Tuesday, August 21, 2007

 

Readers Respond (Aug. 21, 2007): Studies Inconsistent With Juice Plus Marketing

From Anonymous (August 20, 2007)
"Antioxidants May Up Women's Skin Cancer Risk: Vitamins C and E and Other Nutrients May Quadruple Risk of Melanoma"

This is the headline on a news article on ABCnews.com. Wonder if Juice Plus reps will inform you of this? Ha. NOT! Beta carotene is mentioned specifically!

Reply From the JPRB
Yes, it is highly unlikely that National Safety Associates (NSA) or Juice Plus distributors will ever be mentioning this study, which showed the possibility that their products might greatly increase skin cancer risk,[1] or any other information that could possibly undermine their goal of selling more Juice Plus. They are good at offering up ridiculously flawed and deceptive marketing propaganda but not so good at grappling with scientific truth, whether it has been revealed by other researchers or by the Juice Plus studies that NSA initiated and paid for; e.g., a case in point is the damming Juice Plus Gummies study by Stewart et al. (2002),[2] which NSA initiated and paid for but later disavowed when the results showed the product to be nutrient deficient and essentially useless (see our August 12 article Suppression of Negative Findings in Company-Funded Juice Plus Research Studies[3]).

In addition to not mentioning the newly published melanoma risk study, the Juice Plus people will probably keep tightlipped about 3 other landmark studies published in the past few months, the results of which are at odds with Juice Plus marketing propaganda. One of the studies showed that dietary consumption of folate-enriched foods can increase the risk of colon cancer,[4][5][6] (note that Juice Plus supplements also contain folate as an additive). Another study by the National Cancer Institute showed that increasing fruit and vegetable intake beyond 5 servings per day does not reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence[7][8] (Juice Plus distributors consistently overstate the recommended number of daily servings to make the goal seem less acheivable). And lastly, a recent FDA review showed that tomato consumption, and especially lycopene supplementation (Juice Plus contains added lycopene), offer no apparent benefit in the prevention of various types of cancer.[9][10]

Here are a few other recent articles that are clearly at odds with the overly-simplistic, deceptive promotional dogma that is routinely used to sell Juice Plus.[11][12][13][14]

References

  1. Bord S. Antioxidants may up women's skin cancer risk: vitamins C and E and other nutrients may quadruple risk of melanoma. ABC News; August 20, 2007.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3500666&page=1
  2. Stewart RJ, et al. Antioxidant status of young children: response to an antioxidant supplement. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002; 102 (11):1652-7.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12449290
  3. Suppression of negative findings in company-funded Juice Plus research studies. Juice Plus Research Blog; August 12, 2007.
    http://juiceplusresearch.blogspot.com/2007_08_12_archive.html
  4. Gellene D. Folic acid doubts: fortifying foods with the vitamin has reduced certain birth defects but may have raised rates of colon cancer. Los Angeles Times; August 6, 2007.
    http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-he-folic6aug06,1,6298390.story?track=rss&ctrack=5&cset=true
  5. Ulrich CM. Folate and cancer prevention: a closer look at a complex picture. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;86(2):271-273.
    http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/86/2/271
  6. Mason JB, et al. A temporal association between folic acid fortification and an increase in colorectal cancer rates may be illuminating important biological principles: a hypothesis. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2007;16(7):1325-9.
    http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/16/7/1325
  7. Allday E. Extra fruit, veggies don't seem to stop breast cancer's return. San Francisco Chronicle; July 18, 2007.
    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/18/CANCER.TMP
  8. van Gils, et al. Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: The Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) randomized trial. JAMA. 293(2):183-193.
    http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/298/3/289
  9. Martinez C. Lycopene fails FDA's scrutiny: the agency continues to challenge studies linking tomatoes' antioxidant ingredient with reducing cancer risk. Los Angeles Times; July 23, 2007.
    http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-tomatoes23jul23,1,7185086.story
  10. Cavanaugh CJ, et al. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's evidence-based review for qualified health claims: tomatoes, lycopene, and cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2007;99(14):1074-1085.
    http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/14/1074?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=lycopene&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
  11. Wicklund BM. Are too many vitamins bad for your health? Supplements may lead to increased risk of death, new research suggests. ABC News; Feb. 27, 2007
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=2908054&page=1
  12. Gammon KS. FDA issues dietary supplement rules: the new regulations may be too little, too late, some health experts say. ABC News; June 22, 2007.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3307441&page=1
  13. Bord S. Vitamins no magic bullet for heart health: antioxidant supplements do little to help prevent heart disease. ABC News; Aug. 13, 2007
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/story?id=3474385&page=1
  14. Lallanilla M. How safe are herbal supplements? Some critics believe the industry's products are unregulated and unsafe. ABC News.com; Jan. 12, 2005.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HealthyWoman/story?id=403037&page=1

# posted by The JPRB Team @ 9:12 PM 0 comments

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