Another ABC News Infomercial

January 17, 2008 on 9:06 pm | In Media, Diet, Health, Business |

I am surprised at these items on network news that are basically infomercials. If I was a hard nosed reporter covering this, I think I would talk to someone about whether a blue laser reflectance value for our hand has any relationship at all to the levels of antioxidants in our blood. I am not a hard nosed reporter, but I can still do a quick search…

These people are good. The BioPhotonic Scanner technology is owned by a nutriceutical company and seems to have been the cornerstone for a turn of the century MLM scheme. I have no idea how they were able to get such favorable coverage on ABC news. Maybe they pay for it. Maybe the News teams are happy to be spoon fed a story by a self-interested source. They do fire off one or two quick sentences that let them off the hook in the event that it is out and out fraud.

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  1. All information for the Biophotonic scanner are correct on the video and can be validated with numerous articles that can be provided by the company. This is a for real program. I repeat this is not a scam….. By the way do you know your antioxidant status?

    Comment by Joe Danser — January 18, 2008 #

  2. I want a link or citation for a real research paper that states that the reflectance that this scanner measures is directly related to blood levels of antioxidants please.

    Comment by Kimkins Controversy — January 18, 2008 #

  3. click on following link for more information to validate:
    KimkinsControversy edit: I removed the link because it was a sales page related to the nutriceutical MLM in question. I have continued to look into this amazing scanner thing and I continue to be dubious.

    Comment by Joe Danser — January 18, 2008 #

  4. 3rd party information below with 2 weblinks along with the published info from Journal of the American College of Nutrition:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10951281?dopt=Abstract
    .
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15161183?dopt=Abstract
    .
    Published in: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol, 23, No. 5, October 2004, p.468
    Clinical Validation of a Novel Raman Spectroscopic Technology to Non-Invasively Assess
    Carotenoid Status in Humans. Zidichouski J.A.1, Poole S.J.1, Gellermann W.2, Smidt C.R.1
    Pharmanex Research Institute, Provo, UT,2 Dept. of Physics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
    ABSTRACT
    Carotenoids are an important group of dietary nutrients demonstrated by research and epidemiological
    studies to provide human health benefits. HPLC quantification of carotenoids from blood serum
    (invasive) is the current accepted means of assessment. Recently, a Raman-spectroscopic (RS)
    method was introduced as a non-invasive alternative to assess carotenoid status in humans (Smidt
    et al, 2004). To further validate the RS method, 372 healthy adults participated in a clinical trial
    (IRB approval #1053052). Within an 8-day period, each subject provided 3 fasted blood samples
    and 3 same-day RS determinations of skin carotenoids. The primary clinical endpoint was to mea-
    sure the intra-individual variability (IIV) for each testing method. The IIV for RS method was
    significantly (p=0.031) less (9.48%) than that observed using the serum/HPLC method (10.44%).
    Three separate correlation plots were produced and all showed highly significant correlations
    (range .78 – .82, p

    Comment by Joe Danser — January 20, 2008 #

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