Carotenoids, "biophotonic scanners", and possible Bad Science(TM)

[Ruken]

The Rukenmother brought me some brochures about the “Pharmanex biophotonic scanner” today. Apparently this scanner measures the concentration of carotenoids in the skin. Pharmanex will then sell you lots of vitamin capsules that will raise this concentration. “Great,” I thought, “and this higher concentration will cure cancer, put hair on your chest, and wax your car, and it’s available to you for just $100/month plus shipping and handling…:D”

The claims Pharmanex makes aren’t really that ridiculous. I’m just kind of inherently prejudiced against all of these health supliments that have been popping up over the years. My mother is curious about this product (or at least the vitamins), and asked me if I thought it all was crap. I told her it probably was, but that I’d investigate.

I don’t know much about biochemistry or nutrition, but I set out to see what I could find. I haven’t seen anything too suspicious yet. This PDF provides some info on the science behind it. It turns out that this “biophotonic scanner” is just a piddling blue-laser w/fixed detection wavelength to check for raman signals from the carotenoids in the skin. I have no idea how sophisticated this instrumentation is. When I did raman spectroscopy in my chem labs in college, we used big honkin’ lasers that would make Dr. Evil cackle with glee, but those were also for gas-phase samples, not skin. I couldn’t find any info on exactly what carotenoids are in the vitamins or what their concentrations are.

I’m going to keep digging, but while I’m doing that I’ll pose some questions for those of you who may already know something about this topic.

1. Is there anything that would suggest that this scanner is or is not capable of providing useful and accurate information? diagram(PDF), And why raman instead of simple fluorescence? Carotenoids do fluoresce, don’t they?

2. Are carotenoids really all that good for you?

3. Will consuming large amounds of carotenoids do anything bad to you? Keep in mind that they’re fat solluble, so no peeing them out if you get more than your body wants.

4. Do any other claims made by Pharmanex appear to be particularly unfounded or suspicious?

Here are a couple more links.
http://www.pharmanexusa.com (skip the intro)
http://www.gotyournumber.com

If I find anything useful, I’ll report back.

[vetbridge]

Here is something on antioxidants.

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/antioxidants.html

In 2002, Pharmanex began promoting its BioPhotonic Scanner for measuring “the antioxidant level in the body” when a person’s hand is placed in front of the device. The test is said to measure carotenoid level. Shortly after its availability was announced, I took the company’s online "BioScan Quiz, which asked questions about my diet and supplement intake. I found that no matter what answers I gave, I was advised to get scanned and to start using one of the company’s antioxidant products, which are quite expensive. As far as I know, however, neither the scan nor the products have been proven to lead to improved health outcomes. I believe that both the scan and the products are a waste of money

[GilaB]

I know that you can overdose on vitamin A. According to this site :

Birth defects (over 8,000 IU / day) osteoporosis, hair loss, bone pain, elevated blood sugar, liver damage, headaches, dizziness, double vision, bleeding gums, seizures, confusion, dry / peeling skin, hydrocephaly, dry cough, and asthma

can result from vitamin A OD, but the only side effect of Beta Carotene overdose that they list, or that I’ve ever heard of, is that your skin turns orange. (The extremely skinny Patridge Family sister, I think her name was Susan, was so anorexic that all she ate was carrots, and at one point her skin turned orange from the excess beta carotene.)

I don’t know about the rest of their claims, but I think that there comes a point, perhaps when you begin to look like you’re wearing Day-Glo body paint, that your body may be saying it’s getting more carotenoids than it needs.