by Dan-N on February 22, 2010
You have no doubt seen the ads….
Take Acai Berry to magical melt the pounds away. But wait, don’t order yet – you also need to take a Colon Cleanse – to flush 30 pounds of waste out of your system. Yes, take Acai and a Colon Cleanse and in 30 days you will be the next Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model!
Are Acai and a Colon Cleanse Really Like Peanut Butter and Jelly?
No! We get a large number of questions regarding the use of a colon cleanse with an acai berry supplement. As numerous other web sites are claiming that you need to take Acai and a Colon Cleanse together, we are often asked why we don’t recommend a colon cleanse along with the Perfect Acai.
Well, there is a very simple answer – we don’t feel like misleading you today! Go ahead and do a search online to try to find one clinical study showing a positive effect from combining Acai with a Colon Cleanse. Go ahead, we will wait…
Back so soon? You probably found a million websites trying to sell you Acai and a Colon Cleanse – but did you find one clinical study to support their claims? No. We don’t mean to be cynical, but the real reason everyone else is pushing a Colon Cleanse with Acai is that they make more money if you buy two supplements instead of one.
Is a Colon Cleanse Useless?
Maybe. We do not claim to be experts on all the various colon cleanse products on the market. What we do know is that the body absorbs the calories from food before it reaches the colon. So, claims that you will lose lots of weight from a colon cleanse are not valid.
Can a colon cleanse help some people? Maybe. You can do your own research. All we are saying is that this connection between the Acai Berry and a Colon Cleanse is a marketing creation. We guarantee you that the people of the Amazon Rain Forest are not washing down their Acai bowls with a colon cleanse chaser!
Quality Acai Products Can Stand on Their Own
Pure Organic Acai Berry products such as the Perfect Acai, can stand on their own as an incredibly nutritious supplement. If a company is telling you that you need a Colon Cleanse to make their Acai product work – that would be a company we would avoid.
by Dan-N on February 9, 2010
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejimmer/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
The Acai Berry is a beautiful little purple berry that grows in the Amazon Rain Forest. Resveratrol is a natural component of grapes that may help you live longer and healthier. Many people choose to use Acai and Resveratrol because they believe in natural foods over man made prescription medicines. This is why it is so sad to report that over 90% of the Acai and Resveratrol supplements on the market are probably made with genetically modified material!
One of the Darkest Supplement Industry Secrets – Magnesium Stearate!
As this blog is called Supplement Secrets Exposed, it seems only right that we are the ones to expose one the best kept secrets in the industry – the magnesium stearate secret! Go ahead and grab a bottle of any supplement you have in the house… don’t worry, we will wait….
Got it? Now take a look at the “Other Ingredients” listed toward the bottom of the label in tiny print. There is a 95% chance you are holding a supplement that uses magnesium stearate as a other ingredient.
What is Magnesium Stearate?
So what is this funny ingredient in almost every supplement on the market?
“Magnesium Stearate is the magnesium salt or stearic acid from plant or animal sources, which is a saturated fatty acid used as an anti-caking agent and as an emulsifier.”
-Don’t Eat Database
Wow, there are a few disturbing words in there – animal sources and saturated fatty acids. If you are a vegetarian and/or trying to limit saturated fatty acids – pretty disturbing to find out the magnesium stearate in your supplement may be made from animal fat! But it only gets worse…
Why Would Magnesium Stearate be Genetically Modified?
“This substance (magnesium stearate) is most likely made from genetically modified soy or corn. In the US over 80% of the soy and corn crops have been genetically modified.”
-Don’t Eat Database
Yikes! What this means is that while the Acai or Resveratrol in a supplement may be Non-GMO – the magnesium stearate can be genetically modified and therefore the whole supplement contains GMO.
Of course this is not limited to just Acai and Resveratrol supplements – any supplement that has magnesium stearate is going to have these same issues.
Avoid Magnesium Stearate – You Do Have a Choice!
The take away from all this – avoid supplements that have magnesium stearate. The only reason that supplement companies use magnesium stearate is that it makes it cheaper to encapsule the ingredients – there is absolutely no advantage for the consumer.
The good news is, if you look around you can find supplements that do NOT use magnesium stearate. One of the reasons we love the Perfect Acai and the Perfect ResGrape Resveratrol is that they have NO magnesium stearate.
Well, now you know the dirty little secret about Magnesium Stearate – let’s pass this along, let everyone know and let’s all say NO to Magnesium Stearate!
by Dan-N on January 13, 2010
By now we all know that a diet very high in fatty foods is bad for us, but we also know that some of those fatty foods taste really good! Well, it looks like taking Acai may actually help counteract some of the negatives associated with fatty food!
New Study Shows Acai Helps Make a High Fat Diet… Not So Terrible
A study just published in the December 2009 Journal of Nutrition found that rats feed a high fat diet AND acai pulp, had lower levels of total Cholesterol and LDL Cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) then rats who just ate a high fat diet.
“This is the first study, to our knowledge, addressing the potential benefits of açai intake in the cholesterol profile,” wrote the researchers, led by Maria Lucia Pedrosa from the Federal University of Ouro Preto.
“We observed that the addition of açai pulp in the hypercholesterolemic diet had a hypocholesterolemic effect by reducing cholesterol levels (total and non-HDL), which could be explained by a lower food intake and higher faecal excretion,” they added.
How Does Acai Help Reduce Cholesterol Levels?
The study just looked at end results – it did not try to answer how Acai might have achieved its positive results. To be honest the results do not surprise us, we have been talking about the health benefits of Acai for a few years now. Our theory is that Acai is a powerful antioxidant and thus it can stop cholesterol from oxidizing and becoming the very dangerous oxidized LDL Cholesterol. We wrote a whole article on fruits and oxidized LDL cholesterol, that you can read here.
But What If I Am Not a Rat?
Our most recent survey indicates that, surprisingly, the vast majority of our readers are actually not rats. So, since the study was done with rats – what can we humans take from it? Rat studies are a good first step in understanding how something like Acai may work in our body. Often what we find true in rats is also true in humans – but not always.
The only way to confirm the findings of this study are to do human clinical trials with Acai and a high fat diet. Until those studies are done, there will be debate on whether Acai can really reduce LDL cholesterol in humans with a high fat diet.
So, if you are taking Acai now, we would not recommend loading up on fatty foods and hoping the Acai balances things out. However, if you are not taking Acai now, but are eating a high fat diet, and just can’t stop – now might be a good time to look into some high quality Acai Supplements.
Additional Resources:
Diet supplementation with acai (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) pulp improves biomarkers of oxidative stress and the serum lipid profile in rats. Journal of Nutrition, Published online 21 December 2009.
by Dan-N on December 17, 2009
Millions of people have choosen to use Viagra (the brand name for Sildenafil). It is clear that the whole Erectile Dysfunction (ED) market has become a bonanza for the pharmaceutical companies. What is less clear is that many more of us are using Viagra (sildenafil) without even knowing it!
The Hot New Ingredient for Supplements – Sildenafil!
We first reported last week that a number of acai supplements were causing side effects. An investigation by Health Canada found that these acai supplements were laced with Sildenafil. It is clear that Sildenafil can have serious side effects and anyone using an acai supplement that contains Sildenafil should stop (here is the list of tainted products).
Now we have learned of more supplements that are tainted with Sildenafil. On December 14, 2009, the FDA posted a notice on its website regarding the recall of many sexual enhancement supplements sold by Atlas Operations, Inc. Apparently over 20 Atlas supplements were tested and they all contained Sulfoaildenafil, an analogue of Sildenafil. Of course since Sildenafil is a prescription drug it can not be legally used in supplements, and therefore a full recall was ordered -
Read the FDA Press Release on the Recall
Why Is Everyone Trying to Get Us To Take and ED Drug?
To be honest – we are not sure! We get why Atlas, a company that makes sexual function supplements would try to improve the performance of their supplements by adding Sildenafil. It is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible to spike a supplement with a drug, but at least we can see the motive.
It is a little more of a mystery on why you would spike an Acai supplement with an ED drug. You do feel the effects of Sildenafil, so maybe the idea is to try to get people to think they “feel” the Acai working right away.
Our Advice – Go With Trusted Companies
Some people will look at these stories and claim that they prove that all supplements are dangerous and unregulated. This is not the case. Supplements are regulated, and adding drugs to supplements is clearly not allowed – hence the recall. In any industry you will have dishonest companies – the key is to avoid these companies – not all supplements.
Our advice is to stick with trusted supplement companies that have a proven track record. You want to be able to contact the company with any questions you may have. In addition, do a search at the FDA website to make sure the company does not have any issues.
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