MonaVie™ - Frequently Asked Questions

What fruits are included in MonaVie, besides the Acai berry?

In addition to the Acai berry, there are 18 fruits: White grape, Nashi pear, Acerola, Pear, Aronia, Grape , Cranberry, Passionfruit, Banana, Apricot, Prune, Kiwi, Blueberry, Bilberry, Wolfberry, Pomegranate, Lychee, Camu Berry.

Only 17% of the population consumes the recommended 2 to 3 servings of a variety of fruits each day. By not getting our recommended intake of fruits, we are missing out on the health benefits of vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients and fiber, needed for optimal health and disease prevention. Hence, the development of MonaVie, the perfect blend of eighteen rare and lesser-consumed fruits from around the world. One serving of MonaVie each day contains a variety of the most nutritionally dense fruits available for families on the go and picky-eating children.

Are there any safety issues with Glucosamine and Celedrin in the MonaVie Active Product?

Although there is no scientific evidence that glucosamine or celedrin are harmful to any population groups, we recommend that children, and pregnant and lactating women consume the MonaVie instead of MonaVie Active, since there are no long-term safety studies. Extremely high levels of glucosamine (much, much higher than the dosage in MonaVie Active) can lead to gastric fluctuations, soft stool, diarrhea, and nausea, and extreme cases, Abdominal pain, dyspepsia, diarrhea, increased blood pressure, decreased blood pressure, fatigue, depressed mood, dizziness, increased CPK, and photosensitivity.

Are individuals with allergies to shell fish able to consume the MonaVie Active?

Glucosamine comes from shells of lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. People allergic to shellfish are usually allergic to the protein portion. Glucosamine is derived from chitin, a carbohydrate. The process used to extract glucosamine destroys proteins and antigens that the body would normally react to.

Are diabetics able to take the MonaVie Active?

Technically glucosamine is a carbohydrate. The body is not able to convert it into glucose so it does not provide additional sources of glucose. If you are a diabetic, check first with your doctor and always monitor your blood sugar. In diabetes, many factors can lead to changing blood sugar levels. Studies show glycosamine did not affect insulin sensitivity in humans. (Pouwels 2001).

Is MonaVie pasteurized? What is the significance?

MonaVie is flash-pasteurized. This is for safety reasons, to ensure that that are no harmful bacteria, etc. transmitted in the product.

Pasteurization, when warranted, is important to rid one of the very real risks of pathogenic contamination and health threatening diseases. Avoiding this very real threat to our health takes precedent over the theoretical and unlikely risk of inactivating food enzymes, which have no recognizable purpose in human nutrition (See next question and answer). As to the effect of pasteurization on heat labile vitamins, it would not matter since measurements are made after the process of pasteurization is complete. You are guaranteed getting the amounts listed. Minerals are heat stable and are not influenced by the pasteurization process.

What is the nutritional significance of plant enzymes?

There is an undocumented belief, by some, that the body’s ability to produce enzymes is exhaustible and that we need to ingest plant enzymes to do the work of digestive enzymes. However, humans continue to produce enzymes into their nineties. Perhaps there is a reduction in the ability to produce enzymes, but the inability to replicate secretory cells would be a more sound explanation than exhaustion of the cell’s ability to synthesize enzymes.

Even if our bodies’ were unable to produce digestive enzymes, ingesting plant enzymes would not help. Food enzymes do not digest food in the stomach, as they are destroyed during digestion and therefore fail to enter the body
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Are preservatives added to MonaVie?

Sodium Benzoate is the preservative used in MonaVie. Once the bottle is opened, the fruit mixture would be an ideal medium for pathological organisms were it not for an insignificant and harmless addition of 0.1% sodium benzoate.
Foods containing this preservative are much healthier than non-preservative foods since harmful microorganism growth are inhibited, food oxidation is prevented, and food nutrients are preserved. Sodium benzoate is completely out of the system within ten hours of consumption. It does not cause cancer. The limit of sodium benzoate in foods is not because of its toxicity or potential ill effects; rather, it is a taste issue -- levels higher than 0.1% will leave an unacceptable aftertaste.

The Real Truth about ORAC Scores

Supplement products have been competing against each other for the title of "Highest ORAC Value. However with competitive use of ORAC values comes misconceptions and misuse. Are all these references in ORAC values comparable to each other? The translation to consumer vocabulary can be quite confusing. The ORAC value of foods is often reported per 100 grams, while ORAC value for supplements is reported per gram and often the units are completely left out. Many companies are comparing ORAC values of their products to equal antioxidant activity of servings of fruits and vegetables, but which fruits or vegetables and what is the serving size? For example one company’s website claimed its product contained equal antioxidant activity as compared to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables, then further defines the equivalence by listing a head of lettuce and other low ORAC vegetables as part of the 10 servings.

Even some early articles published by the USDA can be misleading. An article published by USDA in 1999 shows a chart comparing ORAC values of a number of fruits, including their dried counterparts (Agr Res 1999). According to this article, prunes have an ORAC value six times greater than fresh plums, but in actuality their ORAC values should be very close based on dry weight or calories. In addition, there is still the same old issue of label claim versus actual content, which the supplement Industry has been struggling with since its inception. Just because a label claims that product has 5000 ORAC units per serving, are we sure it really does?

The ORAC-hydro assay reflects water-soluble antioxidant capacity, which the ORAC-lip assay measures lipid soluble antioxidant capacity. The values of these two assays are additive. Trolox, a water-soluble vitamin E analog, is used as the calibration standard and the ORAC result is expressed as micromole Trolox equivalent (TE) per gram. Trolox, a non-commercial water soluble derivative of tocopherol is used as the control standard of antioxidant activity and the units of an ORAC value are expressed as micromoles Trolox equivalents pr gram of a substance (mmole TE/g). These popular ORAC assays do not measure the scavenging capacity against the larger body of free radicals. However, it is a valid and meaningful representation of antioxidant capacity. Companies can falsely hike up the ORAC value of samples by adding massive amounts of vitamin E to their product. Thusly, they end up with obscene ORAC values in the 1000's that they use to compare to blueberries and other products.

Evidence of high antioxidant capacity in vitro does not always guarantee similar results in vivo. Water-soluble antioxidants, for which the ORAC method is primarily used, travel in the blood and therefore have to get into the blood to function in the body. Studies that use ORAC to measure the antioxidant capacity of human plasma and the other biological samples following consumption of antioxidant-rich foods or supplements has already been completed (Cao 1997, Cao 1998, Cao 1999)

The problem created by so many methods, some of which lack the desired degree of validity, robustness, specificity, and reliability desired by analytical chemists, or suffer from interference confouders, is the difficulty of corrleating one method against another.

Critics point out that ORAC does not measure the ability to prevent the formation of oxidants. Preventation of free radical formation is the role of endogenous antioxidants produced by our body. There are seemingly limitless combinations of internal and external antioxidants and the radicals they combat. This might explain why no single measure of antioxidant status is going to provide a sufficient amount of data to evaluate in one assay the free radical scavenging activity of a food in vitro or its potential antioxidant activity in vitro.

While these tests provide a relative measure of antioxidant potential, they cannot substitute for scientific studies that support actual efficacy and health claims. Natural antioxidants typically consist of a blend of polyphenolic compounds. Tests such as ORAC, while suitable for quantifying polyphenol content, may not accurately measure ultimate health benefit.

There is no one antioxidant testing method that is applicable to all antioxidants. There are two groups of antioxidants – water soluble and fat-soluble. Both of these groups of antioxidants work in different parts of the cell. It is wrong to compare the two groups of antioxidants and say one is better than the other if the testing method is skewed toward one particular group.

"The consumer is reminded that no industry standard for the antioxidant capacity of natural product supplements and thus little assurance of a high quality product, According to Ron Prior and Guohu Cao at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts."

Chances are you will get more protection from eating fresh fruits and vegetables than from taking natural product supplements claiming to be potent antioxidants. That is according to analysis commercial preparations by researchers with the Agricultural Research Service, the chief scientific agency of the USDA, www.americanutra.com, Summer J. Am Nutraceutical Assoc. The researchers point out that a single serving of fresh or freshly cooked fruits or vegetables supplies an average of 3000 to 4000 ORAC units. Many fruits and vegetables – such as buries, plums, oranges, leafy greens and beets-provide much higher antioxidant levels. By contrast 28 of the 40 berry extracts tested and one of the six other products would not provide 300 ORAC units in a day’s suggested intake.

There is a reason why a red grape’s ORAC value would be lower than a dehydrated red grape powder. Knowledgeable individuals will know that this issue due to the difference in moisture content. Care must be shown by the neutraceuticals industry to compare apples to apples. Red grape extract would very likely have a much higher ORAC value, but this does not mean that from a cost, dose and or serving size comparison standpoint one product is superior to the other. DHSEA clearly states that in advertising and marketing the ‘truthful and misleading " yardstick should rule the day when making antioxidant unit comparison.
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