Noni…Goji… what next?

Cutting through the Natural Health Marketing Jungle

A few years ago the big thing in the natural health marketplace was Noni juice. It claimed to help just about every ailment under the sun, and there were a multitude of glowing testimonials. There was Ester-C and Blue Green Algae.

Now it’s soy shakes, goji berries, and krill oil - and a dozen more. But we forget that these products go in and out of style just like other types of products, and the overinflated claims and testimonials make us believe that each new panacea is the one to stock up on and tell all our friends about.

Well, there’s something wrong with this picture. It’s not that all those products have no value. Some have a lot of value as tools that work for specific purposes. But in any case, it’s not hard to see beyond the marketing hype, that many of these products aren’t exactly what they seem.

Let’s look at a few particular issues to start cutting through the hype:

1. Specialness - is the product really as special as it sounds?

Most of the heavily marketed natural health supplements are essentially “knockoffs” of other products and are not truly unique. Many contain very ordinary ingredients that could be bought separately for a fraction of the cost. But with slick packaging and marketing, they become “new and improved” as if they deserve the special attention and price tag.

Many contain “proprietary ingredients” that make them sound special when they may not be. A critical thinker would want to question the manufacturer to find out what’s so special.

2. Specialness - Hidden presuppositions in the marketing claims.

If the product is really one of a kind, and no other goji juice contains THIS many antioxidants, that may be true, but do we really WANT that many antioxidants? We don’t really know that. Chances are that we don’t really, or that the difference in the amount of antioxidants is not significant. Many people don’t know that too much antioxidant activity can be quite harmful. But the “more is better” assumption is built into the marketing claim.

3. Testimonials - a dime a dozen.

Testimonials can be quite impressive. People seem to “cure” their arthritis with this Flexanol product. Or it’s MSM. No doubt those people did get those results - probably most aren’t lying. But what do testimonials really mean, in terms of how likely this particular product is to help YOU?

Well, it’s a bit more complex than just finding the thing that helped your neighbor’s arthritis or diabetes or high blood pressure or fatigue, and assuming that the product they swear by is going to help you.

The first thing to understand about symptoms is that you may have a similar symptom as your neighbor, but what caused yours is probably different, and so the treatment you need is going to be different. But the natural health market has to paint a picture with a very broad brush, so there’s no room for individualizing. That’s why the results are really very hit-or-miss, and those glowing testimonials don’t mean very much in the end.

4. Marketing to symptoms.

The natural health market targets symptoms. Colon cleansing products are “good for” detoxification. Certain phytonutrients are “good for” brain power. Certain herbal formulas are “good for” flu symptoms. “This product for that symptom.” What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, a dozen cases of flu symptoms might each have different causes. A dozen cases of migraine might each have different causes. If your headache is caused by not drinking enough water, the one-size-fits-all product that claims to reduce migraines is probably not going to work for you.

But if you match the product with the symptom, you get this simplistic view of natural health self-help, which has a very low success rate overall, if you look past the overinflated claims and testimonials to see what actual percentage of people are getting the results.

5. Results based on removal of symptoms.

Now we have to look at what “success” really means. If my cough goes away because I took a “natural” cough suppressant, but a few months later I have bronchitis, was that really a success? It looks like we had a great success with the cough, right?

Now the cough suppressant product claims success. But, the two conditions may very well be linked. Even though the suppression of the cough may have *caused* the bronchitis, still the cough product is claiming success, when really it’s a failure.

Many products will remove symptoms, just like allopathic drugs can remove symptoms. But if they drive the problem deeper so that later on down the road we develop a more serious condition, what does that say about the wisdom of removing the symptom in that way?

Everywhere in the natural health field you’ll see this emphasis on removing symptoms as if that’s what we’re aiming for, and if we do that, then we’re successful. This is a huge error in the understanding of the meaning of symptoms.

The symptom is just the messenger, not the disease. Sure, sometimes you do need to manage the symptoms in order to make yourself more comfortable, but there are ways to do that safely without suppression which drives the disturbance deeper.

The problem with natural health marketing, and even many natural health practitioners, is that they don’t really know the difference between the symptom and the disease. They are working on the level of symptoms just like the allopath is, trying to kill the symptom for the short-term gain of making the patient feel better. That’s what most people are looking for.

Well, that’s what people can get, if they’re willing to risk making themselves sicker in the longer run. They may be young and robust, and maybe they won’t notice the damaging effects of some of these natural health protocols. But I think that many people would want to know that there is another side to this health marketing hype, and that they may be spending a lot of money on products that aren’t really helping.

This is not to overstate the potential for harm, either. But the key is that the appropriate treatment for a particular conditon depends on the underlying cause of that condition and working on the causative level. If you’re simply looking at the superficial level of symptoms, you may be palliating at best, and suppressing at worst.

Generally people don’t really know what they are doing except that they’re taking something “natural” to help a particular symptom or problem. They have no idea of the complex physiological functions that are being altered, and the possible imbalances that are being caused, even by taking a simple nutrient like calcium.

Generally these things are safe in relatively small doses, but we need to take a sobering look at the megadoses and “more is better” approach that’s often thought is required to get the best results. The heroic “no pain, no gain” approach works well for ripping off a band-aid from your finger. But otherwise, we really want to know whether the gain is real and isn’t causing new problems that we didn’t bargain for.

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So what’s the best way to make your way through the jungle of health products?

First, find out what is really unique about the product you’re interested in. Consider that what it does might be done just as well by many other more ordinary products. Most of the network marketed products (what used to be called multi-level marketing) fall in this category. Most are not-so-unique products that don’t do much more than their simple counterparts in your local heath food store.

If there is a dizzying array of similar products, and you’re not sure which you need, find out if they’re all really essentially different. For example, there are dozens of different products based on beneficial phytochemicals in berries. Are they each so different from one another? The claims point to specific differences - one comes from a unique source, one is more pure than the rest, etc. The distinctions are dizzying, and probably not as important as it sounds.

Look at what your need is fundamentally. Maybe you’re constipated, and you need to address that. But do you need a stimulating herbal formula - or maybe you just need to drink more water. If you’re a chilly type with certain deficiencies, the stimulating herbs may actually have a weakening effect for you. So you’d want to investigate what is the best way for YOU to approach this constipation problem, and not just match your symptom to the product.

For private consulting to help people sort out their real needs, with a rational approach to cutting through the natural health marketing jungle, see Personalized Consulting by email