Dealing With My Own Personal Skepticism

I had a lot of questions about these products and did a lot of research before I decided to put up these pages. I also tried the products to make sure they worked. The American public is not well educated in science and nutrition. Many people will blindly follow a compelling speaker, and Dr. Wallach is compelling. I investigated anti-Wallach websites and read the criticisms and the scientific rebuttals. I was very critical of Dr. Wallach and asked lots of questions. At one of the lectures I made him quite angry!

I asked myself, "why do you want to put a bunch of metals into your body every day?"  It is true that if you put minerals that come from rocks and soil, sea beds or anything inorganic, you can do yourself harm. But plant derived minerals are different. Plant derived minerals are biologically absorbable -- any excess is simply eliminated from the system.

If you look in the analysis for the Majestic Earth minerals, it lists all kinds of ingredients that are harmful! Like arsenic, selenium, cobalt and especially aluminum. There are 1460 mg of aluminum  in every liter of this product. What I discovered, however, is that aluminum is in everything!

Aluminum is one of the eight most abundant elements on earth. Those elements are Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium and Magnesium. Together those 8 elements form 98% of the earth crust.

Table 1: The eight most common elements of the earth crust by weight. Since Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the earth's crust, it is not surprising that aluminum is found in all plants and other living organisms. All food contains aluminum.

Since all food contains aluminum, nutraceuticals and particularly natural plant derived nutraceuticals may also contain aluminum.

As an example, the label on the product Majestic Earth from the company American Longevity lists Aluminum Hydroxide as an ingredient. The analysis of the product shows that one fluid ounce of Majestic Earth contains 44 mg of elemental Aluminum, standing for 132 mg of aluminum hydroxide. This quantity of aluminum hydroxide in one serving of one fl.oz. of the product Majestic Earth is less than 30% of the average aluminum hydroxide content of one antacid tablet. The recommended daily dose for Majestic Earth -- two fl. oz per day -- contains about 20 times less aluminum hydroxide than the average recommended daily dose of an antacid.

Table 2: Comparison of the average aluminum hydroxide content of antacids and of Majestic Earth. Source: Physicians Desk Reference, 1998.

That basically took care of my aluminum concerns.

Organic plant derived minerals are completely safe. Plants take minerals from the soil and transmute them from inorganic to organically absorbable form. Plants are magicians!

Another concern is Dr. Wallach's claim, in his lecture "Dead Doctors Don't Lie" -- over 60 million copies of this lecture are circulating worldwide, making it by far the most popular lecture on nutrition in the world --  that medical doctors die at the age of 57. I have not been able to discover the truth or falsity of this statement, but I suspect that it's false. I have concluded, however, that it is immaterial. It's probably a gimmick to get people's attention, because Dr. Wallach does it at all of his lectures. Apparently the dude just dislikes medical doctors. I don't get on that bandwagon myself, but  it's a free country, and you can believe anything you want.  One thing I do know: successful people are always targets for unsuccessful, disgruntled persons. My personal opinion is that Dr. Wallach invites these criticisms because he has an iconoclastic, feisty personality and he does not suffer fools. But he sure makes good nutritional products! And let's face it: there is no such thing as a panacea -- something that will work 100% of the time for everyone. Even Mother Theresa had her detractors!

Most of the anti-Wallach websites support the FDA and standard medicine, and quote people who are dissatisfied with Youngevity products. That's fine. But how does that compare to 27,785 heart attacks induced by ONE FDA approved drug? The silence is deafening from these critics.  One of Wallach's most vociferous critics refuses to even try the products, stating that he "wouldn't know whether I would get better or not." Excuse me, but how do you know when you get better? You feel better!  Another of Dr. Wallach's critics calls himself an MD, but has been struck off. So much for the critics.

My last concern was the expense. It costs $18 for a quart bottle of the Majestic Earth plant derived minerals. A friend of mine went to the local health food store and got a bottle for $14. I asked him, "what is the volume, by weight, of minerals in that bottle?" It doesn't say. Neither do any of the alternative brands I've looked at. One quart of Majestic Earth minerals contains 19,000 mg of organic plant derived minerals. You are actually getting a lot better deal with Youngevity minerals than the other brands.

What impressed me the most when I went to see Dr. Wallach lecture is the health and energy level of the people who are using the products. 

It's funny, because I occasionally go to New Age events and shows. I noticed that many of these people smoke, are overweight, and are looking for some "magic bullet" to make everything perfect in their lives. At one of Dr. Wallach's lectures, a healthy looking 70 year old man told me that he had been using the products for 3 years. Before that, he said, he had difficulty walking and now felt fantastic. This old guy looked great! Another guy showed up with severe back problems. He could barely walk. Dr. Wallach gave his wife a free sample of one of the skin creams. I saw this guy with his pants down in the hallway when I went to the bathroom. His wife was rubbing the cream on his butt and his lower back. Two hours later, after the lecture,  Dr. Wallach asked the guy how his back felt. "The pain is gone," he said. That was pretty cool. A 55 year old high school biology teacher I know said that after two weeks on the minerals, he took his Ski Club kids out for a weekend. He said he skied harder than he ever had and that his kids were dropping over from exhaustion, but he felt great the whole time. And, of course, my own recovery from chronic fatigue using these products has been nothing short of a miracle for me.

Dr. Wallach is 67 and had more energy than anybody in the room the nights I heard his lecture. He practices what he preaches and uses his own products every day. Dr. Wallach says, "I use the products. I pay just like anybody else, because I don't cheat my company."

In order to have a proper balance between spiritual and physical, it is necessary to feed the body as well as the soul. In that spirit, I want to join Dr. Wallach in his crusade for better health throughout our great country and the world, and so I offer you the chance to try out Youngevity products.

To get started, fill out the Associate Application or the Customer Application (see links at top right). To see a list of the products, click here and hit the Youngevity link to the right of "Product Lines" underneath the website banner. You will be taken to a webpage that describes all of the Youngevity products.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and are for informational purposes only. The FDA has not approved vitamins or supplements. Consult your health care professional before embarking on any supplementation program.

"For the rapid increase in knowledge it becomes more and more apparent that the science of nutrition is the foundation of a more rational medicine. It is to be hoped that on future occasions the work of this section will not be limited to physiological, biochemical, pathological, and medical aspects of the subject, but that it will include those that are veterinary and agricultural."
 -- Major General Sir Robert McCarrison MA, MD, DSc, LLD, FRCP (Honorary physician to the King of England 1928-1935)