Ralph Moss looks at new MLM scam

Peter Moran

Where Noni distributors go when they "die"? From Ralph Moss, who never
found an alt cancer cure he didn't like (until the advent of Hulda).

Quote---

A FRIENDLY SKEPTIC LOOKS AT MANGOSTEEN



When I wrote "Cancer Therapy" in the early 1990s, I had the bright idea of
putting my mailing address in the book in the hope that some readers would
send me information on new treatments. Little did I imagine that such
communication would become a torrent of proposals. Today, hardly a day goes
by without my being made aware of some new "cure." Would that a fraction of
these panned out as well as proponents claimed!

One of the latest in this long line is an exotic fruit drink called
mangosteen, or XanGo. Mangosteen should not be confused with mango, an
entirely different plant. It is part of a group known as the Guttiferae, a
family of mainly tropical trees and shrubs that secrete an acrid yellow
resinous juice. Mangosteen's scientific designation is Garcinia mangostana
(Campin 2004). It is reputedly named after a French explorer, Jacques Garcin
(1673-1751). In Europe and North America, the most recognizable member of
this family is the popular herb, St. John's wort.

No one knows exactly where and when the mangosteen was first cultivated. One
botanist, Julia F. Morton, believes it originated in the Moluccas and the
Sunda Islands. Yet there are also wild mangosteen trees in the forests of
Malaya. Some experts say the trees were first domesticated in Thailand or
Burma. But in the 19th century, botanists brought seeds to Europe and
America. Valiant attempts were made to cultivate the 18-foot high trees in
Africa, the Caribbean and central America. But the plant is considered
"ultra-tropical" and sensitive: nursery seedlings die at 45º F. In fact,
there are few if any mangosteens growing in the continental US. A lone
American tree in Florida was said to have yielded a single fruit...and then
died. That was the beginning and end of the American mangosteen "industry."

But attempts continued to bring mangosteen to Europe and America as a food.
"Despite the oft-repeated Old World enthusiasm for this fruit," says Morton,
"it is not always viewed as worth the trouble to produce. In Jamaica, it is
regarded as nice but overrated; not comparable to a good field-ripe
pineapple or a choice mango."

The mangosteen fruit is the size of a small apple, purple colored, with a
hard rind. Inside there are typically five to seven seeds surrounded by a
sweet, juicy cover (or aril). The pulp, which is said to resemble a
pineapple or peach in taste, is reputed to be a very delicious food - in
Asia it is sometimes called the queen of fruits in honor both of its flavor
and its economic importance.



Uses in Traditional Medicine



For many years dried mangosteen fruits have been shipped from Singapore to
Calcutta and then on to China for medicinal use. As to its many uses in folk
medicine, here is what botanist Julia Morton has written:

"The sliced and dried rind is powdered and administered to overcome
dysentery. Made into an ointment, it is applied on eczema and other skin
disorders. The rind decoction is taken to relieve diarrhea and cystitis,
gonorrhea and gleet [a watery discharge, ed.] and is applied externally as
an astringent lotion. A portion of the rind is steeped in water overnight
and the infusion given as a remedy for chronic diarrhea in adults and
children.

"Filipinos employ a decoction of the leaves and bark as a febrifuge and to
treat thrush, diarrhea, dysentery and urinary disorders. In Malaya, an
infusion of the leaves, combined with unripe banana and a little benzoin is
applied to the wound of circumcision. A root decoction is taken to regulate
menstruation. A bark extract called 'amibiasine', has been marketed for the
treatment of amoebic dysentery."

Morton also writes that "[t]he rind of partially ripe fruits yields a
polyhydroxy-xanthone derivative termed mangostin, also beta-mangostin. That
of fully ripe fruits contains the xanthones, gartanin, 8-desoxygartanin, and
normangostin. A derivative of mangostin, mangostin-e, 6-di-O-glucoside, is a
central nervous system depressant and causes a rise in blood pressure." A
more complete listing of constituents is given at ethnobotanist Dr. James
Duke's informative and useful Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases
(Duke 2004).

We can conclude then that mangosteen has many uses in folk medicine, and as
such, it can join a fairly long list of plants that can be considered as
promising sources of new medicines.



XanGo on the Go



In this age of frenzied commercialism, entrepreneurs are always on the
lookout for ways to make it big in the natural medicines market. Under such
conditions, however, new medicines of botanical origin cannot be developed
or tested in an orderly way.

A common feature of the way in which natural medicines such as mangosteen
are promoted is the use of network marketing. This involves the retailing of
products through the use of independent distributors. These distributors are
then encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting,
motivating, supplying, and training others to sell products. Compensation in
such arrangements includes the distributor's own sales as well as a
percentage of the sales of his or her entire "downline" (i.e., all those
people signed up by an individual, who in turn go on to become salespeople).
The term network marketing is virtually synonymous with the older but now
somewhat disreputable term 'multi-level marketing' (MLM).

Network marketing turns mere consumers into determined marketers who
aggressively sell their product, often to their own friends, relatives and
neighbors. The more people they can recruit into the growing network the
more money they themselves make. A sophisticated marketing blitz, including
books and pamphlets, seemingly objective newsletters, press releases and
chattering websites, inflate the importance of a product, creating a buzz
that only dies away when the huge supply of potential customers and
salespeople is finally exhausted. Or when, as it has on occasion, the
government finally steps in. But the essential requirement for a successful
MLM operation of this sort is a kernel of promising-sounding scientific
evidence, coupled with a credible and compelling story, a compliant doctor
willing to underwrite the concept, and finally some patients (who may
themselves be distributors) willing to testify that the product led to
astounding cures.

Aloe vera, colloidal minerals, gingko biloba and ginseng were all
popularized in this way. But perhaps the most memorable example of a network
marketing stampede is noni juice, a once totally obscure Polynesian fruit
that became the basis of a huge industry. Tahitian Noni International,
formerly called Morinda, last year claimed to have passed the two billion
dollar sales mark! This is the sort of performance that makes get-rich-quick
artists drool.

The techniques of network marketing, honed through decades of trial and
error, are now being used by a Utah-based company to position mangosteen as
the latest "miracle cure" craze. The price of their XanGo mangosteen juice
is currently $37 per bottle (or four for $100). You have to ask yourself:
who on earth would pay that much for a bottle of fruit juice, no matter how
delicious it might be? The reason the marketers can succeed in selling juice
at this price is obvious: when people are suffering from medical conditions
for which there does not appear to be much hope, or for which the orthodox
medical recommendations are too toxic or expensive, they will actively seek
alternatives. And then someone, oftentimes someone they trust, such as a
friend or neighbor, convinces them to give some new product a try. Products
such as mangosteen exploit humanity's understandable desire to discover
simple and painless solutions to intractable problems.

Now that the commercial ball is rolling an increasing number of mangosteen
brands are reaching the market. But for the time being the market leader is
XanGo (www.myxango.com). A visit to their website triggers an audio webcast
from a very pleasant sounding young lady, who assures us that "by
integrating the Internet, teamwork, and personal mentoring, MyXanGo.com
provides you a vehicle to improve the areas of your life that are most
important to you, and we do it for FREE."

I listened in amazement to her polished spiel and the brazen intrusiveness
of this message. I was particularly amused when she said, "You should know
that this message is not about selling." Right. "It's not about false claims
and outlandish statements." Sure. "It's about sharing facts to help you
decide if now is the right time in your life to consider XanGo." Really.

The rhetoric gets even more effusive. A March 2004 press release from one
seller proclaims: "Mangosteen is now on an unstoppable march to conquer the
world" (Goss 2004). Put this way it sounds rather ominous.almost like a
cross between Osama bin Laden and the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.



Xanthones



As stated, one requirement for a successful network promotion is that there
be at least a kernel of scientific truth around which exaggerated claims can
be assembled. As with noni juice, mangosteen is not entirely without
scientific documentation. The problem, as usual, is that the claims for
mangosteen are inflated till they far outpace what has been established
through careful experimentation.

Some mangosteen promoters have mined James Duke's famous ethnobotanical
database for confirmation of their product's value. And, indeed, Dr. Duke
confirms that the plant contains several interesting components. But so do
thousands of other plants in his voluminous database. For most of the
chemicals contained in this fruit (such as beta-mangostin, catechins,
cis-hex-3-enyl-acetate, gamma-mangostin, gartanin, garcinones) the database
lists NO particular biochemical activities. Only the compound called
"mangostin" seems to have some scientific backing for its antibacterial,
antiseptic and fungicidal properties (Recio 1989). Yet scores of mangosteen
websites now cite Duke's database as scientific justification for this
product. In reality, Dr. Duke has absolutely nothing to do with any
mangosteen distributor and is not particularly enthusiastic about the
product.


Much is made of the xanthone connection. According to the MyXanGo.com
website: "There are over 200 xanthones in nature. Each xanthone can have
specific effects on the body. What's remarkable about the mangosteen is that
there are over 40 xanthones identified in the pericarp, or rind, making it
the single most xanthone-rich source in the world..Only six of the xanthones
have been studied in depth. While we don't know fully why the mangosteen
works on such a wide variety of physical conditions, we know it has to do
with being the world's most potent source of xanthones. Each xanthone has
its own effect, and when combined, they take on a synergistic quality that
supports the health of the entire body."

But all of this is speculative. It is undoubtedly true that there are many
xanthones (a kind of antioxidant) in mangosteen. In fact, according to the
Merck Index (11th Ed., p. 5613) the first scientifically defined substance
to be derived from mangosteen was the xanthone mangostin. This was isolated
by a German scientist named Schmid in 1855. In 1979, mangostin was found to
have significant anti-inflammatory and anti-ulcer effects in rats
(Shankaranarayan 1979). Yet although mangosteen's xanthones have been known
for almost 150 years, there are still only 19 PubMed articles on these
xanthones and none of these articles concerns the use of xanthones in the
actual clinical treatment of human disease. So I would say the jury is still
out on their effectiveness in treating anything.

The main XanGo website also claims that the antioxidant ORAC (oxygen radical
absorbance capacity) value of mangosteen is the highest of all edible
plants. "It is so potent that literally I know of nothing else in the
supplement market that can possibly come even close to it," says J. Frederic
Templeman, MD, a Georgia family practitioner who is interviewed at the
MyXanGo website. Many other XanGo-promoting websites repeat the claim that
while the previous champion, prunes, have an ORAC value of 7,000 per ounce,
mangosteen has an ORAC value of 17,000 to 24,000.

Yet XanGo sites claim that "a new champion" has been born in the worldwide
contest for ORAC supremacy. But where in the scientific literature is the
ORAC value of XanGo published? The source of these numbers is hard to track
down. For instance, the Sunsweet prune website states that 100 grams (3.5
ounces) of prunes have an ORAC value of 5,770. While the ORAC values for
most fruits and vegetables have been determined by standard laboratories and
published in scientific journals, this is not so for mangosteen. I have not
seen independent confirmation of these confidently promulgated claims.
However, even if we assume for the sake of argument that the figures cited
are indeed accurate, it must be pointed out that merely having an
astronomically high ORAC value does not in and of itself confer any
particular advantage. Not all antioxidants that are confirmed as present in
the laboratory can be absorbed by human beings. And there is a limit to how
much we can benefit from an inc reased intake of antioxidants.

According to Dr. Ronald Prior of the US Department of Agriculture Research
Service at Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, "a significant increase
in antioxidants of 15 to 20 percent is possible by increasing consumption of
fruits and vegetables, particularly those high in ORAC value." However, in
order to have a significant impact on plasma and tissue antioxidant capacity
one can only meaningfully increase one's daily intake by 3,000 to 5,000 ORAC
units. Any greater amount is probably redundant. That is because the
antioxidant capacity of the blood is tightly regulated, says Dr. Prior. Thus
there is an upper limit to the benefit that can be derived from
antioxidants. Taking in 25,000 ORAC units at one time (as reputedly occurs
with mangosteen) would be no more beneficial than taking in a fifth of that
amount: the excess is simply excreted by the kidneys.

TO BE CONTINUED, WITH REFERENCES, NEXT WEEK



--Ralph W. Moss, PhD