I've been approached by a friend to join up with MonaVie acai juice—it's a "superfood" juice that's sold through "network marketing." I actually do like the product, and this is a friend I trust, but my alarm bells are still going off. I don't want to get sucked into a scam, obviously. There's nothing about this company on your site, so I thought I'd drop you a line and see if you had any advice.

Here's our advice: don't do it! When you look at the business details and filter out the friend-of-a-friend stories, it's not worth the hassle.

MonaVie—a concoction of acai and other fruit juices, and sold in wine bottles for $40 a pop—is the latest in a long line of mysterious and exotic cure-alls, and no, no you should not "sell" it. We use quotation marks because the majority of distributors are their own primary customers, according to Newsweek's Tony Dokoupil. The juice is loaded with good things and is certainly not unhealthy for you. But before you decide to shell out $40 on a bottle, or help your friend reach his or her sales quota by becoming another member in the company's multi-level-marketing (MLM) business model—funny, when you chart that model, it looks like a pyramid!—you should find out more about how the sales look from the top, and what's actually been verified about its health benefits.

Dokoupil points out that those people reportedly making millions of dollars in sales commissions are members near the very top of the pyramid.

Most of the million-strong sales team is really just drinking the juice, according to MonaVie's 2007 income disclosure statement, a federally required printout of their distributor earnings. More than 90 percent were considered "wholesale customers," whose earnings are mostly discounts on sales to themselves. Fewer than 1 percent qualified for commissions and of those, only 10 percent made more than $100 a week. And the dropout rate, while not disclosed by MonaVie, is around 70 percent, according to a top recruiter.

So that's the reality from a profit perspective. As far as health benefits go, most of the claims about its ability to cure cancer, eczema, general pain, anxiety, autism, and a case of the stupids, is gossip and hearsay. (In fact, it may cause a case of the stupids, we're guessing.) Newsweek points out that because unsalaried MonaVie salespeople are out making the ridiculous health claims and not the company, MonaVie stays within FDA guidelines, and doesn't have to worry about backing up such claims.

Wikipedia cites a few nutritional studies that place acai berries somewhere in the mid-to-high range on antioxidant protection. It's definitely a great fruit, and if you can find an affordable source of acai berries, go for it.

But even if acai berries were filled with God's own tears, it turns out that a $40 bottle of MonaVie isn't 100% acai juice, and the company won't disclose the ratio of acai to its other ingredients. In fact, their product page presents an amazingly content-free but fancy description that avoids any real details:

While the açai berry serves as the foundation for each of MonaVie’s vital formulas, with literally thousands of phytonutrients and antioxidants found in nature’s fresh fruits, MonaVie didn’t want to focus on just one at the expense of others. This led to MonaVie’s scientists and product development team selecting additional fruits whose synergistic union would reach far beyond what any single fruit could accomplish. These specially selected fruits have been exclusively combined to create MonaVie’s premier balanced blends.

In other words, "Just trust us!"

We think instead of lining the pockets of MonaVie's savvy head promoters, you should just shop around for 100% pure acai products, which will be much cheaper. Or just keep eating a variety of cheaper fruits, buy a decent $12 bottle of red wine, and lay off the health food fads altogether.

"MonaVie Acai Juice: Cure-All or Marketing Scheme?" [Newsweek]

According to federal prosecutors the scam involved preying on customer's reluctance to admit that they had ordered the "male enhancement" pills. Customers ordered the pills, but were unable to cancel or get a refund. A former VP of the company testified that Warshak required customers to provide notarized documents from a doctor proving that they had small genitals in order to get a refund.

If customers complained, he said, employees were instructed to "make it as difficult as possible" for them to get their money back. In some cases, Teegarden said, Warshak required customers to produce a notarized statement from a doctor certifying Enzyte did not work.

"He said it was extremely unlikely someone would get anything notarized saying they had a small penis," Teegarden said.

The judge had strong words for Warshak:

"This is a case about greed," Spiegel said as he reviewed the case. "Steven Warshak preyed on perceived sexual inadequacies of customers."

Warshak's 75-year-old mother was also sentenced to jail time, but it's unlikely that she will serve it because she's 75 and has cancer. Meanwhile, Warshak has 30 days to report to prison.

Ohio company owner gets 25 years in fraud case [Associated Press]

Reporter Sarah Varney bought some Kinoki foot pads and wore them to bed. She also subjected her husband to the (alleged) detox treatment. In the morning, they both awoke to the stinky brown mess that the advertisement had promised. Not convinced that the brown stuff had actually come from their bodies, our hero took the foot pads to a lab and had them analyzed and compared with unused pads.

"Compared to the blank that's almost identical," said the scientists. "It looks like three of the same sample, basically."

A doctor from UC Berkeley confirms the scam diagnoses. Your body already eliminates "metabolic waste" and "toxins" through, um, other means...

"For many hundreds of thousands of years we've been successfully eliminating them through the usual means, which is urine and feces, and there has been no demonstrated need to accelerate that."

So what is all that gunk in the pad? We're not really sure, but it shows up if you hold the pad over a pot of boiling water. Who knew steam had "metabolic waste"?

Japanese Foot Pad Is Latest Health Fad [NPR]

The lawsuit claims Dannon has spent "far more than $100 million" to convey deceptive messages to U.S. consumers while charging 30 percent more that other yogurt products.

The lawsuit also cited scientific reports showing, counter to Dannon's advertising, that there was no conclusive evidence that the bacteria prevented illness or was beneficial to healthy adults—and that Dannon knew this.

It seeks reimbursement for all U.S. purchasers of Activia, Activia Lite and DanActive, and demands that Dannon engage in "a corrective advertising campaign."

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"Food Frauds: Special K Fruit & Yogurt And DanActive "Immunity" Drink"
"Should You Give Your Kids Probiotic Pills?"

"Chuck Norris sues, says his tears no cancer cure" [Reuters]

In the US, the Nintendo "brain training" games are presented as a sort of anti-aging tonic for the 30+ set that grew up on Atari and NES, but in Japan, "brain training" is an entire industry that's been around for years. Most of the scientific studies either for or against the concept, however, have been poorly structured and unverifiable—which makes it a prime marketing opportunity for any population hell-bent on self-improvement. Says Hirano, "In any bookstore, there always is a section for brain books, [and] adult consumers keep devouring such games. Dentsu, the biggest advertising agency announced the No.1 Consumer-chosen Choice of the Product 2006 was game software and books for brain training."

But despite the criticism that the currently popular games don't do much, Sharpbrains insists that the concept as a whole is valid, even if current implementations are not. A study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that "reasoning training" helped stave off a decline in brain functions in older brains, and "cognitive training" improved performance in the area being trained for approximately five years after the training occurred. It may be a while, though, before any sound medical proof arrives that your "old person video game" is doing anything more than helping you while away the days until senescence.

"Brain Training and 'Brain-ism' in Japan" [SharpBrains]
"11 Neuroscientists Debunk a Common Myth About Brain Training" [SharpBrains]

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"Long-term Effects of Cognitive Training on Everyday Functional Outcomes in Older Adults" [JAMA]