Juice Plus??? (blood pressure, research, natural, effects)
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I've been on Juice Plus for 5 years and since I started on the product, I hardly ever catch colds or flu when everyone else around me is falling ill. My immune system has become quite strong. The few illnesses I have had since taking the product were short lived. I have seen dramatic results with people in poor health, and people in good health may not notice much difference, but it still does their body good by decreasing oxidating stress and damage. My nephew who has had severe digestive problems since childhood, which have impacted his nutritional status and general health, has flourished on Juice Plus. His doctors have been very surprised to see the improvement. However, any products with kelp should be used with caution by those with thyroid problems. And the Juice Plus Complete shakes, which I really like, contain soy which should be avoided by some people with digestive problems or estrogenic-dependent cancers. Check with your doctor or naturopath. But it is fruits and vegetables, people! Good nutrition and quality processing! And no one eats as many fruit and veg as they should. No way. I swear by Juice Plus, and having been trained as a quantitative researcher, I can assure you that their research studies are quite valid. Otherwise they would not be published in medical journals.
I have no problem with people who want to stay healthy, and seek nutrition. But claims like these give me the jeebies:
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Originally Posted by cba2007
good nutrition and quality processing
Where did you get that info? Not from the label. I've seen the labels for Garden Blend and Orchard Blend on Wikipedia. And what does "quality processing" mean, anyway? This claim seems to be the lowest common denominator among Juice Plus advocates. It seems to come down to how "the processing" makes Juice Plus special.
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Originally Posted by cba2007
no one eats as many fruits and veg as they should. No way.
Did your training as a quantitative researcher qualify you to speak for everyone? Or are you exaggerating for effect?
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Originally Posted by cba2007
I've been trained as a quantitative researcher, I can assure you that their research studies are quite valid.
I would especially like to know how your training as a quantitative researcher qualifies you to validate or verify the study abstracts that appear on the JP site? For starters, who funded those studies? Why did they not appear in peer review journals? And why are any of the studies based on additive ingredients?
Lance, you make some really good points. I find it amazing that Juice Plus marketing talks about how most Americans don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, which is true, but then offers up Juice Plus as a remedy for those poor eating habits. What they are essentially saying is, if you eat poorly, take a multivitamin – but not just any multivitamin…take our lousy multivitamin and pay 25 times more for it than you need to.
What I find amazing about the “quality processing story” is that the company that makes Juice Plus doesn’t even do the processing – they buy the powdered ingredients pre-processed from other chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers and merely stuff them into a capsule.
It’s also astonishing when you look at some of the internet chat rooms where Juice Plus distributors have been spamming and notice that many of them claim to be experts in interpreting research (like this forum’s “quantitative researcher”, whatever that's supposed to mean). Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (inarguably one of the finest cancer research institutions in the world) trashed Juice Plus and their bogus research. It is obvious that none of the paid-for talking heads that endorse Juice Plus have a fraction of the credibility and expertise of Memorial Sloan-Kettering. And none of the distributors who try to defend this product seem to be able or even attempt to reconcile Sloan-Kettering’s clear cut negative opinion with the company’s misleading marketing claims that Juice Plus can prevent or treat cancer.
FYI, although some of the research has been published in peer-reviewed journals, the studies were paid for and/or written by the manufacturers. Worse still, the manufacturer of Juice Plus hides this fact from consumers and instead refers to the studies as "independent third-party research", which is an outright lie.
Yes, it does call for a glass of freshly squeezed juice. Most would rather eat sweets when orphaned. llol. It just means that I deleted a post or comments and others replied to them, so I deleted their replies and wrote, orphaned.
I have been taking Juice Plus since 1997. I did blood tests prior to taking JP and after about 60 days to test in myself certain factors as mentioned in some of the studies. I had some constipation issues prior to taking JP --none in the past 10 years. I got the itching for several days (wasn't used to so many fruits). I read the negative comments of several posters. It takes a lot of juicing (I mean a lot and I love to juice) to match JP -- the only difference is they have done the juicing already. So $10/week for what I get is cheap -- I would spend more to juice organic produce and (for many people) the sugar content of fresh juiced fruit is too high (almost no sugar or salt in the JP powders). My secretary took Juice Plus while pregnant and the day she gave birth -- she had the only natural birth out of 17 ladies that day...remember Berkeley Wellness is a medical (pharmaceutical) oriented organization and that weird psychiatrist guy (Barrett) that puts down anything not pharmaceutical is negative about chiropractic, acupuncture, and yes concentrated fruits and vegetables. So read the studies yourself and decide don't rely on a poster. If the contents are fruits and vegetables and the US government considers it just food (not a supplement) and therefore it is not taxed -- and the majority of the recent studies are double-blinded, placebo controlled...and over 10,000 medical professionals recommend it to their patients --why rely on one or two folks with negative agendas for an opinion. I think that JP will be in school lunch programs and hospitals in the near future. How much do we spend on cigarettes ... capuccinos...snack foods with inflammatory oils... This is a great forum for discovery.
I'm going to look up the recent JP research and review it and will be open to any discussion of the methodology of the studies. If you don't like JP that is ok just be sure to eat as many servings of fresh, raw, vine-ripened, fruits and vegetables as you can ( up to 10 servings/day is recommended) --if you are an athlete like myself you need more nutrition that couch potatos --- don't smoke, don't eat fast food, no sodas, no corn sweeterners, balanced Omega 3s...moderate exercize, stop complaining and do something positive...and your health will improve. Healthy posting, HEalthy guy.
"Research counterclaims"? Is that like when research is published in peer-reviewed journals and then someone says "oh the research is garbage?"
The studies on this product are available I assume on the Juice Plus website which should be Juiceplus.com or you can call the company and ask questions directly to their head of research. I recently downloaded a two page summary of the research on JP--50% of prior published research is randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled (about 19 published studies) and 95% of the studies currently underway are randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled (about 11 studies). THe one I am interested most in is being done at the University of Miss Med Center on pregnancy health (rates of preeclampsia) and the Yale University-Griffin Hospital Prevention Research Center study on "endothelial function in insulin-resistant adults. At least 16 million AMericans now have diabetes and it is likely many more millions are pre-diabetic. Nutrition is a factor...
It takes a lot of juicing (I mean a lot and I love to juice) to match JP -- the only difference is they have done the juicing already. So $10/week for what I get is cheap -- I would spend more to juice organic produce…
Ten dollars is a week is not cheap when all you are getting for it is a gram or so of dehydrated juice powder (the capsules weigh 750 mg, of which only a fraction is juice powder). Even if you remove all the water, sugar, and salt from fruit and vegetables, 1 gram of that dehydrated powder (roughly the amount in 4 capsules) would correspond to maybe 5 or 10 cents worth of produce. It is silly to suggest that $10 a week for Juice Plus is a worthwhile expenditure when all one gets from it is the equivalent of a bite or two of fruit/vegetable – therein lies one of the most glaring errors in logic behind the marketing of this product. Several expert reviews on Juice Plus have pointed this out as a key reason why they consider it to be a blatant scam. The nutrients in Juice Plus are added to the fruit and vegetable powders after they are processed, so overall Juice Plus is really not different from a multivitamin. It provides a miniscule amount of fruit and vegetable powder with a pile of added nutrients, and that simply isn’t worth $10 a week. If one really wanted to benefit from fruit and vegetable powder (assuming a big leap of faith that powdered produce actually has any benefits at all), they would need to eat it by the bowlful, not just in a few capsules. And Juice Plus doesn't even list its ingredients on the label, nor is its quality regulated by the FDA, so who knows what you're really getting.
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Originally Posted by Healthy person
My secretary took Juice Plus while pregnant and the day she gave birth -- she had the only natural birth out of 17 ladies that day...remember Berkeley Wellness is a medical (pharmaceutical) oriented organization and that weird psychiatrist guy (Barrett) that puts down anything not pharmaceutical is negative about chiropractic, acupuncture, and yes concentrated fruits and vegetables. So read the studies yourself and decide don't rely on a poster.
Right…why should we rely on the word of organizations like Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center or University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter (or logic and commonsense) when we have an anonymous source’s vague secondhand account about their secretary’s pregnancy outcome??? On the one hand, Juice Plus is promoted with testimonials from mainstream MDs and quotes from medical research studies, but when reputable medical and scientific authorities criticize Juice Plus (and people point out that the few MDs who are making endorsements and conducting Juice Pus research are making big bucks for it) the response is to try and distance the product from science/medicine and pretend that it is some kind of holistic alternative therapy that modern science just doesn’t understand and the "medical establishment" is out to supress. Or they simply insist, without reason, that every critic of Juice Plus is unreliable and not to be trusted. It seems that Juice Plus adherents only reject "mainstream" science and medicine when it disagrees with the Juice Plus "philosophy".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Healthy person
If the contents are fruits and vegetables and the US government considers it just food (not a supplement)...
Incorrect. Juice Plus is inarguably regarded and regulated as a "dietary supplement" by the US government. The company that makes Juice Plus would never claim that it is not a supplement, and if they did the FDA would crucify them for it.
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Originally Posted by Healthy person
Why rely on one or two folks with negative agendas for an opinion
Why indeed. Here’s twenty “folks” that think Juice Plus is garbage -- can anyone top that with independent pro-Juice Plus commentaries? Can anyone come up with ten such examples? No? How about five...any? And what exactly is a “negative agenda”? It seem to be a synonym for “compelling arguments against Juice Plus”?
How much do we spend on cigarettes ... capuccinos...snack foods with inflammatory oils...
Giving up junk food and not smoking would certainly be good for one’s health but that has nothing to do with Juice Plus. And there is nothing wrong with cappuccino. It’s good for you in moderation and is loaded with antioxidants, in addition to being a soothing social ritual and a fairly nontoxic way to get a bit of an energy boost. The point is not whether people can find a way to scrape up $10 a week by sacrificing something else – it is whether they should be giving it away Moderator cut: not allowed
Last edited by Mattie Jo; 11-17-2007 at 04:53 AM..
Reason: not allowed
As we have time I will take a look at the list Karen has diligently collected and keeps repeating of negative opinions of Juice Plus..
Item #1: Consumers Report (whose motto appears to be 'don't believe everything you read') noted that NSA advertised that Juice Plus gummies were 'low sugar'. Perhaps they meant low in comparison to the many 'fruit gummy candies' that one finds on store shelves. I have obtained an empty JP Gummy container and it says on the label there are 3 grams of natural sugars in 3 gummies (1 gram each). I don't have a store bought gummy bag handy but I will try to locate one and report back. Companies do need to be careful about advertising -- apparently 'a consumer' complained. Just for perspective, those big gulps so many students are drinking are quite high in sugar. Is it ok to advertise high sugar?
Tomorrow: item #2
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Subjective Objectivity
