Isagenix Scam: Questionable Medical Claims, No Science Behind Them
Multi-level marketing company Isagenix offers a cleansing product which it claims helps people lose weight. Is this MLM scheme offering a bogus product, or is this a legitimate weight loss program?
Let’s start off by clarifying that in general, multilevel marketing companies are legal scams in the United States. The government allows them to exist and multiply. They offer products which are little more than a “front” for the schemes, since without a legitimate looking product or service, the companies would be at risk of appearing to be illegal pyramid schemes.
In this article, we are not focusing on the MLM method of selling an opportunity or product. We are looking at the product itself. Isagenix has its roots in colon cleansing products. These are detoxification products which they claim help people lose weight. The company also offers vitamins, supplements, and anti-aging products for the skin.
Does detox work to help lose weight? Is it something healthy that people should be doing regularly? The Mayo Clinic says that detox diets have no proven scientific benefits. Our bodies naturally remove toxins from things we ingest, and there is no need to add some sort of cleansing products to our diets to remove toxins.
Dr. Harriet Hall writes more below about the junk science behind Isagenix. In short, there are no proven benefits to using the Isagenix products. Users of the products may offer anecdotes about their success with them, but that is not the same as having independent scientific studies supporting such claims. Of course, Isagenix prohibits reps from making medical claims about the products, but such a prohibition never seems to stop the distributors in any company.
Critique of Isagenix
by Harriet Hall, M.D.
A friend inquired about a product, Isagenix (actually a whole family of products) that is being pushed by the leader of her weight loss group, claiming that “The Isagenix cleanse is unique because it not only removes impurities at the cellular level, it builds the body up with incredible nutrition. Besides detoxing the body, Isagenix teaches people a wonderful lesson that they don’t need to eat as much as they are accustom to and eating healthy choices are really important and also a lot of the food we are eating is nutritionally bankrupt.”
I went through the website (http://www.isagenix.com/) and watched the promotional videos. There is so much to criticize that I hardly know where to start. It’s all misinformation, unsupported claims, testimonials, and money-making ploys.
I couldn’t find a critique of Isagenix on the Web, but that’s not surprising. No serious medical scientist would take it seriously enough to bother about it. And it’s basically all been done before; it’s just a slightly new wrinkle on an old scam. You will find some information on related products at: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/detox.html
You can also go to the quackwatch.org homepage and type in cleansing or type in detoxification.
The claims on the Isagenix website are a mishmash of pseudoscience, myth, misrepresentation, and outright lies. For example:
- Americans are sicker than ever before.
- Toxicity accounts for most diseases.
- The body protects itself from toxins by coating them with fat, causing obesity. [The truth: some toxins are soluble in fat and can be taken into existing fat cells, but no new fat cells are created.]
- The internal organs become clogged and deteriorate if you don’t cleanse.
- Nutrients that cleanse, revitalize, rejuvenate — what does this even mean?
- The human body needs cleansing like air conditioners that need their filters changed and car engines that need oil changes. [This is nonsense: the human body cannot be compared to a machine: it is a living, self-regulating organism that does its own maintenance.]
They engage in scare-mongering about toxins, but provide no data to show that the tiny amounts we ingest lead to any significant adverse health effects. They also provide no evidence that their treatment actually removes any toxins from the body. Or that doing so would have any significant impact on health. There have been no properly controlled scientific studies of their “cleansing” treatments, only testimonials of the sort that abound on the Internet for hundreds of other ineffective products.
There is absolutely no rationale for the particular combination of ingredients in their products. They have LOTS of different products, and have included just about every nutrient and herbal remedy in existence: 242 of them! Some of these we know to be useless, some are potentially harmful, and we have no idea how the particular ingredients in the mixtures might interact for better or for worse.
They offer “ionic” minerals from “ancient plant deposits.” Minerals are the same thing wherever they come from, and all “ionic” means is that it is in a form that can be absorbed — i.e. magnesium as milk of magnesia rather than as a lump of elemental magnesium metal.
They advertise “no caffeine added” for a product that contains green tea; green tea contains caffeine. They repeat the tired old myth that our food isn’t as nutritious as in the “good old days.” They put digestive enzymes in their products to help you assimilate them, not realizing that orally ingested digestive enzymes are themselves digested in the stomach before they can do anything. They say that their electrolytes “ignite the body’s electrical system” — I have no idea what this means, and it certainly is not scientific terminology.
Their antioxidant mixture contains 15,000 IU of vitamin A as beta carotene plus 5000 IU as palmitate. The Medical Letter recently reviewed vitamin A and warned that no one should take high-dose beta carotene supplements, and that women should not take vitamin A supplements at all during pregnancy or after menopause. Among other things, they said: Vitamin A may also have pro-oxidant effects in vivo. A high intake of vitamin A from supplements and food has been associated with an increased risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women and with teratogenicity when taken during early pregnancy. A placebo-controlled intervention trial in Finnish smokers found that 20 mg/day of a beta carotene supplement increased the incidence of lung cancer by 18%, which was statistically significant. Another large double blind intervention trial in smokers and asbestos exposed workers, terminated early because no benefit was demonstrated, found that combined therapy with 30 mg of beta carotene and 25,000 IU of vitamin A daily was associated with an increase in the incidence of lung cancer, cardiovascular mortality and total mortality.
The Medical Letter concluded: “A balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables may be safer than taking vitamin supplements. No biologically active substance taken for a long term can be assumed to be free of risk.”
Isagenix claims to promote weight loss. All “treatments” for [temporary] weight loss work the same way: they get people to ingest fewer calories than they expend. There is no reason to think that a person who restricts calorie intake and exercises will lose any more weight if they add Isagenix products. Diuretic and laxative effects, psychological factors, and enthusiasm for a new method may initially fool people into thinking they have benefited.
Their medical advisor, Becky Natrajan, MD, tells us on a video presentation that she is “excited about results” but she does not say what those results are or why she thinks the results are due to the product rather than to diet, exercise and other factors. Perhaps her funniest argument is that the $5 a day Isagenix costs you is less expensive than open heart surgery. As if it were a simple choice between the two!
She tells you to contact the person who told you about Isagenix. And one of the headings on the website is “Wealth.” There you will find out how you can sell products from your home and become an associate, a consultant or an executive with increasing levels of financial return. This sounds like a typical multilevel marketing scheme, typical of products that can’t be marketed effectively based purely on their merits.
In short, Isagenix is a slick marketing enterprise that lines the promoters’ pockets by selling baseless hope. There is a disclaimer on the website that should be taken very seriously: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
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Tags: isagenix fraud, isagenix scam
Comments (10)
Thank you so much for this! I tried googling 4 different ways to get the actual ingredients and an objective analysis of whether some new evidence showed anything in a supplement could “burn fat” and all I got was pages of links from the company & salespeople–even when I included the word scam–they are very clever in anticipating this charge–until I found you.
I have read some of Dr. Hall before, but hesitated to send friends the link bc the original website would be kind of overwhelming if not threatening to friends who have heard over & over or just accept alternate myths about energy, thought changing water crystals, etc. as passed on by so many yoga teachers & self-claimed healers as well as pop media. In this format I will be able to share.
I had gone to her FB page to learn about an Ashtanga yoga teacher I was thinking about taking class with, and she was gushingly claiming she’d effortlessly lost 9 pounds & had more energy with Isagenix, which I’d never heard of. The post’s tone suggested a marketing scheme, and also suggested a lack of basic human physiology knowledge which seems to be alarmingly common in the health industry. Trainers & yoga teachers seem to memorize anatomy but not understand the functions of body organs as scientifically proven. Increasingly I’m realizing what i thought were metaphors are actually their beliefs. Not so sure I want to take her guidance in how to work my body in the rather strenuous practice of Ashtanga. Thanks!
This isn’t the only company that uses this tactic. Beachbody (maker of some great workout DVDs) is an MLM that sells a product called Shakeology in addition to the workout programs. The vast majority of Shakeology customers are also sales affiliates (or “coaches” as they call them). The shake costs $115 A MONTH(a little less if you are a coach), and the claims that these coaches make are ridiculous, unfounded, and irresponsible. They claim that Shakeology cured their IBS, helps them manage their diabetes, got them off a whole slew of medications, etc. (look at their Facebook page for a small sampling). If you say $115 a month is too expensive, they’ll tell you that a) it’s NOT expensive when you consider people spend that much on Starbucks, and b) well, you save $30 if you sign up as a coach under me. I was intrigued, so I figured I would do some research. EVERY page that I came across about Shakeology was written by a Beachbody Coach. If you type in “Shakeology scam,” you are directed to a site with an article that explains why Shakeology is NOT a scam. Type in “Shakeology pyramid”, “shakeology sucks”, you get articles written by Beachbody coaches saying why Shakeology is NOT those things. You need to be careful with these MLMs. They have a way of brainwashing their sales people
Thank you for operating one of the rare blogs, like mine also, that take the less profitable side of the MLM / Nutritional Scam sector.
We could be out forcing our relatives to pay thousands of dollars for dangerous products…but it would not be the right thing to do.
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend,
IS
I’ve never done the cleanse, but was thinking about doing so after the holidays. I’m no medical expert, but I am entering into health care as a nurse in the near future and nutrition fascinates me. The hypothesis that neurological syndromes and food allergies are attributed to toxicity *has* been supported by research (see Dr. Theo Colhoun’s work). Differences have been shown between subjects who ingest foods laden with additives and pesticides in contrast with with subjects who eat whole, organic foods. The effects of taking in said toxins can range anywhere from developmentally delayed children to reproductively impaired adults. These statements have been supported by data and research.
I recently read about the various P450 enzymes and their role in detoxifying our bodies…Could pesticides and additives have an adverse effect on these enzymes? I would love to see the research, but my instincts after reading more into the subject say perhaps. The question pertaining to this post concerning Isagenix supporting proper detoxification or not isn’t my point. My point is that the “old school” thinking of nutrition in the light of “every calorie is the same” needs to be thrown out. Isagenix at least supports people in making healthier choices…Kale instead of candy perhaps. You are what you eat, and heck, if Isagenix gets people to drink a nutritional shake vs eating a happy meal, I’m all for it.
Thank you. Keep up the good work you are doing! Critical thinking is lacking in our society. PLEASE people of the world…pull your head out of the sand and do a little research before trusting a company that wont provide clinical evidence thats its products are safe… or even works for that matter. (unless you believe that putting your head in the sand prevents solar radiation from melting your brain)
thank you for the ubiased review of beachbody. i tried the shake at the recommendation of a friend. the problem is, there are many people recommending this product as part of their “multi-level marketing business”. these people are not doctors, but are true believers pushing a product which i believe could have bad side effects for some people. this product really messed with/trashed my system.
the company is very smart by implementing the multi-level marketing because all of these “so called” internet doctors drain out reason throughout the internet.
the coaches at beachbody are pushed to recruit other coaches and push this meal replacement shake.
My only question is for more information on this statement: “Some of these we know to be useless, some are potentially harmful…”
Besides the vitamin A you mention, to which other ingredients would you be referring as potentially harmful?
I see that Isagenix medical advisor, Becky Natrajan, MD, may be “excited about the results”, – but not that excited.
Apparently she’s bailed ship and found a new home at TriVita.
“At last, after 12 months of extensive research looking for the “perfect” wellness company and Affiliate opportunity…
Dr. Becky and Dan Maes have joined forces with TriVita to bring Wellness to the World”!
“Renowned Medical Doctor and award-winning Marketing Executive have teamed up to bring wellness to the world by harnessing the power of a proven Affiliate opportunity of a lifetime! Dr. Becky Maes (formerly Natrajan) and Dan Maes have embraced TriVita’s mission, superior quality products and proven business model. They are 100% dedicated to your success and helping you experience wellness and create wealth for your life purposes.”
Same old, same old. Geez…you need a score card to keep track of which “next best greatest opportunity of the month” these professional jumpers are currently working.