Prevagen Comes Under Fire for Deceptive Claims
A supplement called Prevagen (marketed by Quincy Bioscience) promises to ward off memory loss and boost your brainpower. If you’ve never seen one of their national television commercials, they explain that Prevagen is jelly-fish extract containing a protein that supports healthy brain function, a sharper mind and clearer thinking. To many, this sounds too good to be true, so let’s look at some facts connected to Prevagen’s claims.
Scientific Evidence Falls Short on Prevagen’s Claims
The data on Prevagen is extremely unclear. The claim is that apoaequorin — a protein from jellyfish and the key ingredient in the product — binds to calcium. This, in turn, allows calcium to be used to boost brain function. However, many experts dispute this claim.
There is absolutely no evidence that a protein the size of apoaequorin can enter the body via absorption from the digestive tract. It’s also extremely unlikely that it can cross the blood-brain-barrier, which defies the idea that it could have any influence on brain function.
Clouding the waters even further is the fact that the most compelling research on the product has been carried out by the maker, Quincy Bioscience. And none of the studies have been peer-reviewed. (If the product really works as advertised, you would think the scientific community would be all over it. But they aren’t.)
To top it off, the product doesn’t actually contain apoaequorin from jellyfish. Rather, the company discovered a way to produce a synthetic version of the protein using genetically modified bacteria. So it’s not even a natural ingredient.
FTC Brings Multiple Charges Against the Makers of Prevagen
The Prevagen claims made by Quincy Bioscience are so bold that they’ve attracted the ire of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). the FTC recently filed charges against the company and its officers.Charges include:
- Count 1: False or unsubstantiated efficacy claims
- Count 2: False proof claims
- Count 3: Repeated fraudulent or illegal acts
- Count 4: Deceptive acts or practices and false advertising
In particular, the FTC states that the study most frequently cited to promote the product “failed to show a statistically significant improvement in the treatment group over the placebo group on any of the nine computerized cognitive tasks.”
Additionally, the legal filing maintains that the defendants “do not have studies showing that orally-administered apoaequorin can cross the human blood brain barrier and therefore do not have evidence that apoaequorin enters the human brain.”
In fact, according to the legal document, the studies show just the opposite…that “apoaequorin is rapidly digested in the stomach and broken down into amino acids and small peptides like any other dietary protein.”
This is a clear warning to supplement users. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If all of the accumulated research is performed by the company marketing the product, view it with a skeptical eye. Do your research, and only buy from reputable companies.
So What Does Support Brain Function?
There are actually several supplements that have bben clinically shown to help support brain function, such as curcumin, DHA, B12 and Phosphatidyl Serine. There are also activities and hobbies that help keep your brain sharp, such as word games, photography and dance — and foods known to ward off brain fog, such as blueberries, wild salmon and dark chocolate.
by Dana Nicholas
http://www.liveinthenow.com/article/prevagen-memory-supplement-found-fraud