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.
Skin Carotenoids: A Biomarker of Fruit and Vegetable
Intake in Children
Sheryl S. Aguilar, MS, RD; Heidi J. Wengreen, PhD, RD; Michael Lefevre, PhD; Gregory J. Madden, PhD; Julie Gast, PhD
ARTICLE INFORMATION
Article history:
Accepted 24 April 2014
Available online 18 June 2014
Keywords:
Carotenoids
Children
Raman spectroscopy
Vegetables
ASA24
Copyright ª 2014 by the Academy of Nutrition
and Dietetics.
2212-2672
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2014.04.026
Get the facts On The Scanner :
http://www.Nugenerationdna.pxscanner.com – The real facts about the scanner
Sorry about the duplication folks .. I got an error message, so I hit it again.
Thank you Ashley for your response. You share your illness but not your scanner score. I encourage you to review the most recent studies from Yale Cancer Center On Ramon Technology & Skin Carotenoids: A Biomarker of Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Children > Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics > Published Online: June 17, 2014. I’m also interested in hearing more from you as your score increases and your oxidative stress decreases and your condition. The scanner is a tool to tell the world if your getting enough to offset oxidative stress. If this tool didn’t exist… Read more »
Hi Ashley, Sorry to hear about your UC. Greg makes some great points. Carotenoids are a protective class of antioxidants and research indicates that they are a good indicator of the strength of the body’s overall antioxidant status. And the scanner performs exactly as it’s intended too, and very accurately. More accurately than a blood test. And you are right, the wellness continuum includes many steps and behaviors, and there is indeed more to health than measuring just carotenoids (antioxidants), but it is an important biomarker that people should pay attention too in addition to triglycerides, cholesterol, etc. The value… Read more »
Hi Ashley, Sorry to hear about your UC. Greg makes some great points. Carotenoids are a protective class of antioxidants and research indicates that they are a good indicator of the strength of the body’s overall antioxidant status. And the scanner performs exactly as it’s intended too, and very accurately. More accurately than a blood test. And you are right, the wellness continuum includes many steps and behaviors, and there is indeed more to health than measuring just carotenoids (antioxidants), but it is an important biomarker that people should pay attention too in addition to triglycerides, cholesterol, etc. The value… Read more »
So, you chuckle****s got kicked off of Wikipedia so you’re policing the few websites that bother to publish anything about your overpriced, pyramid scheme, manipulative bs products? I’m assuming you all are distributors supplementing your income with this social media campaign. How does the Kool aid taste? Does it erase any moral obligation to not make false accounts and shill your bs products? Does it let you forget you’re too stupid understand the BS studies and sources you post? Seriously, kill yourself.
Hello all, my name is Ashley and I am a Nutritionist. I continually score extremely high on the scanner and I am not on their supplements. However, I have ulcerative colitis and at the time that I had a scan I was in extreme pain and in a dangerous state. I wouldn’t consider the state I was in healthy. SO.. yes I believe it scans carotenoids. One of thousands of substances that act as antioxidants. But is that a measure of health? Clearly not! There is more to health than carotenoid levels. So as a Nutritionist I find it hard… Read more »
Hello all, my name is Ashley and I am a Nutritionist. I continually score extremely high on the scanner and I am not on their supplements. However, I have ulcerative colitis and at the time that I had a scan I was in extreme pain and in a dangerous state.I wouldn’t consider the state I was in healthy. SO.. yes I believe it scans carotenoids. One of thousands of substances that act as antioxidants. But is that a measure of health? Clearly not! There is more to health than carotenoid levels. So as a Nutritionist I find it hard to… Read more »
Skin Carotenoids: A Biomarker of Fruit and Vegetable
Intake in Children
Sheryl S. Aguilar, MS, RD; Heidi J. Wengreen, PhD, RD; Michael Lefevre, PhD; Gregory J. Madden, PhD; Julie Gast, PhD
ARTICLE INFORMATION
Article history:
Accepted 24 April 2014
Available online 18 June 2014
Keywords:
Carotenoids
Children
Raman spectroscopy
Vegetables
ASA24
Copyright ª 2014 by the Academy of Nutrition
and Dietetics.
2212-2672
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2014.04.026
sir, YOU are a complete uninformed idiot. Give a fool a website and they reveal themselves as a true idiot. Does a Nobel Prize in Physics mean anything to you? or do you claim to know more that actual data? do you know what data is? have you ever read any of it? please… close down your website and stop spewing your unprofessional biased unsubstantiated viewpoints.
Shill harder clown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy Raman spectroscopy (/ˈrɑːmən/; named after Sir C. V. Raman) is a spectroscopic technique used to observe vibrational, rotational, and other low-frequency modes in a system.[1] It relies on inelastic scattering, or Raman scattering, of monochromatic light, usually from a laser in the visible, near infrared, or near ultraviolet range. The laser light interacts with molecular vibrations, phonons or other excitations in the system, resulting in the energy of the laser photons being shifted up or down. The shift in energy gives information about the vibrational modes in the system. Infrared spectroscopy yields similar, but complementary, information. Typically, a sample… Read more »
Pharmanex’s anti-oxidant scanner is part of a study in The Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics! April 24, 2014 Evolution of the Pharmanex Biophotonic Scanner Resonance Raman Technology Studies Utilizing Tools Other than the Biophotonic Scanner The Eye Bernstein PS, Zhao DY, Sharifzadeh M, Ermakov IV, Gellermann W. Resonance Raman measurement of macular carotenoids in the living human eye. Arch Biochem Biophys 2004;15;430(2):163-9. Bernstein PS, Zhao DY, Wintch SW, Ermakov IV, McClane RW, Gellermann W. Resonance Raman measurement of macular carotenoids in normal subjects and in age-related macular degeneration patients. Ophthalmology 2002;109(10):1780-7. Bernstein, P.S. and Gellermann, W. Measurement of carotenoids in… Read more »
Clinical Study: Validation of Non-Invasive Raman Spectroscopy as an Indicator of Total Antioxidant Nutritional Status in Humans October 2005 Measurement of blood antioxidants is widely accepted as the gold standard method to determine antioxidant nutritional status in human research studies. This method typically involves invasive blood sampling, extraction and analysis of carotenoids, vitamin E and/or vitamin C by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Blood antioxidant analysis is not practical for use outside the clinic since it is invasive, time-consuming, expensive and the blood levels are affected by multiple factors, such as antioxidant consumption from recent meals. Recent research strongly supports… Read more »
Yale Study : Review Resonance Raman spectroscopic evaluation of skin carotenoids as a biomarker of carotenoid status for human studies Susan T. Mayne a,⇑, Brenda Cartmel a, Stephanie Scarmo a,b, Lisa Jahns c, Igor V. Ermakov d, Werner Gellermann d a Yale School of Public Health and Yale Cancer Center, 60 College St., P.O. Box 208034, New Haven, CT 06520, USA b Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, USA c USDA/ARS Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center, 2420 2nd Avenue North, Grand Forks, ND 58203, USA d Department of Physics… Read more »