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Post by m00mma on Feb 18, 2008 15:45:21 GMT -5
Anyone know anything about this? I have a friend who swears by this. She has a son who is aspergers and BP type 2. she hated what meds did with her son, so she tried MonaVie and she said it helped his mood *big* time. My biggest concern with it is that it has a disclaimer on its website stating that because of the fatty acids in it, it hasn't been approved for use with children. Anyone use this or know anything more about it? my dd is getting moodier and moodier as the weather gets hotter and i don't know if she has add-in or if she is just stressed out, but i think she needs some help...thanks for any input you can give.
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Post by Mayleng on Feb 18, 2008 16:45:59 GMT -5
Have you tried giving Omega3s to see if it improves the moods? There is some scientific basis on Omega3s helping moderate moods for BP.
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Post by m00mma on Feb 18, 2008 17:12:34 GMT -5
I just started giving 3 a day of the 100% arctic cod liver oil 250 MG capsules to my dd . the amount in 4 of these capsules total of omega 3s is 252mg and there is 120mg of oleic acid (omega 9) plus there is a,d &e in it. only the e seems to be in a decent amount though...14i.u.
I was wondering about this all because of the idea that antioxidants are supposed to help with bp and the breakdown of the cells? also dd wont eat vegetables. or anything with odd textures or thickness to it. she has a high gag reflex. Then i saw someone else's post on fatty acids being beneficial for add or maybe adhd...i can't remember, but i thought that was interesting especially since that was what was holding me back from trying it....
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Post by Mayleng on Feb 18, 2008 17:19:04 GMT -5
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Post by Mayleng on Feb 18, 2008 18:08:25 GMT -5
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Post by m00mma on Feb 18, 2008 18:12:47 GMT -5
www.vitacost.com/Nordic-Naturals-Omega-3-Liquid-Purified-Fish-Oil-with-Enhanced-Stabilizers so mayleng, i tried like the dickens to undertstand this all and read through that post (thank you for pointing me in that direction!) and if i made heads and tales of that thread correctly i can give my 7 yo who weighs 57 lbs 1tsp of this daily and supplement this with a vitamin E supplement of at minimum 100I.U. and i would have the correct amounts? or am i doing this all wrong? lol! i am terrible at math, so i definitely need double checking when there are too many numbers involved.
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Post by Mayleng on Feb 18, 2008 18:53:26 GMT -5
Ok, here's some guidelines to what to look for in an Omega3 product: Things to look for in order to assure that you are getting the specified DHA/EPA concentration and that the product is free of contaminants include:
1.) production in a GMP certified facility. This means that the product will meet or exceed federal standards for potency and purity, will maintain quality assurance records for each batch processed, and in some cases will provide samples for independent verification.
2.) molecular distillation as part of the production process. This results in removal of contaminants such as mercury, PCB's, dioxin, etc.
3.) a final product that contains at least 60% DHA/EPA, which indicates a high degree of refinement. (For example, a 1,000g capsule -- pretty standard size -- will contain 200mg DHA and 400mg EPA.)
Purity issues aside, in order to replicate clinical studies that have found Omega-3 successful in reducing ADHD symptoms, you would want to use approximately 480mg DHA and 720mg EPA daily.
The Nordic Naturals product you mentioned is a good product and 1 tsp a day should be more then sufficient. However, it has lemon oil, and we have found that some kids react to that. Your child may not, but some did.
Another product you might want to consider is RxOmega-3 Factors (Natural Factors), this one does not contain any flavoured oils.
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Post by m00mma on Feb 18, 2008 20:11:27 GMT -5
do you know how big these capsules can get? I just taught dd how to swallow pills with these small dha kids pills so if these are real big and she needs 3 to get the recommended amount, plus a multi to get the E, i am a bit worried. but all the liquids have flavors. eep.
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Post by Mayleng on Feb 18, 2008 20:26:43 GMT -5
The Nordic Naturals is liquid so no problems. The RxOmega-3 Factors is big, but she can bite it and spit out the shell. She will need two capsule a day, but you can take one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There is a NOW brand Vitamin E pills that is a small capsule, you can get it at www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?c=1&pid=540
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Post by cobyseven on Feb 21, 2008 8:05:35 GMT -5
Didn't catch this thread first time around. I drink MonaVie. It's actually not bad and I love the antioxidant effects. I have fingernails for the first time in my life. LOL
Acai is pretty trendy but has mega times the antioxidant qualities of blueberries, for example. I love it...
You don't have to spend the money for Monavie. You can buy pure acai at whole foods. It's terrible plain. Tastes like muddy chocolate. I sometimes buy it plain and mix it with juice on my own, making it similar to Monavie without the price tag. (Pure juice is still $17 per bottle, but you only need an ounce or so a day)
My dd loves it too. They have Bossa Nova fruit drinks that she likes. She's been drinking one about everyday. I don't notice any improvement in her ADD, however. Never thought about it. I don't think antioxidants are in any way related to ADD treatment.
I didn't know Monavie contained omegas. That's news to me. However, for overall quality of health, acai is a good thing.
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Post by mrsblr on Jul 14, 2009 23:20:02 GMT -5
I have been on a variety of medications for depression/ADHD since I was 6. took Ritalin briefly at age 6, then simply an anti-depressant for a handful of years until the powers-that-be thought I had grown out of it. Fast-forward to age 20. I was enrolled in a very reading-intense college pursuing a degree in philosophy with a minor in math and science. I have a MENSA-level IQ but graduated from HS with a 78 average. Could never get it together, and was having the same problems in college. Saw a news article on ADHD and recognized the traits. Neurologist, after exhaustive tests and interviews confirmed ADHD. Since then (16 years) I have been off and on such things as Adderall and Paxil, and briefly Strattera, but the magic combonation for me was Tofranil (aka imiprimine) at night and Adderall in a.m. My marriage and job and home life and relationships suffered terribly if I did not take my medicines.
I started drinking MonaVie Active 3 months ago and have been COMPLETELY off of BOTH of my meds and feel better then I ever have! I have TWO ADHD friends who tried the regular MonaVie first for two weeks, then switched to the Active and WHAM! the releif of ADHD symptoms was so obvious within the first few days!
Apparently ADHD is on the Autism spectrum. This may explain why so many parents of autistic kids use MonaVie Active with their kids and find significant improvement in several areas. MonaVie Active contains "esterified fatty acids" which the regular MonaVie does not contain.
As for their founders choosing to market the product using a peer-to-peer model rather than a traditional national media method, YES it is true. But this product is SO AMAZING that it necessitates the one-on-one marketing technique; there is NO WAY anyone would believe the fantastic results (many verified by family physicians and specialists alike) if it weren't for folks hearing it from trusted friends and family members. So does word-of-mouth proliferation tend to follow a pyramid-type model? YES. I tell 10 of my friends how great it is, they start drinking it, and they will tell 10 of their friends. There you have a pyramid. But this company would not have had the phenomenal growth it had has in the last 5 years if the product didn't live up to the hype.
So, as an Administrator Mayleng, I find it very irresponsible of you to have nearly dismissed the product based solely on the form of marketing chosen by the company's founders to promote the product. This is not a company selling make-up or household goods that can just as easily be bought at the corner store. There are studies, Doctors, and advocates of this product in all walks of life, the majority of whom have no interest in the "scheme" part of the business associated by so many with the word "pyramid." We buy the product because it not only is doing great things INSIDE OUR BODIES that we cannot feel, but it is changing the way we live our lives.
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Post by zippity on Jul 15, 2009 1:12:22 GMT -5
Well I have some of my own experience and reasons to concur with Mayleng. My friend dropped off a case for me. I have not been working out religiously so I am more tired than in the past years. I am also approaching a milestone age, have a disorder or two, throw in some perimenopause and I can understand why I am feeling sluggish. This stuff is not a panacea for all that ails anyone but this kind of miracle beverage claims are as old as history. I think it has some good vitamins and Acai has shown some beneficial health results but to eradicate ADHD, naw. A modern day medicine cure all. NOT. I have not lost weight and I only had a few inches so it should have happened by now. I don't feel substantially better and frankly there is a reason to prescribe meds if they work. This juice does not improve my temporal lobe deficiency or Dyslexia or word finding difficulties. Meds might not work for everyone, they don't seem to do much for my kids but we revisited the possibility recently. There needs to be some therapy to go along with it. A two prong approach. I just can't dismiss making healthy food choices, taking some stress relieving timeouts and getting exercise. IMHO folks just don't need $45 dollar bottles of this stuff. If they think so then they can try a cheaper version from big box stores. There were about 6 other similar claiming drinks if they so feel like trying and comparing. There's a few - Noni Juice, Aloe Juice, Spirulina, and others with lovely names. I love my friend but she sounded like an informercial. She spoke to me as if I knew nothing yet I am the only one among my friends who lives what I don't preach. Yes, she lost weight. I still don't see her as healthier, she doesn't exercise and at our age some weight bearing exercise is a must. I firmly believe in moderation and some form of exercise for health, strength and endurance. It's nice to have muscle tone and I don't know of any other way to not slump in my chair than to just do some hateful core exercises until I reach the maintenance stage. When I stray from my routine I must get my balance back. Lately, it is exercise I am lacking and thankfully I can not take coffee. I am sorry but every time my friend talks about it I hear the catch phrases of good marketing. Now vitamins in capsule form are bad and we can only ingest x%. Same as food, well it depends on the vitamin or the drink and what else is in it or you are eating with it that might cancel out another vitamin. Frankly, there are some vitamins that the body can only absorb let's say 200mg so to rave about how there is 1000mg in Mona Vie is 5x better is a fallacy. I can't get all into the hype. I am in advertising and been doing it for many years. I have been asked to help many a start up of some miracle cream or food or equipment before. My friend was really cool about my wariness but the speil was totally lost on me when she said the same thing, "I know of this person whose kid is no longer ADHD after taking this stuff". It is a crock. The kid never was ADHD but perhaps vitamin deficient - sure. Perhaps he should have been on the food diet, Golds or Fiens or something like that because food allergies can be subtle but have large reactions. I let my kid's try Mona Vie. Nothing happened. My son is still a slug. My daughter actually came down with the flu today so a case later she says so what. My husband is the one in real need of the claimed gut reducing properties but it has produced not one iota of weight loss. I have two other friends who tried it. A couple hundreds of dollars later are not out buying new clothes or ending their need for sleep meds. My friend has totally bought into Mona vie. It brings her $100 a week so I am happy for her. Since I am in advertising I always do my product research. I envisioned Pyramid scheme and said so. She had a nice analogy - "No, it's more like a tree." Nice I thought -- that was a smooth analogy. OK, call it what you want but the more persons you get to join and buy or sell or distribute then your costs go down and you start receiving stipends. HMMM sounds like a pyramid with an actual product to me. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme I will end this with the fact there is only one double blind study involving 12 adults done with this product. That made me leery. It was confirmed by another couple who joined us for a picnic who sells homeopathic remedies that the studies are questionable and not reliable to back up the product claims. Acai is showing promise. He knew all about Mona Vie. It is a yummy, and IMHO an expensive mix of vitamins. I find Trader Joes Green Powder mixed in Pineapple Juice is much cheaper and my cup of "coffee" in the AM. In the afternoon, I go for some Ginseng. It's REALLY cheap. Glad it worked for you mrsblr. Maybe it is helping provide some extra income. I warned my friend she needs to claim the income, include her expenses, pay sales tax as well as the SSI tax that must also be paid as a self employed businesswoman.
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Post by zippity on Jul 15, 2009 1:17:05 GMT -5
If a product is so amazing then this type of marketing is unnecessary. It's a clever way but not the tried and true manner in which to market. I am an expert in marketing and have successfully worked with top corporations to assist in numerous product and service branding campaigns. The big guys would snatch this up. If not then they will make their own version before long, if it is a good seller regardless of the claims.
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Post by jisp on Jul 15, 2009 5:37:10 GMT -5
If the product is so amazing then the founders of the product should be seeking out scientific support for it's effectiveness and looking for researchers who might be interested in putting it through double blind clinical trials. Without solid data it is impossible to know whether this miracle juice is just an expensive placebo. Keep in mind that the placebo effect is so strong that it messes up even good well designed double blind clinical trials for medications all the time.
Omega-Brites and Empower are two non-pharmaceutical products being investigated by researchers who have no financial connections to the product. Empower is the first multi-ingredient nutritional supplement to get approved by the FDA to participate in clinical trials as a drug. Unfortunately those clinical trials are stalled due to lack of funding (but that is a separate story).
As for pyramid schemes, they are an old form of marketing and one that we have a lot of data and information on. Mary-Kay and Avon and Tupperware are all examples of direct marketing, which get around the label of being a pyramid scheme by technicalities with how they operate. These organizations have been studied quite a bit by those at business schools. There is no doubt that Avon has some good products. But if you look closely at their products they are considerably more expensive then the comparable product bought at the department store (and in some cases the product at the department store is the exact same product just with a different label on it). It might appear as though you are making $100 dollars a month when you are selling this product but you also might be spending $100+ a month to buy the product for yourself and to "invest" in your business. More often then not the equation of what you earn from these direct marketing schemes and what you spend does not equal out. And that is how the primary company makes money and thrives. It thrives on people who are bad at math or who just don't pay attention. For there is no way these companies could be the windfall that they are for their sales people and survive at the same time.
All this being said there is no doubt in my mind that nutrition is a HUGE player when it comes to neuro-psychiatric and learning problems. Our gut contains more nervous cells than the central nervous system. And if the cells are not getting the nutrients they need to function then they are not going to be functioning properly. A couple of weeks ago an article in the journal Science appeared that said that they now believe that almost everyone has about a 100 localized mutations in their genome that do not impact overall functioning. But these mutations it turns out do impact the coding of specific proteins the body uses to function. And what is interesting is that for the mutations the scientists looked at they discovered that these mutations could be "repaired" or made so that the proteins they coded for were made properly by having people ingest certain nutrients. These mutations vary from individual to individual and it speaks to the need that we might all have for customized dietary interventions. This might explain why we all crave different foods and find that some of us do better eating one thing and others do better eating another.
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Post by cobyseven on Jul 15, 2009 6:18:17 GMT -5
I have to say that my ex swears by Monavie. He drinks it everyday. He keeps giving me bottles of it which I usually leave sit. That is possibly because I caught the flu once and had just had some. It tastes TERRIBLE coming back up the other way (HAHA).......kinda turned me off to it. However, he is more productive than he has EVER been in his life, so...who knows? He's not into the pyramid thing, but maybe he buys it to help a friend.
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Post by Mayleng on Jul 15, 2009 7:48:58 GMT -5
Thanks Zippity & jisp.
mrsblr, as Administrator of this board, I feel it is my duty to caution my members to be careful that they don't waste their money on products that have not been scientificially proven to "cure" ADHD, BP and other miracle claims. One study does not mean anything. Many of our members have bought into "snake-oil" products before, so we are more cautious about how we spend our hard earned money.
For your very first post on our board, I find it suspect that it sounds more like an informmercial. While Acai berries have been touted as having tons of antioxidants and supposedly good for general health, it isn't necessary to buy the expensive brands like MonaVie (as cobyseven mentioned previously). In case you are not aware, advertising is not allowed on this board and if I get a sense that people are doing that here, that post will be deleted and the member banned.
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Post by Mayleng on Jul 15, 2009 8:09:27 GMT -5
Read this: www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/01/08/bbb-warms-of-acai-berry-weight-loss-scam/ezinearticles.com/?Monavie-Scam---What-Is-The-Truth?&id=693499en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie"Bowden, Newsweek correspondent Tony Dokoupil,[20] and Palm Beach Post reporter Carolyn Susman[21] commented on the use of misleading promotional testimonials by MonaVie distributors in which the product was said to prevent and treat a variety of medical conditions. Dokoupil noted that “the FDA warned MonaVie about medicinal claims on its Web site” in reference to the Food and Drug Administration's action against MonaVie distributor Kevin Vokes in July 2007. According to the FDA's warning notice, Vokes had promoted MonaVie as a drug in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)] by claiming that it was effective for treating inflammation, high cholesterol, and muscle and joint pain.[22] In a 2008 article in Forbes magazine, reporters Emily Lambert and Klaus Kneale described MonaVie as a pyramid scheme and noted that a MonaVie video testimonial by distributor Louis “Lou” B. Niles implied that the product could cure cancer.[23] In a Bloomberg News interview in 2009, Monavie executive vice-president and cofounder Randy Larsen stated that "the company is struggling with independent distributors who promote the juice as a miracle drug."[24] MonaVie CEO and founder Dallin Larsen was previously a senior executive with an MLM company that sold a similar juice product prior to being shut down by the FDA for illegal business practices. According to Newsweek correspondent Dokupil, Larsen, who was “a 20-year-veteran of the multi-level marketing industry", "left a senior post at another juice company in 2002, a year before the FDA destroyed the company's ‘bogus products’ that were being falsely promoted to treat ‘cancer, arthritis and attention deficit disorder’." The company in question, Dynamic Essentials, distributed an MLM juice product known as Royal Tongan Limu juice. According to MonaVie's website, more than 95% of employees made less than $10,000 dollars in 2008, while .01% of employees make more than half of the MLM's profits." www.ehow.com/how_4690249_avoid-acai-berry-scam.htmlHow to Avoid an Acai Berry Scam "Next, understand that the documented health benefits of the acai berry can also be obtained from many other sources. There are many foods that are high in antioxidants. In particular, studies have shown that pure cranberry juice has just about the same antioxidant capacity as acai berry juice. That is why fitness guru Jillian Michaels includes cranberry juice in her detox water recipe. Pomegranate juice and even red wine have been shown to have an even greater antioxidant capacity than the acai berry. As far as fiber, plenty of foods are high in fiber, and there are plenty of delicious fiber-rich supplements available. As far as heart-healthy-fats, many doctors recommend taking fish oil capsules that are high in omega-3 fatty acids, and there are certainly many other foods that offer this. The acai berry is simply not a miracle food. Step 3 The first step for avoiding an acai berry scam is recognizing that acai berry products are readily available from your local pharmacy, or through reputable online drugstores. There is no reason to order any acai berry products via some cheesy website, from a company that you never heard of. These are simply all hoaxes. They do not have access to any special acai berry product that cannot be found elsewhere. You don't have to patronize the website of a scammer whose website says in huge letters that you will lose 25 pounds in 10 days if you buy their product."
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Post by cobyseven on Jul 15, 2009 10:31:21 GMT -5
We're with you Mayleng! I am always suspect of a brand new member who just 'pops' in to tout a product. Fortunately, most of your loyal members are on to this. I'm glad you are providing a caution for those who may not be so savvy. You are doing the right thing.......so everyone caveat Emptor!
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Post by Mayleng on Jul 15, 2009 11:58:00 GMT -5
Thanks coby. I find it strange that a new member would start off on a board by "scolding" the administrator and touting a product before building up credibility on a board.
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Post by deeyana on Jul 15, 2009 15:22:50 GMT -5
"I find it strange that a new member would start off on a board by "scolding" the administrator "
I thought it was strange too. What I love about this board is that Mayleng and other members here support what they write with data and facts. This is one of the many reasons why I keep coming back. I love miller mom. There is just such a big comfort in knowing that the information I receive here is not based on hear say.
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Post by mamak on Jul 28, 2009 11:58:24 GMT -5
My neighbor sells the stuff and swears by it...she is also trying to get me to try it with a sample bottle to get me hooked....last night she called and babbled into my phone machine for 5 minutes about coming up to talk to me about the opportunities to sell the product to support my usage of it.
Don't think sooooo......even if it is good not interested because it is one of those multi level organizations.
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