Here’s a million-dollar idea for you. Let’s invent a problem and then solve it with a brand new supplement.
It’s super easy and pretty cheap, too. Watch.
I read this article on salt. The article says it frays your telomeres and speeds up the aging process.
(http://www.businessinsider.com/eating-too-much-salt-speeds-up-the-aging-process-2014-3)
Wait a sec – what are ‘telomeres’? They little protective caps on the end of your chromosomes.
Oh. What’s a chromosome? Well, duh – everybody know that its “a threadlike linear strand of DNA and associated proteins in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells that carries the genes and functions in the transmission of hereditary information”.
You *knew* that, of course – right?
Now we’re beginning to go down the rabbit hole of stuff that makes people’s head’s sting. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. I can see it now as a great pitch for some new supplement: ‘protects chromosome damage that leads to aging by protecting and rebuilding your telomeres!’
I’ll pick a few random chemicals commonly found in supplements, put ‘em in a capsule, design a label, outsource it all to China or India using http://www.alibaba.com/, call it ‘Telorepair Magnum’ and make millions.
This article (http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/how_nutrition_makes_anti-aging_possible_secrets_of_your_telomeres/) shows exactly what to put in the capsules:
The important point to understand is that an adequate supply of methyl donors is needed for telomeres to work properly, just like a car needs gasoline. The primary methyl donor for this purpose is called SAMe, which uses nutrients like methionine, MSM sulfur, choline, and trimethylglycine as building blocks. Forming SAMe from these building blocks requires vitamin B12, folic acid, and vitamin B6. Folic acid and B12 actually play multiple roles in supporting telomeregenomic stability.
It doesn’t matter if the article is correct, of course: supplements in the US are not regulated:
On May 11, 1994, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act became law. The act defined a supplement as “a product intended to supplement the diet that bears or contains one or more of the following ingredients: a vitamin, a mineral, an herb or other botanical, or an amino acid.” “Breathtaking in its dimensions,” wrote Dan Hurley, “[ the act] would end forever the simple legal dichotomy between ‘food’ and ‘drug’ to create a third, hermaphroditic category that was both yet neither: the dietary supplement. And beyond the usual suspects— vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids— the law would permit manufacturers to define a product as a ‘dietary supplement’ merely by saying so, no matter how artificially derived. Put lamb’s brain in a drug or food, and prepare to spend millions of dollars and a few years on studies showing that it is safe and effective; put it in a supplement and you’re good to go, no evidence necessary.” The New York Times called it the “Snake Oil Protection Act.”
Offit M.D., Paul A. (2013-06-18). Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (p. 87). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Here’s the products to buy:
Red beet extract trimethylglycine – $10-20/kilogram $20
MSM(Methyl Sulfonyl Methane) – $1-100/kilogram – $100
Choline – $1-2/kilogram – $2
B12 – $10-100/kilogram – $100
Folic acid – $1-99/kilogram – $99
Buy a kilogram of each, mix, and put them in capsules ($0.0019 per capsule – $3800:
Then in pill bottles (No price, but imagine a 1000 bottle @ $0,50/bottle = $500)
And maybe a nice box ($250 bucks for 500)
So you’ve got all the ingredients to make 500 bottles of the stuff. Get some 5 gallon paint buckets, Mix batches, and have the kids fill the pills for a penny each – it’ll be fun and cost $150 bucks for tax-free labor. Sell them for $40 bucks a pop for a 30-day supply.
Set up a website to peddle the stuff on Godaddy.com for $10/month, then write over-the-top BS copy about how great the stuff is. Give it free to some bloggers to write about, maybe set up a free Twitter feed to promote it, and start posting about it on forums.
If you did it right, you make 40 grand off a $5000 investment – less, of course because you have to ship it, but you can always cover that cost with shipping and handling charges. Keep repeating this exercise and pretty soon you are buying yachts and lighting cigars with $100 bills.
Of course, you have to trust that the powders they are shipping from China and India aren’t contaminated with lead or mercury – or are something entirely different from what they say.
But wait – you don’t. you’re not taking this stuff – you’re going to sell it to other people.
Unrealistic you say? People who make supplements don’t mix them in 5 gallon buckets – this stuff has to be carefully measured…right?
Well, there’s this:
Because the dietary supplement industry is unregulated, only 170 (0.3 percent) of the 51,000 new products brought to market since the 1994 Supplement Act have documented safety tests. And it’s not just the supplements themselves that might be harmful, but what’s contaminating them. In 2004 , researchers at Harvard Medical School tested Indian (Ayurvedic) remedies obtained from shops near Boston’s City Hall. They found that 20 percent contained potentially harmful levels of lead, mercury, and arsenic. Between 1978 and 2004, herbal medicines caused fifty-five cases of severe or fatal heavy-metal poisoning.
Offit M.D., Paul A. (2013-06-18). Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (p. 91). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
And this:
In 2008, more than two hundred people— including a four-year- old— were poisoned by massive doses of selenium contained in Total Body Formula and Total Body Mega. The products were supposed to contain 200 micrograms of selenium per serving; instead they contained 40,800 micrograms.
Offit M.D., Paul A. (2013-06-18). Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (p. 91). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Oh. But you can’t mix this stuff in your kitchen…right?
In 2007 , as problems with the industry continued to mount, FDA regulators were finally granted permission to supervise the way supplements were made. Although they still couldn’t force manufacturers to prove that their products were safe or effective, at least they could make sure the product contained what the label said it contained. What the FDA found was appalling. Of the 450 supplement manufacturers inspected, at least half had significant problems. One, ATF Fitness, substituted ingredients without changing the product label. Others didn’t even have recipes for their products. And some manufactured products in buildings contaminated with rodent feces and urine— in one facility a rodent was found cut in half next to a scoop. “It’s downright scary,” said Daniel Fabricant, head of the FDA’s Division of Dietary Supplement Programs . “At least half of the industry is failing on its face.” Cara Welch, a vice president for the National Products Association, an industry trade group, called the findings “unfortunate.
Offit M.D., Paul A. (2013-06-18). Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine (p. 92). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
At this point you might be wondering who this ‘Paul Offit’ character is (from Wikipedia):
Paul A. Offit is an American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and an expert on vaccines, immunology, and virology. He is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine that has been credited with saving hundreds of lives every day. Offit is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He has been a member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.[3] Offit is also a Founding Board Member of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF).[4]
Offit has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety,[3] and is the author or co-author of books on vaccines, vaccination, and antibiotics. He is one of the most public faces of the scientific consensus that vaccines have no association with autism, and has, as a result, attracted controversy and a substantial volume of hate mail and occasional death threats,[5][6] but also support for his position.[3][7]
Here he is on Colbert Report: http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/35ink0/paul-offit
You are certainly entitled to come to your own conclusion on this subject, but this little exercise is why I personally stay away from supplements.
Low Carb Confidential 