Juice Plus+ nutritional products

[Kuko 4000]

I've been invited to the official opening of Juice Plus+ Finland. It starts today in about 6 hours. They are promoting different pills and oils that should be good for our health. I got a bit suspicious when I first met the main sailsperson of the Finnish division of Juice Plus+. She was praising organic products for their health benefits on people and the environment. I asked their doctor about studies that show these benefits, it's been over a month now and all I've received is a mail that asks me to wait for a while, they'll get back to me with the studies asap.

Here's a couple of links I'm reading at the moment:

Does Using Juice Plus+ Products Make Sense?
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/juiceplus.html

Juice Plus: A Critical Look
http://www.mlmwatch.org/04C/NSA/juiceplus.html

A History of Independent Scientific Validation
https://www.juiceplus.dk/nsa/pages/ClinicalResearch.soa

https://www.juiceplus.dk/nsa/pages/Home.soa

Anyone know more about this? Doesn't sound too bad on the surface, but I got a pretty strong feeling of "something's not right" when talking with the salesperson of the company. I'll be taking notes and return here tomorrow in a hope to clarify any mysterious claims they might put forth..

 

[Blue Wode]

This article in the Nutrition Action newsletter examines the benefits of whole fruits versus juice. It also critically evaluates Juice Plus.

‘Lost in Translation - Why real fruits and vegetables beat juices, powders and
purees’
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/12_07/special.pdf

 

[Kuko 4000]

Thanks Blue Wode, reading it now.

 

[Kuko 4000]

Couple of things that caught my eye from the link that BW posted:

Does anything in Juice Plus+ matter? Twelve studies have been published and
13 more are planned or in progress (almost all of them funded by NSA), according to
the company. “Most of the completed studies show that people who take Juice Plus+
have higher antioxidant levels in their blood and reduced oxidative stress,” says Blair.
But only half of the studies compared Juice Plus+ to a placebo, and the Juice
Plus+ wasn’t always better at increasing antioxidant levels or lowering oxidative
stress. What’s more, there’s no solid evidence that high antioxidant levels can
prevent disease.

So, what was the outcome of the studies that had placebo control? It seems strange to mention this and then leave the reader without any references.

And, is it true that there is no solid evidence that high antioxidant levels can prevent disease? Or is it just a matter of "enough is enough" and that the levels being higher don't make it better? The higher antioxidant content is one of the main points I keep hearing from the pro-organic people, and I just don't have enough knowledge to comment one way or another, and I suspect most of the people I hear it from don't have the knowledge either. I just don't like to make strong statements of things that I don't know enough. Also, is the antioxidant content really larger in organic than in non-organic produce, if so, for what reasons?

The Juice Plus+ spokesperson told me that the vitamin (aren't vitamins and minerals antioxidants?) content of, for example, organic vegetables can be 80% or more larger than in "power produced" (I don't know the correct term, in Finnish it's tehotuotanto) vegetables. And that this is scientifically proven.

Also from BW's link:

Only one (company-sponsored) study looked at illness. Susan Percival of the
University of Florida in Gainesville and colleagues gave 59 healthy law students
either Juice Plus+ pills or dummy pills for 2½ months and had them record cold
symptoms or any other signs of illness.1 (Neither the researchers nor the students
knew who was getting what.) The Juice Plus+ takers got sick just as often as the
placebo takers.

Hmmm, I wonder what they have to say about this in case they present Juice Plus+ products as something to help prevent illness.