Contents: Overview | Supplements - Generic & Proprietary

Overview:

Alternative medicine includes a variety of medical and health care systems, practices, and products such as: Herbal Medicine (echinacea, Ginkgo, Ginseng, St. John's Wort, Glucosamine and chondroitin, ...), Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Chiropractic.

Ginkgo:
The only trusted study that looked at ginkgo for memory enhancement was published in JAMA and concluded:

"When taken following the manufacturer's instructions, ginkgo provides no measurable benefit in memory or related cognitive function to adults with healthy cognitive function."

They also include Mind-Body Interventions such as: Meditation, prayer, mental healing, and therapies that use creative outlets such as art, music, or dance. Asian techniques that include movement, meditation, and regulation of breathing such as: Yoga, Qi gong and Tai Chi may also be considered alternative medicine.

It is defined by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) as:

A group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.¹ While some scientific evidence exists regarding some Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies--questions such as whether these therapies are safe and whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used.

The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care and as new approaches to health care emerge.

¹ Conventional medicine is medicine as practiced by holders of M.D. (medical doctor) or D.O. (doctor of osteopathy) degrees and by their allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, psychologists, and registered nurses. Some conventional medical practitioners are also practitioners of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM).

See:
Herbs and Supplements at MedlinePlus at the National Library of Medicine at the NIH.
About Herbs, Botanicals & Other Products at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Common Herbs and Supplements at DrugDigest.org
Supplement Dictionary at HerbalRemedies.com
Dr. Perricone's 10 Superfoods at Oprah.com

Proprietary Diet Supplements:
There are several products marketed thru multi-level sales structures (sometimes called pyramid marketing) where independent entrepreneurs sell to their friends and family and recruit friends to be part of their sales network.
They frequently use affinity groups (Religious or Ethnic communities) to gain trust.
Popular ones include noni, Ambrotose, mangosteen juices, Goji, XanGo, Zrii (Amalaki juice), Açaí berry products (Mona·Viemonavie & Amazon Thunder) and Himalayan Salt Lamps.

The main product websites usually make claims like "they support/maintain your immune system", but have disclaimers like "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

The sales people and other "unofficial" web sites have a lot of word of mouth testimonials as to their effect on general health, cures for cancer, arthritis, and other diseases, and refer to studies and other research by various Ph.D's or M.D.s, but there are no clinical or scientific studies published in the normal medical journals or in the US medical database, PubMed.
These benefit claims are generally considered "Pseudoscience".

They are also good at creating a network of seemingly independent web sites that link to each other promoting the products and thus moving them up in google hit lists.

See:
The truth about exotic juices!

Noni, known scientifically as Morinda citrifolia, is a tropical fruit found primarily in the South Pacific. A fruit puree is used in TAHITIAN NONI® Juice to deliver superior antioxidants, increase energy levels and maintain a healthy immune system.

• Noni Cancer Inhibition Study describes a paper "Angiogenic Inhibition by Noni" by Conrad A. Hornick, Ph.D and others showed that "Noni was effective in inhibiting the initiation of new vessel sprouts from placental vein explants." These vessel sprouts would normally feed cancer cells.
  [It does not appear that this research was published in any of the standard medical journals. Their control was salt water. It seems to me that a better test would be to compare the unique ingredient "Morinda citrifolia" with the other ingredients "grape juice" and "blueberry juice" to see which one is providing the benefit. Ed.]
• Who is this for? at DrugDigest
• Noni for cancer? at Health and Age says:

  "A search of the medical literature shows that there are no published reports of clinical trials of noni for use in the treatment of any disorder, including cancer. There is one ongoing clinical trial in patients with advanced cancer for which there is no other treatment. It is being run by the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM); no results are available yet."

"Ambrotose AO combines an extremely potent, synergistic blend of antioxidants called MTech AO Blend™ with the life-enhancing benefits of Ambrotose complex, the plant-based glyconutritional that provides support for the human immune function. The result is what we believe to be the most effective cellular protection strategy on the market today."

• Testimonial
  "In March of 1999, my 75-year-old mother, Neoma Counts was diagnosed with "terminal cancer". The Doctors said that it was not curable and recommended chemotherapy to slow it down and buy some time.
  ...
  he began drinking carrot juice daily and making smoothes using tofu and fresh fruit. We decided on a vegetarian diet containing no meat, dairy products or sugar. The diet contained a large amount of soy products. She used a large amount of products from the Mannatech Co. including Ambrotose (an immune system modulator with aloe vera), Phytaloe (freeze dried fruits and vegetables) and Manna Cleanse (a product containing fiber, probiotics and omega 3 fatty acids). She also took pancreatic enzymes, maitake & shaitake mushrooms, green tea, Essiac tea, alpha lipoic acid, ground flax seed, garlic, selenium and a full spectrum of vitamins, anything that we read about that was good for cancer we added to the regimen.
  ...
  Four months after quitting chemotherapy she returned to her gynecologist for a check up. ... There was no cancer anywhere. He only saw some scar tissue. We had received a miracle.

• Ambrotose®: A Cure for Cancer? a note from Dr. Moss
  He says: "Glycobiology is a promising avenue of research, to be sure....
  For Ambrotose in particular, we see an enormous popularity in publications by and for lay people but nothing listed in the standard medical literature to substantiate claims of health benefits, at least not under this particular brand name."
• The "Journal of Nutraceutical Medicine" is the only publication that endorses Mannatech's products. But if you look closely, you will see that this supposed "medical" journal is really just a publication of the companies that produce these products.
  Source: scam.com
• Issues with ManaTech at the Rick A. Ross Institute

  Other links: Multilevel marketing Watch
  Mannatech Consumers Investors Get Two Tales
  

It become popular since Dr. Perricone listed it as one of his 10 Superfoods on Oprah show in Oct. 2007.

ORAC, short for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (antioxidant), is a test tube analysis that measures the total antioxidant power of foods and other chemical substances. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers in healthy eating at Tufts University have found that in order to provide meaningful antioxidant health benefits in a nutritional supplement you need at least 2400 to 3000 ORAC in your daily diet. The diet of an average human being, provides 1000 units ORAC daily.
ORAC per gram of fruit (varies a lot depending on study):

Açaí        167 490 (2nd number is for freeze dried)
Prune        86  58
Pomegranate 106  33
Blueberries      24
Cranberry    95  18
Strawberries     15

Amazon Thunder is a pure acai berry product.
$40 / 32 oz. bottle

See:
AmazonThunder.com
Amazon Thunder Review at acai.vg
U. Florida study on Açai to fight cancer.

Mona·Viemonavie mona-vie: MonaVie is a blend of 19 fruits, including Açai, apricot, aronia, acerola, purple grape, passion fruit, camu camu, banana, lychee fruit, hashi pear, kiwi, pomegranate, prume, wolfberry, pear, bilberry, cranberry, blueberry, white grape.. They say it also contains g;ucosamine for healthy joint function.
However they don't say how much Açai it contains.
It's $40/25 oz. bottle = $160/month