Isagenix
Isagenix is a diet woo product, lifestyle, and multilevel marketing scheme notable for its cultish online promoters.
Potentially edible! Food woo |
Fabulous food! |
Delectable diets! |
Bodacious bods! |
v - t - e |
It's surprisingly hard to find critical information about Isagenix online, because the company incentivises its sales force to Google-bomb search terms relating to it, and to flood any message board it can with glowingly positive material that all sounds the same.
The products
The products are nutrient-rich meal replacements and a laxative cleanse product.
The claims
Isagenix claims the stuff burns fat while supporting lean muscle, maintains healthy cholesterol levels, supports telomeres, improves resistance to illness, reduces cravings, improves body composition, and slows the aging process.
The claimed mechanism of action is:
- Toxicity accounts for most diseases;
- The body protects itself from toxins by coating them with fat, causing obesity;
- The internal organs become clogged and deteriorate if you don't cleanse;
- The human body needs cleansing like air conditioners that need their filters changed and car engines that need oil changes;
- Alkaline diet woo.
Does it work?
If you follow Isagenix, you will lose weight, a lot of it! Because lowered calorie intake and pooping out everything you put in does that. So people see promising results early on and are primed to buy into the New Age health food nonsense — and, of course, the idea that big profits will come your way if you recruit, recruit, recruit.
The products are also actively unhealthy, a lot containing dangerous levels of vitamin A.
Australian consumer advocate Choice noted in January 2015 that the company's "nutritional cleansing" product makes claims not supported by science, and the company's other weight-loss products are very similar to much cheaper alternatives. The report also notes unqualified "associates" providing medical advice concerning the products, whether officially prohibited by the company or not.[1]
Sources
- Defending Isagenix: A Case Study in Flawed Thinking (Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine)
- Isagenix Study Is Not Convincing (Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine)
- If You’re a Big Believer in the Power of Isagenix, I Have a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You (Jeff Read)
- No, Isagenix, a Trivial Study from Your Pet Scientist Doesn’t Make You Not a Scam. Get the Hell Off My Planet. (Jeff Read)
- Browne, Kate (29 January 2015). "Isagenix under the microscope". Choice magazine. Retrieved 29 January 2015.