A week or so ago, I went to an interesting meeting hosted by a company called Mannatech. They are the only distributor of glyconutritionals. I thought that it would be another high pressure sales meeting like most of the others I have attended. It lasted a couple of hours and all they did was explain why we get sick and how we don't get proper nutrition out of our foods, how our immune system isn't doing it's job and why. Then they introduced their products, a simple explanation of what they did and then they bid us a fond farewell! This meeting was held in a little Ark. town that has a population of around 500 people and when I asked the woman, who seemed to be in charge, for a card, she turned out to be from Iowa. Not from Ark. I've never been to a meeting with such low pressure sales tactics before so when I got home, I did a search for Mannatech and then for "glyconutritionals". Hundreds of pages from doctors, researchers ( I couldn't understand half of their documentation) and probably distributors. I won't go into how this product works other than to say that it doesn't cure anything but boosts the immune system and repairs cells so that they can communicate with the immune system. If you do a search for glyconutritionals I think you'll find that it's touted to allow the body to rid itself of all diseases and things like ADD, etc. and it's interesting reading.

I'm not recommending the product since I haven't taken it, due to a money crunch right now but, if some of you are having health problems you might want to read up on it.

Has anyone heard of this product or used it?

Wildman, (curious)

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002

Answers

Wildman,

We have used the Phytobears for our youngest son. I had heard a lot of good things about their products before we began ordering the Phytobears.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2002

Wildman, there are hundreds of pages on the web on this company, most ly by distributors (Its an MLM, so there are lots of em). I know very little about it, except that its aloe vera based, and seems to have a Christian connection? Here are some skeptics pages, whatever its worth, since there are plenty of skeptics about everything I sell and promote too!

mannatech

rest of thestory

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2002

hmmm...I've been out of the immunology loop so to speak for a few years so I'm not up on the most current research. It is true that there are receptors on the surfaces of your cells which are made of glycoproteins. All a glycoprotein is is a protein molecule with a sugar attached. There are plenty of other things in nature that are made of glycoproteins, the outer coating of many viruses and bacteria for example. I don't know of any research that shows that consuming saccharides (just a fancy name for sugars) can increase the levels of glycoproteins on cell surfaces, or that increasing the glycoproteins increases cell to cell communications and the immune response. If this was true then you would need to be very careful that you didn't take too much or you could possibly stimulate an autoimmune response.

The Glycobears don't look bad though. Basically they're just a children's multivitimin without added sugars or artificial colorings. I could see where they would be useful if your child was on the Feingold diet or something similar.

I have to admit that I'm pretty biased against multi-level marketing schemes. If you're interested in the stuff I'd see if I could figure out the ingredients and then look for it cheaper at your local health food store.

Bizarre sidenote: the substances which determine your blood type are glycoproteins. My theory is that vampires would prefer people with type AB pos blood for dessert. Type AB pos has the most glycoproteins on their red cell surfaces, and since glycoproteins contain sugar their blood should taste sweeter, don't you think? Hey, my friends in the blood bank thought it was pretty funny.... (In case you're wondering, type O neg would be the least "sweet")

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2002

The second link that EM posted has information on where to get the stuff at 1/3 the price of the quasi-pyramid scheme.

-- Anonymous, July 12, 2002

Thanks EM. That's the kinda information I was looking for. At least I'm getting some information from the "other" side. Although they were negative reports they seemed to be relying on one source to write their articles. When I read reports like those I just have to dissect them because when they start using half truth or misinformation to make their point, I get leery as to their purpose. I do this whether for or against something. It's really hard to make something look good or bad if you only use the truth. Take the following:

"MLM sales people, such as the person that approached you, lack reputable degrees/education to provide nutrition or medical advice." How did they know who contacted me and know of their credentials? They're probably right but it's a blanket statement. They do have doctors, nurses, nutrationalist, etc. working for them as sells people. As far as I remember, no one at the meeting gave or offered "medical advice". They didn't even offer nutritional advice. That's not to say that they wouldn't or don't at other times.

. "A company has a responsibility to determine its products are safe and effective before it sells them." You'd think that that statement would also apply to "legitimate" drug companies? However it doesn't.

"....contains ephedrine, a substance the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has linked to heart attacks, strokes and death. There are no warnings in the company's literature for consumers about MVP." Using current drug standards, that's no reason to deny the people a new drug. We've got drugs out that have a side effect of "instant death" but no one's pulling them off of the market. Unless, of course, it's an alternative medicine where they had one complaint out of a million users. I do think they should have included a warning in the company's literature just as they would have if it had contained peanuts.

"It also provides full medical, dental and vision coverage for premiums of up to $9,120 annually." Anytime I see "up to" an alarm goes off. It's like saying "looks LIKE leather". I'm sure I could get the same premiums from my insurer if I added everything on that they offer. They don't tell what the lower premium is.

They also mentioned that they had received a lot of complaints about the companies product. What are the chances of that? I can't name any product that hasn't had complaints. They had 122.9 million in sales and at $40 a bottle, that seems like it something over three million customers. A one percent complaint rate would be something over 30 thousand complaints.

The most damaging thing the I read was the founders past performance and even part of that is suspect. The attic barriers that he was selling were being sold by legitimate companies in the DFW area also. If I'm not mistaken you could even get them from Home Depot at the time.

Would I buy their products? Not without more information. I was hoping that someone on her had used them and could tell me if they liked them or if they did any good.

Terri, have you noticed any improvement or anything since your kids been on the vitamins?

Sherri, Good information.

Joy, I'll visit their site when I get time,

Wildman, (thankful)

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2002

Wildman, something has been nagging at the back of my mind since I first read your post and finally last night I figured out what it was. Back when I was doing my herbalism apprenticeship I was told that the chemical which is believed to give ecchinacea it's immune- enhancing properties is a glycoprotein. So there may be a bit of something to this glyconutritional stuff after all. I'm going to do some research on the biochemistry of ecchinacea and see how it's supposed to work, then I'll see if any of that can be applied to these products. I'll let you know if I figure anything out.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2002

Sherri, thanks. I believe in the glycoprotien but it's the product that I'm not sure about. All the information I read from sources other than Mannatech pretty well established that we need them but I couldn't find any evidence that the Mannatech product supplied them.

Let me know what you find out, you have to be better at this than I am.

Wildman, (thankful again)

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2002