Feb 16 2015

New Caveatus Emptora Superfood Medicinal Supplement

About once a week I get a question about a specific supplement, often new but sometimes a supplement that has been around for a while. The questioner wants to know if there is any value to the product. I suspect they often already know the answer, but it’s hard to resist the promises being made. I can give a generic answer, an emphatic, “No,” because the marketing of such products is just as generic. You literally can substitute the name of any new supplement you wish to market into the copy.

Snake oil purveyors are looking for the next exotic plant from a tropical location that they can sell as a supplement. It doesn’t matter what it is. Science and evidence do not even enter the equation. They want to know – can they get a supply of it, or even corner the market. If they cannot get enough of the plant it doesn’t matter. They will fill their bottles with wheat, alfalfa, or other fillers. Then they put it in a bottle, plug in the standard claims, do a little marketing, and rake in the millions. That’s it. Sometimes they deliberately adulterate their supplement with actual drugs, especially if they are for weight loss or erectile dysfunction.

Does the new exotic supplement from Gondwanaland, Caveatus Emptora, really work? No! It’s a scam. Save your money.

There are a few standard types of these scams. Here is the most recent miracle supplement about which I was asked, but I will swap out the name so as not to give it the slightest additional exposure.

The Superfood

Some supplements are sold as superfoods. The very idea is nonsensical – the notion that your health will be improved by eating one special food that is just packed with nutrients. Sure, some foods are more nutritious than others, and it’s a good idea to eat a variety, with lots of fruits and vegetables, to get enough micronutrients. But there are not “superfoods” that have such overwhelming nutrition that they will supercharge your health.

Here is an example of such marketing:

This product is great for people who need a boost in their nutrition. As an example, carrots only have 25% of the vitamin A that you can get in the same amount of Caveatus Emptora. Shocked? It also has four times as much calcium as you get from milk, three times the amount of potassium as you get from bananas.

Luckily, more and more distributors are creating supplements in pill and powder form so that the average American can have access to Caveatus’s valuable effects.

If you live in Africa (I mean, Gondwanaland) and have poor nutrition, then incorporating leaves, seeds, or roots from Caveatus is a good idea. It’s the equivalent of “eat your vegetables.” If you are an “average American” you don’t need to buy an exotic tropical plant to get your vitamins. The grocery store has all you need – much cheaper.

What always amazes me, however, is that the superfoods are often sold in pill form. So essentially they are a multivitamin. The source doesn’t matter. Everything else they have said up to that point is now irrelevant – it’s a multivitamin. So far the evidence indicates that routinely taking a multivitamin for most people living in industrialized nations is unnecessary and may even be harmful.

Medicinal 

Exotic plants are also sold for their medicinal purposes. The claims are often vague, or cover the most common conditions – whatever maximizes the potential market:

Caveatus is an energizing product that helps with healing and medical prevention as well. It is used for many reasons, skin disorder treatment, diabetes, sleep improvement, relief for anxiety and depression. It can give you a huge boost in energy, it has the ability to even out your blood sugar levels, and it can even help you recover more quickly after a workout.

Of course, plants contain hundreds of chemicals. There will always be basic science studies showing that there are bioactive chemicals in the plants that do stuff to cells in petri dishes or sometimes to mice or rats. This level of evidence, however, should not be used to make clinical claims. There are just too many variables involved – bioavailability, proper dosing, active ingredients, etc. What we need are clinical studies in people, but you rarely see those beyond almost worthless pilot studies, or worse in-house studies paid for by the supplement seller.

The claims are always too good to be true. Every product has to be a panacea, and miracle cure for everything. There are also some common themes:

– All natural
– Ancient wisdom
– Exotic
– Doctors are not telling you about it
– Celebrity endorsement

These days the hottest celebrity to endorse your miracle supplement is Dr. Oz.

Luckily, the word is out! Partly due to Dr. Oz featuring Caveatus on his successful afternoon talk show. He referred to it as an energy blaster, and he’s right! People who have taken Caveatus report that they’ve seen a boost in their energy levels and feel better than ever!

I’m sure they do. The same can be said about every supplement ever marketed.

Conclusion

Marketing an exotic plant for supernutrition or as a medicinal is a huge industry, and its a complete scam. There will always be a new miracle supplement on the market. This pattern has been repeating itself literally for over a century, probably longer.

If you think to yourself – how did this product come to market?, it will make sense. It was brought to market as I outlined above. Plants that have truly unique medical properties are studied to identify their active ingredient(s) and used as a source of pharmaceuticals.

The “miracle superfood medicinal supplement” is a scam. It might as well be Caveatus Emptora from Gondwanaland.

13 responses so far