products firm, is promoting itself as a "nutraceutical frontrunner." "Nutraceutical" is a marketing term for foods alleged to favorably alter the structure or function of the body beyond what normal foods can accomplish. The company's lead product, Manapol, is simply aloe vera juice. Mannatech promoters acknowledge that many counterfeit products emerged during past aloe vera fads, but they claim that this juice is the real thing.

It is generally acknowledged that breaking off a leaf from a living aloe vera plant and applying the juice to a burn is an excellent first aid measure. Aloe vera juice is also used in burn wards to soothe, protect and moisten wounds. The problem with marketing the juice is that it doesn't keep well. Processing inactivates the ingredient that produces the desired effects. So, many aloe vera products contain processed juice that has lost the plant's helpful properties.

According to Mannatech's literature, aloe vera expert Ivan Danhof, PhD, MD, warned aloe promoters about making claims, and on the instability of beta-1,4-mannan molecules. Mannatech says that the "future of aloe vera belongs to those who have the ability to stabilize and standardize (emphasis added) this labile polysaccharide," and that Manapol is the "only commercially processed aloe vera product capable of achieving and make the claim for standardizing betamannans."

Mannatech has a licensing agreement with Carrington Laboratories, an aloe processor that has a jaded history on Wall Street in connection with its product Carrisyn. Carrisyn was said to have an Investigational New Drug (IND) permit from the FDA as a topical gel for treating bedsores. Carrington also announced that it had filed for patents in 43 countries for Carrisyn and that the drug might be useful for AIDS. AIDS is a buzzword that sends stocks flying. However, the FDA denied that it had issued an IND forCarrisyn. It had only assigned a number to Carrington's IND application. All of this produced quite a stink among investment watchdogs, which was detailed in two reports in Barron's [1,2].

NCRHI believes that extreme caution is advised on Mannatech. Mannatech's President Caster has a checkered history. In 1991, his Eagle Shield Inc. claimed its Electracat device would repel insects and other pests by emitting high-frequency vibrations. The Texas Attorney General disagreed. "The device is a hoax and stands on the same scientific footing as a perpetual motion machine," said Assistant Attorney General William Goodman, who won a permanent injunction against Caster and Eagle Shield in Travis County District Court. Caster agreed to stop selling the Electracat, to not make unsupported scientific claims about any other product, and to pay $125,000 in investigative costs. Two years earlier, Caster and Eagle Shield were accused of deceiving consumers by claiming their Eagle Shield Radiant Barrier was a scientific breakthrough in home insulation and would provide significant savings in energy costs. The Texas Attorney General got a court order banning such claims after arguing the product had been available for more than 40 years and that the energy-saving claims were false. Caster and the company agreed not to make more false statements, and Eagle Shield filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Caster co-founded Mannatech in 1993.

Mannatech tells consumers scientific studies show its nutritional supplements are safe, promote good health and are even covered by a health insurance plan. Investors have been given another story. In documents for its initial public stock sale in February, 1999, Mannatech told potential buyers it doesn't know whether its products were safe, or even if they worked. Yet Stephen Boyd, a physician who is Mannatech's international medical director, praises its supplements in a recorded message for prospective customers. He says the products facilitate the body's ability to heal itself and are "inherently non-toxic." Coppell, Texas-based Mannatech warned in the share-sale prospectus, however, that there is no assurance its products, "even when used as directed, will have the effects intended, or will not have harmful side effects."

"Why are they telling consumers one thing and investors another?" asked Stephen Barrett, M.D, chairman of Quackwatch Inc., a not-for-profit organization that monitors healthcare fraud. "A company has a responsibility to determine its products are safe and effective before it sells them." Company executives declined to comment about the products, which are sold through more than 400,000 independent agents in the United States and in Australia. In its IPO filing, Mannatech cautioned investors that its MVP product, marketed for weight control, contains ephedrine, a substance the FDA has linked to heart attacks, strokes and death. There are no warnings in the company's literature for consumers about MVP. The FDA, which has received more than 800 reports of adverse events associated with ephedrine, has proposed banning its sale for weight control.

While Mannatech says it has an eight-member scientific team, its monthly magazine recently said there are no double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of the type used by drug companies establishing that its products work. It said it that between 1995 and 1997, it spent about $667,000 (0.25% of sales) on research. The company offers consumers insurance called MannaCare that reimburses up to 50% of the cost of its supplements. It also provides full medical, dental and vision coverage for premiums of up to $9,120 annually. The insurance is offered through U.S. Alliance, a Crofton, Maryland, insurer that said it's unlicensed in the state. "There wasn't an insurer they met with in the last three years that would reimburse" for Mannatech products, said Walter Nieves, president of U.S. Alliance. "That's why they came to me." Nieves said he doesn't need a license because his plan is exempt from state regulation.  Continue To Full Article

CoffeeBerry Lives Up To Hype With Published Study

Click Here For Nutritional Journal Published Study (PDF)

Recent scientific discoveries about the benefits of healthy coffee compounds have explained the wisdom in native peoples' use of the whole coffee fruit. The Ppoprietary line of CoffeeBerry^® Whole Coffee Fruit products are exceptionally rich in the antioxidants called phenolic acids. They also contains other nutrients that have benefits scientists are just beginning to study and understand.

The story of how CoffeeBerry^® products get there goodness begins on the slopes of high-altitude volcanic mountainsides. Nourished by mineral-rich soil and warmed by intense tropical sunlight, coffee plants produce a profusion of wonderful bright red fruit.

CoffeeBerry^® products are so exceptionally rich in antioxidants because they are made from coffee fruit grown at high altitude, low-latitude regions where the sun’s rays are strongest. As the plants mature, they develop these powerful antioxidants to protect them from damage caused by high doses of the sun’s radiation and the natural byproducts of photosynthesis.

A single 1 gram serving of CoffeeBerry^® Whole Powder made from that fresh red fruit provides the same anti-free radical power as 33 grams of fresh blueberries!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Aging at Tufts University measured the Oxygen Radical Absorbent Capacity (ORAC) of more than 40 fruits and vegetables.

Compared to their measurements, a 1 gram serving of our CoffeeBerry^® Forte Extract provides the same anti-free radical power as 625 grams of fresh blueberries, 974 grams of strawberries, 1230 grams of raspberries or 2030 grams of grapes!

Rich in phenolic acid. The antioxidants in CoffeeBerry^® products are from polyphenols or phenolic acids, natural plant antioxidants abundant in the whole fruit of the coffee plant.

Coffee polyphenols:
• Neutralize toxic free radicals.
• Help protect against systemic oxidative stress.
• Help reduce the incidence of oxidative pathologies such as coronary heart disease, inflammation and possibly even certain cancers.
• Provide health benefits associated with glucose management, Type 2 Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome, depression and anxiety and oral health.

CoffeeBerry^® products also contain many healthy poly-, oligo- and five of the eight essential mono-saccharides.

Polysaccharides, such as mannans and aribinogalactans, make up nearly 50% of CoffeeBerry^® Whole Coffee Fruit products. Conventional roasting destroys these nutrients, so they’re not found in traditional coffee.

We all know that carbohydrates provide the ‘fuel’ that we use to run our bodies. Until recently, it was thought energy creation was the only role that carbohydrates played in our body. During the last few years, however, emerging science has suggested that eight carbohydrates, Mannose, Galactose, Fucose, Xylose, Glucose, Sialic acid, N-Acetylglucosamine, and
N-Acetylgalactosamine, are essential to life because they are the basic building blocks of all biological communication. Scientists believe that this family of eight mono- saccharides is essential in order for our immune systems to function properly.

The proprietary line of CoffeeBerry^® Whole Coffe Fruit products release unusually high levels of mannose, galactose, fucose, xylose, arabinose and glucose during digestion.

CoffeeBerry^® Whole Coffee Fruit products and processes are covered by pending US and foreign applications, and one or more of the following patents: US 6,572,915, US 7,754,263, US 7,807,205, and US 7,815,959.