Many MLMs attempt to use scientific literature to push their product. Often times, they’ll present some kind of research or study. The goal of these companies is to try to get research published with their brand in it, so that their MLM distributors can use it for marketing purposes.
For example, LifeVantage has told its distributor to go to www.pubmed.gov and just type “Protandim” in the search box. They suggest that you don’t really need to understand the study, but that these are researchers doing peer-reviewed studies. The implication is that the product is so innovative that researchers are actively interested in how it can help people be more healthy. It’s a convincing argument if you don’t know better. However, those with critical thinking skills who are willing to do a little more research will find that it isn’t so simple.
Understanding PubMed
It is important to understand what PubMed is. Wikipedia describes PubMed as:
“PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system.”
The MEDLINE database is essentially a group of around 5,000 journals and has 21 million articles.
The appearance of an article in PubMed does not mean it is a reputable article. It simply means that one of the 5,000 journals found the worthy of publishing.
PubMed is a repository of articles. It is important to note that PubMed doesn’t review the articles for inclusion. It is also important to note that the National Institute of Health does not review articles in any way. In the case of Protandim, LifeVantage is hoping that its customers will rely on the reputations of the “.gov” and “National Institute of Health.”
The inclusion of an article in PubMed doesn’t mean anything more than the inclusion of the article in a journal.
All Journals are Not Equal: Understanding Impact Factor
When reviewing a journal article it always worth looking at the quality of the journal publishing the article. Not all journals are considered equal. In the journal industry there are a couple of ranking systems. One of the most popular is the Impact Factor. According to Wikipedia, “[Impact Factor] is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.” Getting published in the New England Journal of Medicine is much more important than getting published in a small journal that few people read.
When you simply search for a product on PubMed, the value of the journal isn’t being represented. This is a distinct advantage for a company that is simply relying on the reputation of the PubMed repository.
Understanding What the Article Means
In a lot of cases it is important to understand what the research means. Does the research reflect what scientists refer to as POEMS: Patient Oriented Evidence that Matters? In the case of LifeVantage Protandim Dr. Harriet Hall says it doesn’t have POEMs and she’s right. Only one of the studies was actually done on humans. That study used TBARS: an unreliable test of oxidative stress. It also used LifeVantage company insiders and investors. Oh and there is clear evidence of data rigging in that study.
Here’s an example of an MLM creating research for the purpose of marketing. The following article about MonaVie fruit juice was published “In vitro and in vivo antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacities of an antioxidant-rich fruit and berry juice blend. Results of a pilot and randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study.”
That sounds really impressive, but when you read the study you find out that it was a waste of time. The study looked at five people and came to the conclusion drinking MonaVie fruit juice gives some antioxidants in a similar way that fruit does. This research has no value to the scientific community, but MonaVie’s lead scientist has created a marketing tool where distributors can tell their prospective victims that a fancy scientific article proves that MonaVie has antioxidants in it. (If you want to read more about this see: The Multitude of Problems with Schauss’ “Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Study” on MonaVie)
Peer Review and Fraud
Many have suggested that because the journals are peer reviewed the articles are definitive proof of the product’s value and/or effectiveness. This is false. Wikipedia says the following about peer review failure:
“Peer review, in scientific journals, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust. It is not usually practical for the reviewer to reproduce the author’s work, unless the paper deals with purely theoretical problems which the reviewer can follow in a step-by-step manner.”
Nature (one of the journals with a high Impact Factor) has a great article, Can peer review police fraud?. The article cites a case where a researcher was found to have falsified his stem cell research. One of the points that the article makes is, like WikiPedia mentioned, peer review isn’t designed to deal with fraud:
“Although it is understandable to conclude that, by accepting a paper, a journal’s editors confer their authority to the findings and that, therefore, a portion of the responsibility for the work shifts from the author to the editor, we do not agree that the peer review system can or should detect deliberate fraud.
Science is a communal enterprise built on trust. Referees and editors generally take data at face value and assume that the authors have honestly reported and analyzed their results. Reviewers are asked to judge whether a report’s conclusions are solid based on the data and not whether the data themselves are fraudulent. The system is not set up to work any other way; if editors and referees distrusted all authors and assumed that every result was potentially fake, few papers would be published.”
In the case of stem cell research or any other general area of study, any noteworthy breakthroughs will be retested by other scientists. This is how fraud was caught in the case of the stem cell research. However, in the case of an MLM creating research for marketing purposes (such as when LifeVantage admits science is for marketing) other scientists don’t retest the results. The products haven’t proven themselves to the scientific community and the marketing aspect of the “research” makes a mockery of their profession.
Bottom Line
When it comes to MLM health companies, it is always important to use critical thinking skills and be extremely skeptical about any and every claim that they make. Many of them are going to try to do anything they can to subvert the system. Insist on large-scale, clinical trials aimed at garnering FDA approval for the product in helping with any health condition.
No related posts.
Great article talking about a recent failure in peer-review, fraud etc. Very relevant.
“Despite Occasional Scandals, Science Can Police Itself”
http://chronicle.com/article/Despite-Occasional-Scandals/129997/
Interesting. However, I find it hard to believe anything YOU say either…considering you use Wikipedia as source!?!? Come on, Really?
Wikipedia is a trusted source of information on articles of this nature. It is well-cited and incorrect information is often corrected very quickly.
This article does a great job of explaining Wikipedia as a trusted-source. The gist is that if you know how to use Wikipedia and the citations are well researched, it is a fine reference. I tend to use it because many minds working to make sure that something is accurate is better than one. Also, the information is usually presented in an unbiased, easy to understand format that is suitable for the discussion here.
Let’s put it this way, which information that I’ve used Wikipedia for do you believe to be incorrect and why? If you can make a strong argument, I’ll spend the time and effort to support my argument with another source.
They don’t just put any journal in the NLM. the database is peer reviewed for content. here is criteria for peer review personel…
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/lstrc/faca.html
of course some idiots may talk their way on to the board, but it can’t be all idiots
Again, peer review doesn’t recreate the study and verify it is legit. That’s another step entirely. Many times, an article is published so that scientists can read it and decide whether it merits recreating. If the results are truly interesting to scientist, such as a potential cure for a disease, many will certainly pick it up an rerun and verify the results.
No one is suggesting that people reviewing articles are idiots. It was well-covered in the Nature article, “Can Peer Review Police Fraud?” that was highlighted in the article.
To follow up with your research, one of Protandim’s Peer Reviewed studies was published in the Journal CIRCULATION of the American Heart Association. As mentioned in Wiki-pedia, the Impact Factor is #1.
“. . .As of 2009, its impact factor is 14.595 and it ranks first among journals in the Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems, Hematology, Peripheral Vascular Disease categories.”
Thanks Dr. Michael K Ihara,
I am quite familiar with the Circulation article that you are referring to. It is not a peer reviewed study of Protandim. It’s also flawed and irrelevant to humans in every way imaginable. See Debunking the “Protandim Study” in American Heart Association’s Circulation. The article was published due to the results in spite of its connection to Protandim, not because of the connection. Please continue any further discussion on this study there as this article is not about one specific study.
Your comment is a great example of why I wrote this article. It seems that MLM distributors just want to pull out the information that helps them line their pockets with sales rather than look at the big picture.
I noticed on your website “doctor” (the quotes will become clear soon) that you say, “8Aloha.com provides information and services that assist the body, mind, and spirit to help heal itself.” Did you intentionally use the “help heal itself” to show people that you are a quack doctor. It’s one of the basic signs of quakery. You also lose a lot credibility when you sell miracle water.
Finally, your website has so many lies about Protandim (a video that says it replaces vitamins A and C? Really?) that it clear that you are a danger to your clients.
Oh dear. Aloha-ha.
That miracle water takes the biscuit. @Lazyman; you are wrong there – a lot of credibility wasn’t lost. All of it was!
The barely coherent Linda Fickes, another chiro-quack, probably from next door in Hawaii, stumbles from one pseudo-scientificky-sounding nonsensical statement to the next in the videos and makes the astonishing statement that;
which in her own world of quaint logic naturally means that;
Fellow side-kick, the “radiation expert” called Russ Preves shows up nowhere on the web, (apart from on allo-ha-ha) despite his amazing radiation credentials.
Amazingly, between the three of them, they state that examining the water in the solid phase (ooo, pretty crystals under the microscope) equates directly to some untestable structure in the liquid phase which will save me from my mobile phone and Chernobyl. I may as well chuck all I learnt about the triple point, the gas laws plus covalent and ionic bonding out of the window right now and sign up to Hawaiian cooky skool pronto!
The water they’re all on about, I’m sure has its true genesis in the namesake of its “creator”, Dr Smirnov – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smirnoff as he sat torpid under some grimy table staring at a stained carpet.
[I only checked the 4th video and even then the wallowing, cringing, caring, pomposity made me turn it off before the end because I was going to throw up some of my internalised non-structured water - folks watch out - just keep away from those Hawaiian twonks. Anyone who is slightly taken in by this tosh wants sectioning.]
The bottom line is, does the product work for the indivual? Be it either an “FDA approved” product with a list of side affects as long as my arm, or an “unapproved” juice, pill or cream.
What I am hearing from this web site and other web sites like Protandimscam and lazyman is that you would rather put your trust in a “trusted science ” source like the FDA and pharmacutical.
Pharmacutical companies pay the FDA hundreds of thousands of dollars to get put on the “fast track” for approval by the FDA, like the makers of Aspartame.
You are right, you have to be a smart consumer and figure things out for yourself and be able to see through all the scams.
We are blasted with unscrupulous marketing from pharmacutical companies leading us to believe that all our woes and pains can be cured with a pill, instead of taking responsibilty for rotten life style choices, but I guess the actors on these commercials are credible testimonies for pharmacutical. These are info-mercials.
You are right on point about placebos and sugar pills working as well as the tested product. In a study on an anti-depressant, one group was given a placebo in place of the tested product and were told to exercise, at the end of the test, the exercise and placebo group felt better than those who were given the actual anti depressant and non exercise group did. Then again who funded the test, right?
Who writes the articles in healthmlmscam.com, I am truley curious? Prtotandim scam writer is a self proclamed anonymous writer (and we are supposed to trust his references and yours because they come from sources like the FDA and the AMA?).
Again you are right on point, follow the money!!! You list your credible sources of information as “real science” and tell us that you trust the FDA and its approval process?
You warn us not put our trust in articles listed in pubmed. Just because there is a dot gov behind the website, that we cant trust the government to police all the articles for truth.
But you put your trust and life and the life of others in the hands of the FDA, which is completly government funded and run and there is no hypocrasy or double stanadard? Your saying we can’t trust pubmed.gov as a credable source of information just because its operated by the governmetn, but we can trust the FDA with our health and lives? Hmmm. I think you are blinded by your own hypocrasy.
Here is the money trail; it would not suprise me in the least if you,the lazyman blogger and protnadimscam.com are not paid by the AMA and pharmacutical lobbies in some form or another, inorder to discredit mlm companies and their products that are not “FDA approved”. Some of these products really do work, but don’t have the “systems” approval. The rest of the money trail…whether these mlm products, wheter they work or not, these products are cutting into your bottom line!
But you fill the net with “well intented” information inorder to protect the American consumer. We eat foods that have been approved by the FDA, and get sick, then take drugs aproved by the FDA to help us get better and in most cases never fully recover and have to live on “FDA apporved” drugs. But the AMA doctors keep pumping the sick full of drugs that are approved by a trusted scientific source like the FDA.
We have bought into the FDA approved foods and drugs for decades and look at us now. The greatest and once richest country in the world has the highest cancer rate on the planet! But make sure you keep eating your foods and taking your drugs from a trusted and approved souce. You make money from the system and don’t want the competition. You are blind to your own hypocrasy and pay off and don’t care one bit about the public being scammed. This web site and others like it are the scam.
Where is the scam in taking an “unapproved” mlm product that might work in its own right or work as a placebo? If the product helps to keep me healthy along with an healthy life style then I don’t have to take a synthetic FDA “approved” drug and then another “FDA approved” drug to counter-act the drug that is supposed to be helping me in the first place.
Your approval and test system is the real scam and is at at the end of the money trail.
Real science is not about rockets, lab tests and high tech. It’s about intellectual integrity and my sense of integrity is my most valued possession. If Protandim turns out to be efficacious I want it for myself. If it is not, then I have to backtrack as soon and as effectively as I can, so I have been doing a great deal of reading about it and the controversy surrounding the published literature, the studies behind it, the company LifeVantage, its origins and its marketing efforts and have become appalled at the claims, counter-claims, allegations and assertions made from all corners. I’ve perused for hours the published studies and quite frankly fail to see any significance in most of the criticism offered, though outcomes in my own life experience suggests a somewhat less than optimal capacity for critical analysis on my part and if it ain’t worth the money, I’d like to know it sooner than later and spend my time and money on something else. Much scientific publication is done for the purpose of stimulating independent follow up research, publication, analysis and lucid discussion. I hope that happens here, but “I ain’t seen it yet” and the fat lady hasn’t sung.
Testimonials have neither scientific nor statistical validity. I don’t even believe my own and I am profoundly disinclined to use or condone hyperbole with respect to what any food, drug, “nutriceutical “, treatment or even attitude can accomplish with respect to biological systems. Nor however, will I silently sit by and listen/read while the pseudo-scientific scream about the evils of silver amalgam, fluoridation, anthropogenic global warming, endodontic treatment or the so-called scam of MLM as a function of their ignorance or inability to reason properly. I know “scientists” who aren’t qualified to sweep floors, dentists whose work shouldn’t go in the mouths of dogs, physicians who are pill pushing whores of big pharma and commentator/bloggers who delight in just stirring things up. I also know others whose boots I am not worthy to lick, but we should all know what peer reviewed, reproducible and double blind really mean and while the point is well taken that without double blind statistically significant in vivo testing (repeatable and independently confirmed), there can be no end to the controversy, still there will doubtless be no end to the bashing simply on the basis of rabid anti-MLM sentiment. Ad hominum attacks distract from the issue at hand and there seems to be a bit too much of that on this and related sites. Changes in blood plasma titers can not be attributed to the placebo phenomenon, regardless of participant incentive or bias either conscious or unconscious and TBAR testing in the context of research labs is indeed a viable indicator of oxidative stress. It is disingenuous to argue otherwise (1-4).
Questions related to authorship, government regulation, vested interests and such are not germane to what for me is the only issue of significance (and it ain’t miracle cures). Does the product up regulate the production of anti-oxidant enzyme activity and is that up-regulation clinically significant? I’ve not yet seen arguments sufficient to either refute the assertion or conclusively confirm it. {As a nerd, I’m also interested in the mechanisms involved and find metalo-polypeptides like the SOD series fascinating, but that is secondary}. Has anyone demonstrated fraud, significant error or material misrepresentation with respect to the collection and/or interpretation of the data purporting to show this up-regulation? Are the research and its results reproducible and the protocols, methods, inferences and conclusions logical and reasonable? These are the salient questions and they have not been adequately addressed or answered to my satisfaction from either end of the opinion spectrum. The human brain is hard wired to see patterns, causal relationships, and conspiracies where they don’t exist and fail to see them where they do. We should all insist on a double blind randomized trial to confirm the age related TBAR reduction and neither just write off the potential significance because it’s not yet been done, nor ignore the need for that study because of faith in the company. Then we can all either get on the product or flush it down the toilet. After all, on the one hand, merely showing a financial vested interest by one of the authors (who otherwise has apparently implacable credentials) is inadequate to dismiss the research a priori. On the other, neither is one study purporting to demonstrate the elimination of age related TBAR plasma levels yet conclusive.
1. Janero, D. Malondialdehyde and thiobarbituric acid-reactivity as diagnostic
indices of lipid peroxidation and peroxidative tissue injury. Free Radical
Biology & Medicine, 9:515-540; 1998
2. Callaway, J.K. et. al. A reliable procedure for comparison of antioxidents in
rat brain homogenates. Journal of Pharmacology Toxicology Methods,
April; 39(3): 155-62; 1998
3. Jentzsh, AM., et. al. Improved analysis of malondialdehyde in human body
fluids. Free Radio Biol Med., 20(2): 251-6; 1996
4. Jo, C. et. al. Fluorometric analysis of 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive
substances in turkey. Pout. Sci., March; 77(3): 475-80; 1998
DrJDSJr,
It most certainly is possible that a placebo effect could impact any kind of chemical analysis of the body. We know that various emotions effect levels of chemicals in the brain which can clearly impact chemicals in the blood etc. In the case of TBARS test with LifeVantage specifically, there is evidence of data rigging in the Protandim human clinical trial. We also know that LifeVantage used company insiders and investors in that study, which means that they could have eaten an strawberry before the second TBARS test and impacted it to make the their investment pay off.
The burden of proof is on LifeVantage to show that the product does something in a large scale. It isn’t a matter of whether there is enough to prove or disprove anything in the journal studies – the journal studies aren’t relevant to the consumer.
As for the appearance of LifeVantage’s Joe McCord in all the studies, it does show that the scientific community in general is not interested in Protandim – only those that McCord works with is. This is significant. The company claims that they’ve had a medical breakthrough product for 6 years and the scientific community, through lack of studies, has showed that they don’t care.
All of this conjecture is of little importance. LifeVantage can do all the clinical trials and get Protandim approved with the FDA if they want to show the product does something. It’s the same mechanism in place for any company with any medical product claiming that they have a breakthrough. They’ve had 6 years to file the paperwork and get started. It hasn’t happened yet, which is further proof that they know the product doesn’t do anything.
Instead of providing that proof, they continue to put out these journal studies that are meaningless to consumers, but market them as if they are meaningful proof of the product working. Essentially, the plan is to continue to sell unproven product to the uninformed masses rather than prove the product works. For this reason alone, journalists should take a step forward and attempt to inform the masses.