The Scam of Skin Antioxidant Testing
A while back, a friend of mine asked me about this product:
It's a biophotonic scanner made by a company called Pharmanex. This product measures carotenoid levels in the skin. Carotenoids are antioxidants found in many fruits and vegetables. Beta-carotene is one carotenoid that you may be familiar with. Other carotenoids include lutein and lycopene, to name just a few. Many scientists believe that carotenoids may be partly responsible for the observed associations between increased fruit and vegetable intake and lower risk of many diseases.
The company claims that this scanner can give you an "accurate and reliable biomarker of your overall antioxidant health status". They further state that, "Getting your Skin Carotenoid Score makes you aware of the antioxidant levels in your body-and gives you the push you need to improve your overall antioxidant health." To appear scientific, their website is complete with a scientific advisory board, a list of scientists, and even a list of studies that they claim supports their product.
Well, it's B.S.
OK, it's not complete B.S. The product does do what it claims to do....it measures carotenoid levels in the skin using a technique called Raman Spectroscopy.
While that's fine and dandy, what is B.S. is their claim that it is a reliable biomarker of your overall antioxidant status. There is simply no evidence that carotenoid skin levels reflect the overall antioxidant status of your body.
Carotenoid skin levels do correlate with fruit and vegetable intake, so the test can tell you if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. But do you need an expensive scanner to tell you if you're eating a lot of fruits and vegetables?
And what do you think the company recommends you do if you have a low skin carotenoid score? Buy their antioxidant supplements, of course.
This isn't the first time Pharmanex has spread outlandish claims. In 1997, they were fined by the Federal Trade Commission over claims they made about two supplements they sold.
The fact is that this scanner is nothing more than a fancy way to take your money and to get you to buy things that you don't need. There is no evidence that skin carotenoid status is a reflection of overall antioxidant status. You do not need an expensive test to know if you're consuming a lot fruits and vegetables. Also, there is little scientific evidence that supplemental antioxidants have any health benefits. In fact, too many antioxidants can have a pro-oxidant effect, and may also reduce your own body's antioxidant defense systems. We are a bit too antioxidant crazy in our society....a topic that I will get to in another blog post.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3086339/ – Pub Med
How do you measure oxidative stress? How do measure your supplements absorption, bioavailability and quality? Has the formulation been inspected by HPLC technology for containments? or how long have they been on the selves? do they have a performance guarantee? Are they in the PDR? How many servings should a person have and why aren’t they getting them according to NIH? The technology was developed by Phd’s at the University of Utah Physics Dept, Funded for Yale Cancer Center by NIH & National Cancer Institute.
An entertaining and informative read. I was recently pitched some of NuSkins products after being given a test using this device. Im always skeptical of gimmicks such as this, especially when it becomes clear that the results are primarily an indication of my need to purchase overpriced products ($150+/ mo after my “preferred member” discount for multivitamins? Ha!). One thing to note in contrast with the article however is that the test was performed entirely free of charge (or at least free of a specific charge as the consultation was all inclusive and was primarily geared towards a review of… Read more »
Thank you Westin, and thank you for sharing your Nuskin experience!
To James Kreiger: This comment… “It is BS.” is in and of itself wrong on so many levels. Your comment,” The fact is that this scanner is nothing more than a fancy way to take your money and to get you to buy things that you don’t need. There is no evidence that skin carotenoid status is a reflection of overall antioxidant status. You do not need an expensive test to know if you’re consuming a lot fruits and vegetables.” End You are right about the “IF YOU ARE consuming…” BUT the test is not expensive and what is expensive… Read more »
Diane…it appears that as an ORDINARY PERSON you do not warrant a response from the author, who for whatever reason clearly has a beef with the company and will only write back to challenge opinions that he can poke a couple of holes in and show off his alleged brilliance. I myself am an ORDINARY PERSON and I had my scan done last night. It was most definitely a WAKE UP CALL….of course I know what I eat and don’t eat and for the most part thought I was eating very healthy….limited breads/starch, no fried food, no white sugar, avoid… Read more »
Maybe if your and the person you responded to said anything of substance instead of advertising the products with infomercial speak, he would respond. Seriously, you couldn’t shill harder if your life depended on it.
Your comments here seems to be heavily based on opinion. Unfortunately I’ve seen no credibility in your arguments here, based on my own experiences in the areas of antioxidants. Because of a wide acceptance in the scientific community, the scanner being based on nobel prize winning technology and this program being in over 2000 doctor offices across the country – I fail to see your point.
You are passionate about your beliefs though – I’ll give you that.
Your comments here seems to be heavily based on opinion. Actually they are based on logic and data. Unfortunately I’ve seen no credibility in your arguments here Why? based on my own experiences in the areas of antioxidants. Are you a scientific researcher with publications in the field of antioxidants? If not, then why should I pay any attention to your “experiences”? Because of a wide acceptance in the scientific community “Wide acceptance in the scientific community?” Do you have evidence for that statement? Have you surveyed a representative sample of researchers in the field of antioxidants in humans? the… Read more »
I have had some evangelical man named Greg Ryan, Who sells this product and tried to sell it to me. States he soled many books and gave me links to his success. He stated he wanted to network and go into business with him. Selling me his machine stating he sold it to many massage therapists that made 10k extra income. After reviewing this product and noticed that its nothing but a Mormon scam to get rich off people stupidity scheme, I just told him that its just not for my company and that we do naturapathic tests using natural… Read more »
Yeah, they’re screwing over the Chinese currently. I hope the commies come down on this BS HARD.
James, I am so glad to read in your bio that you are a “strong believer in an evidence-based approach to health and well-being.” You sensationalize your comments by saying that Pharmanex’s claims are “B.S.” Then you retract immediately and say “OK, it’s not complete B.S.” You confirm that: 1. The scanner does indeed measure carotenoids with one reference. As a matter of fact, this has been confirmed by many studies – below are just a few http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3696054/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23823930 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=A+Carotenoid+Health+Index+Based+on+Plasma+Carotenoids+and+Health+Outcomes+-+Donaldson+-+Nutrients+-+2011 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Significant+Correlations+of+Dermal+Total+Carotenoids+and+Dermal+Lycopene+With+Their+Respective+Plasma+Levels+in+Healthy+Adults+-+Scarmo+-+Arch+Biochem+Biophys+-+2010 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Clinical+Validation+of+a+Noninvasive+Raman+Spectroscopic+Method+to+Assess+Carotenoid+Nutritional+Status+in+Humans+-+Zidichouski+-+J+Amer+Col+Nutrition+-+2009 2. You also confirm that “Carotenoid skin levels do correlate with fruit and vegetable intake” with a reference.… Read more »
Dr. Horowitz, I noticed you failed to answer one critical question that I brought up in my post. Yes, skin carotenoids can correlate with fruit/vegetable intake. But the critical question is…does a person need to take an expensive test to tell them whether or not they eat a lot of fruits and vegetables? In other words, they are paying for a test that tells them something they already know. That is my point, which is why I consider the marketing of this product to people as a scam, and I stand by that. Could RRS be useful in human research… Read more »
Woo! Yeah! Excellent response! I checked the studies he linked and saw that they didn’t match his claims as well
Scam-A-Lot coming to a broadway theater soon. Nu-Skin is a scam company, but waste your money if you choose to. The big scam is that their supplements are so much better and that “most of these supplements have little health benefit because the supplements are of poor quality.”
Really? Care to explain the difference between the over-priced NuSkin supplements and Nature’s Plus, Pure Encapsulations, Thorne, Twinlab, Jarrow, Now, Solgar…
I guess the sliver of truth in your comment is that “most” is One A Day and Centrum.
When folks with no profit-motive begin endorsing this, I’ll listen.
In response to the statement implying that pharmanex’s claim that skin carotenoid scores are a true reflection of over all antioxidant levels in the body is BS : Pharmanex claim that that there is a correlation and that it has been compared against other antioxident scores. I have also seen this statement made in a video presentation by there chief scientist Dr. Chang, saying the same. Cant Pharmanex, being a publicly registered company, get into huge trouble by making false claims? I doubt that they will take that risk. You seem very bias in the way you wrote this article… Read more »
In response to the statement implying that pharmanex’s claim that skin carotenoid scores are a true reflection of over all antioxidant levels in the body is BS : Pharmanex claim that that there is a correlation and that it has been compared against other antioxident scores. I have also seen this statement made in a video presentation by there chief scientist Dr. Chang, saying the same. Cant Pharmanex, being a publicly registered company, get into huge trouble by making false claims? I doubt that they will take that risk. You seem very bias in the way you wrote this article… Read more »
Pharmanex claim that that there is a correlation and that it has been compared against other antioxident scores That may be their claim, but there is no published peer-reviewed data to support the claim. Perhaps they have done internal research on this, but that doesn’t mean it is quality research. If the data is so good, why don’t they publish it in a peer-reviewed journal? Second, if they have found a correlation, it doesn’t mean the correlation is strong. Given how weak the correlations are between skin carotenoids and fruit/veggie intake, I wouldn’t be surprised if any correlations between various… Read more »
I agree with you that if there were reliable and professional review or test results on Nuskin’ s products, the company would be more than happy to publish such information to encourage people to buy more products. Most of the positive information I can find is provided by either Nuskin itself or its distributors. I don’t find this company trustworthy and am very worried as some of my family members are involved in this selling network and spending lots of money on its products as well as dragging others into this búi nể sợ. It seems a spell was cast… Read more »
Carrie, your family members are smart for being involved with Nu Skin. What makes Nu Skin so different than other MLM companies is that they are more like a research & development organization that uses direct selling as their distribution method. Nu Skin acquires science based companies and collaborates with many top researchers and institutions. That’s why I got involved with them after resisting offers from many other companies. I’ve been in the specialty health & fitness industry for 30 years having owned and operated a chain of specialty fitness equipment stores, as well as a boutique health club and… Read more »
If pharmanex products are as great as they say, they would be in newspapers and magazines and on tv etc. they could sell the products at stores like a regular company. Remember, Multi Level Marketing = Pyramid Scheme.
Just had my level tested and was pleasantly surprised to have the high score of 74,000…no additional supplements were recommended.
High five Elisabeth! Welcome to the blue scan club!
To Dr S. S. Stuart.. What did you ask the rep, And what could’nt he respond on? Do you think 4500USD is a lot for being executive? What was your scanscore? And do you believe it could be even higher if you eat lifepack?
Today, I was introduced to this company. Key words were a turn off… (1) You can make lots of money – My primary goal is helping people improve their health through self-empowerment not selling products. Some products are temporarily necessary … let us not overload our body and create additional stress on the Liver and other organs. (2) Up-line and “You can’t own the equipment, yet you could lease when you are an executive AND after you SELL $4900.00 worth of product.” – ARE YOU KIDDING? (3) This company sells an abundance of anti aging oral and topical products as… Read more »
Dr. Stuart, I wish you would have asked me those questions. My network operates a little differently being that we’re coming from more of a medical, health & wellness, and fitness perspective. There’s a Health Care Practitioner (HCP) program that we work with that is $2750 (+500 refundable security deposit) that includes 600 scan cards, which correlates to $12K, so even at the $4900 program the program is still worth it. Not just because of the revenue that can be generated from it, but because of what you can do with it, and the benefit that your patients will derive… Read more »
Network? Does your network look like a triangle? Or a pyramid perhaps?
Not exactly
Actually It is a good device to measure how much supplements you have bought from Nuskin
Or any other quality manufactured products. Pharmanex (Nu Skin) Lifepak is an excellent choice though.
Wow, shill much?
What are you talking about?