Juice Plus Research Blog

Information posted on a website operated by National Safety Associates, the multilevel marketing company that distributes the Juice Plus line of dietary supplements, is falsely claiming that a recent study on three of their products showed them to be free of side effects.[1][2] The study, published in the February 7 issue of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was extremely poorly-designed and did not report using a systematic method of monitoring adverse events.[3] Nonetheless, the study reported that 2 of the participants dropped out early due to gastrointestinal side effects that were assumed by the investigators to possibly be related to use of Juice Plus. Six additional subjects voluntarily withdrew from the study for reasons that were not disclosed. The authors never claimed that the products were free of side effects, and the results reported in the published article clearly contradict NSAs claim to the contrary.

The Juice Plus study was led by Mark C. Houston and funded by NSA. Houston has appeared in Juice Plus promotional materials and has been a speaker at Juice Plus promotional and distributor training events in Europe and the United States. He currently serves as the Medical Advisory Board Chair of the American Nutraceutical Association,[4] an organization, funded in part by NSA, promoting the interests of nutraceutical manufacturers. The ANAs sister organization, the European Nutraceutical Association,[5] is also funded by NSA and is chaired by NSA employees Gerald Tulzer and Peter Prock, both of whom are also involved with research projects on Juice Plus.