Juice Plus Scam

The University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter claimed

“no matter how compressed these capsules are, or what they contain, it’s impossible to deliver the nutrients of five to ten servings of fruits and vegetables in several capsules weighing 800 to 850 milligrams (about one-thirtieth of an ounce) each. It would take two dozen 800-milligram capsules just to provide all the nutrients in six ounces of carrot juice” and concluded “you don’t need Juice Plus”.

Registered dietician Fudeko T. Maruyama and nutritional education specialist Mary P. Clarke of Kansas State University commented that

“the promotional literature for Juice Plus, billed as a whole food concentrate, is a carefully worded blend of incorrect information, misleading health claims, and nonscientific jargon” and concluded that “Juice Plus probably won't harm you, but can hurt your pocketbook."

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Clinic referred to Juice Plus as a

”pricey supplement” that is “distributed through a multi-tiered marketing scheme with exaggerated value and cost."

In a critique of Juice Plus, Stephen Barrett of MLMWatch remarked upon the previous association between two authors of a 1996 Juice Plus research study and United Sciences of America, Inc. (USAI), a multilevel marketing company that sold vitamin supplements with illegal claims that they could prevent many diseases.

In 1986, lead author John A. Wise, who later co-authored several other Juice Plus research studies, was USAI's Executive Vice-President of Research and Development; and second author Robert J. Morin was a scientific advisor who helped design the products. State and federal enforcement actions drove USAI out of business in 1987.

Wise became a consultant to Natural Alternatives International (NAI) in 1987 and a company executive (Vice-President of Research and Development) in 1992. Barrett noted that Wise was also an NAI shareholder and that production of Juice Plus for National Safety Associates (NSA) was responsible for 16% of NAIs sales in 1999. In 2006, NSA accounted for 38% of NAIs sales. Wise was appointed Chief Scientific Officer of NAI in 2002 and resigned from the company’s executive board on June 30, 2007. Wise then entered into a consultancy agreement with NAI stipulating a fee of $10,000 USD per month, and as of August, 2007, was listed as an NAI insider, with direct ownership of 59,600 shares of NAI stock and short-term vested options to purchase an additional 130,000 shares.