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 25, 2010
We can see the job listing now for the next SuperFruit…
Seeking Next Great SuperFruit.
Must be from Far Away Place and
Have Mysterious Powers. Magical
Weight Loss Powers a Major Plus.
Clinical Studies and Strong Science
Not Necessary.
Local Fruits Need Not Apply.
Why The Industry Loves Fruits From Exotic Places
Here is an industry secret – they love anything from a place that very few people have ever been to! The more exotic and mysterious, the more powerful their fruits must be. Here are just some of the new SuperFruits that the industry is promoting for 2010 – Caja Fruit (Brazil), Marula Fruit (Southern Africa) UmBu fruit (Brazil) and the list goes on.
So why is it that SuperFruits can only grow in exotic lands? They don’t! The supplement industry likes to tell emotional stories, stories about a culture in a far away land that eat fruit and live to be 120 years old has a lot of appeal. The stories may not have a lot of truth or science, but they do sound nice.
So SuperFruits from Exotic Lands Are All Bogus?
Of course not. We think the Acai Berry from Brazil is a true superfruit. The Noni comes from a far away land and has many strong health benefits. So, yes, fruits that come from exotic lands can be wonderful superfruits. What we are saying is that many fruits that come from far away places are… well, just plain old fruits that come from far away places! You don’t become a SuperFruit just because you are not grown in the USA.
How Popular Would Muscadine Grapes Be If They Came from a Rainforest in Brazil?
The lovely muscadine grape may be the best example of the industry bias against local fruits. Muscadine Grapes grow in places like Georgia, Texas and North Carolina – no offense to our southern friends, but not the most exotic lands. However, on a nutritional level, it is hard to argue that the Muscadine Grape is NOT a SuperFruit:
Clearly, from a pure nutrition and health stand point, the muscadine grape should be a Superfruit.
We Call for Equal Rights for Local SuperFruits
Let’s be fair to all fruits – regardless of where they come from. If a fruit from some tiny island off the coast of an even smaller island in the South Pacific has incredible health properties, we will be right there singing its praises. On the other hand, if a fruit that grows like a weed in New Jersey also has incredible health properties (we know – not very likely) – let’s be fair and call that a SuperFruit too!
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.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6b866df7-4d75-4d67-b913-878fbebda756)
