On Thu, 5 Dec 1996 04:33 Brian Collins wrote on the subject of: Exciting testimonial ? As soon as I started reading the post from Ron Amos, my first reaction was that something was wrong. Having read it right through, I am sure something is wrong. The phraseology is typical, and there is an over- whelming odour of Snake Oil about the whole thing. My reaction is to ignore Ron Ammos and his dubious message. __________________________________________________ Later that day, Stan R. Houston gave some great examples of suspect key phrases as excerpts from the original sales pitch. Michel Marg, Barb Patterson, George M. Andes, Barb Mallu, Dennis Green, Steven E. Mayer, Ph.D., Mark Atyeo, and others offered similar warnings based on sound logic. Most people told him in no uncertain terms to get lost. I took a different tack. I have no doubt that Ron Amis is oblivious to criticism. Salesmen are inured to the majority of approaches receiving a response of "no." What might be worse is that logical discussions of the flaws in his approach will be accepted by him as lessons learned rather than the shame of exposure or a stinging rebuke. I would advocate responding to his email and telling him that you might be interested in his product and asking him to go to the expense of mailing by snail mail the audio tape and the hard copy of his literature. You could then wait a few days and issue your warning to the list serve. The downside is that in the intervening few days some unwarned list serve members might actually buy his product. The upside is that you strike at his pocketbook where he will feel a tiny bit of pain rather than strike at his conscience where he will escape unscathed. As far as pycnogel, I can offer the following: Pycnogenol=AE is a patented extract from the bark of the French Maritime Pine Tree. It is touted as being a 100% non-toxic, natural and powerfully effective nutritional antioxidant which is 20 times more powerful than vitamin C and 50 times more powerful than vitamin E as an antioxidant supplement. It also has the somewhat unique ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to directly protect blood vessels and brain cells. Horphag Research Ltd. of France owns U.S. Patent Number 4,698,360 and is quick to emphasize that imitators with a mixture of grape seed extract and pine bark extract have no claim to similar success with their inferior product. I'm going to guess that Ron Amis pimps a grape seed imitator. Our friend Kathrynne Holden offered me a couple of warnings from memoryback in October while she was vacationing in Florida : 1) studies had been performed "in vitro" but not "in vivo" therefore results could not be generalized to humans. It would be better if there were a substantial number of well-controlled human studies included, not just a bunch of animal or test-tube studies, and, 2) a number of the journal studies addressing the product were performed on antioxidants in general (e.g., vitamins C and E) rather than performed on the product in question. What I could learn otherwise is that the pine bark extract has been used for over 450 years. Isn't that about the time Columbus returned from his third voyage with blood on his sword because the Indians couldn't find any gold on their sandy island? But, I digress. The patented extract has been used in Europe for about a decade to help patients with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and there is a study released last week about its potential benefit for Multiple Sclerosis and full-scale, double-blind research studies currently being undertaken for such conditions as Alzheimer's disease, immune system dysfunctional conditions and others. I have no clue as to what a dosage might be for PD benefit. According to researchers at the Pasteur Institute and the Huntington Institute, Pycnogenol=AE is virtually nontoxic to humans and mammals. Water-soluble, it is also a non-allergenic, non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic, non-antigenic and non-habit forming nutritional antioxidant. So, while arguing that the patented variety (not necessarily the Kaire International variety) won't hurt you, other than whatever value it has as an antioxidant, the scientific community is not arguing that it will help you. ----------------------------------------------------------- TRW Spacecraft Operations East 14320 Sullyfield Circle Chantilly VA 22021 (703) 802-1863