Dr. Mitra Ray Answers Your Questions

I’ve given lectures on the safety of Juice Plus+® and answered other health questions about this product.  You can listen to my lecture or read the transcript here.

Juice Plus+® is whole food nutrition. It is simply juiced, dried and encapsulated fruits and vegetables in the ratios of nutrition that nature intended. Vitamins are man-made chemicals that are often way off of nature’s balance, and do not have the natural synergistic effect of nature's food.  You are better off eating healthy and taking Juice Plus+®, than trying to compensate for a poor diet with isolated, man-made chemicals.

There are plenty myths floating around out there about Juice Plus+®. I have prepared a special report on the correct way to take your Juice Plus+®. You can listen to the report or read a transcript of it here.

The product was compared to juicing early on, and it took over a pint of fresh juice made from the same 7 fruits, and another pint of juice made from the same 8 veggies, to get the nutrient equivalent of Juice Plus+®. That brochure is not used anymore because the technology used to make the product has been improved at least twice since then and so the data would be better, but different (therefore, not scientifically accurate). They chose not to reproduce that same result as they have now moved into efficacy trials – that is “Does the product work in the body?” – this is beyond just showing what’s in it.

Plant sources are always used, just not always the WHOLE plant.  Sometimes concentrated amounts of a particular plant nutrient is added purely for the sake of consistency on the labels but this amount is negligible with respect to the rest of the plant powders used.

Besides the gelatin capsules, the content is vegan.  The company has been investing in a vegan capsule for some time now and currently, the technology either requires petroleum added to vegetarian capsules or the capsules break too easily.  They are very close and testing in Europe - stay tuned for vegan capsules.  Meanwhile, if you are a strict vegan, you can take the chewable form or pour the capsule contents into food to consume. While not every crop of fruits or veggies that is used in JP+ is certified “organic,” rest assured that the products are better than organic. Every batch is tested for the absence of every herbicide, pesticide, and toxin known to man. It is about as pure as you can get. You can contact their encapsulation and testing facility in San Marcos, Natural Alternatives, if you would like to schedule a tour for seeing the quality control behind the product.

B12 is not found in fruits and veggies. Some of the daily need comes from healthy bacteria making it in our gut, when one is on a whole food, plant-based diet. I suggest 5 micrograms a day of a high-quality B12 supplement for strict vegans during pregnancy if you've been tested for deficiency. The rest of us don’t really need a daily B12. Once in awhile might be a good idea. Juice Plus+® doesn’t have any B12 because it is made entirely from fruits and vegetables. However, Juice Plus+® Complete does contain a good source of B12. This is the only source of B12 that my family and I consume.

Juice Plus+® is made from the juices of fresh fruits and vegetables, and contains all of the vitamins and minerals present in the original juices. There are literally thousands of different vitamins and phytonutrients in a single orange! This is in contrast to vitamin tablets that contain only a few vitamins in fragmented, isolated, and unnatural ratios. Nowhere in nature will one find a food that has the vitamin content of a vitamin pill. Bioavailability or synergistic effect found in fruits and vegetables is missing in vitamin tablets. Such a comparison would be meaningless, and impossible.

NSA states that Juice Plus+® products are manufactured for NSA by contract manufacturers. These products are regularly tested using the Tepnel ELISA methodology (AOAC method 991.19) for the presence of gluten. After the recent formula change that replaced rice bran for barley bran, the results show they contain less then 20 parts per million gluten.  People who are gluten intolerant thrive on Juice Plus+® .

I have answered this question at length through a voice message, and posted this here on my website.  You can hear my message or read the transcript here.

The most important thing to do is to take your Juice Plus+® …period.  If you have to take it all at once, with a glass of beer, then so be it!  Now, that is not ideal, and ideally I recommend you take your Juice Plus+® with 8 oz. of water, for every 2 capsules.  Studies indicate that there is not much added benefit to separating either the doses or the types.  It's fine to eat the fruit, veggie, and vineyard together.

The natural flavors we use are truly natural flavors, mainly extracts of fruits. These are proprietary blends made especially for us.

With all the controversy over soy, NSA supports this link as an objective look at it's safety. I think it is fine. Soy is neither an incredible health panacea nor is it dangerous. All food, even broccoli can be bad for you if that is all you eat and there is no variety in your diet. And Juice Plus+® Complete is such a good product and so many people have used for over 12 years now, that I cannot believe that if there were any health challenges, we wouldn’t know by now. The only issue I ever had with Complete is when a person is downright allergic to soy. Other than that, Juice Plus+® Complete should be incorporated without hesitation into a person’s health regimen.

All soy used in Complete is non GMO and perfectly safe.

I have received many questions about this and have given lectures on this topic.  You can listen to my voice message or read the transcript here.

In the making Juice Plus+®, an extremely temperature-sensitive proprietary process is used to evaporate the water from the juice mix such that heat-sensitive nutrients retain their biochemical activity – the process of going from wet to dry occurs in a matter of seconds!  Thus when you take Juice Plus® with water, you reconstitute real food with active, bio-available nutrients. We know this to be true because more than a dozen independent studies published in peer-reviewed journals have shown the incredible response that Juice Plus+® has in the body to improve the status of various systems, such as the immune system and DNA repair mechanisms.

I have answered this question about Juice Plus+® and fortified foods at length in a lecture that I have posted here on my site. You can listen to it or read the transcript by clicking here.

Technically, sugar is not purposefully removed from Juice Plus+® .  However, the bottom line is that the daily ration of four Juice Plus+® capsules contain less than 1 gram of residual sugar, which represents less than 4 calories. This is insignificant from the glycemic standpoint, and also insignificant even in the most restrictive of diabetic diets. The process of sugar removal we have talked about in the past is basically a simplification of the proprietary process to reduce the stickiness of the powdered juices, which causes the sugars to be bound by the more complex carbohydrates. This technique decreases the “water-loving” nature of the powder, and improves flowability in the encapsulation process. An added advantage is that this process allows us to retain some of the soluble and insoluble fiber from the fruits, vegetables and berries which also contributes to the benefits of Juice Plus+®.

The amount of sugar in a day's worth of gummies is about the same or less than a glass of orange juice or milk.  The reason it is the first ingredient is because the molecular weight of sugar is so high compared to the nutrients. It is not a calorie dense food and so the "first ingredient being sugar" is not a good litmus test for judging the product. What is in the gummies is the disease-fighting micronutrition of 17 fruits and veggies, and they have been tested for bioavailability as well.

I have posted a 2 part series in answer to this popular question, available here on my website.  You can listen or read the transcript here.

There is a voice message on this popular topic and posted it here on my website. You can listen to the message or read the transcript here.

Eating a whole food plant based diet is the best way to protect your chances of preventing thrombosis and embolisms (fancy words for formation and migration of blood clots). 

Coumadin is marketed as an anticoagulant to prevent thrombosis and embolisms (also sold under brand names Warfarin, Jantoven and Waran). Like most pharmaceuticals, it is a synthetic derivative of courmarin which is naturally found in plants. They were developed as a way to kill rats and mice and still used for this purpose. Since the 50’s, they have also been prescribed as anticoagulants, provided a patient is monitored with frequent blood testing to make sure that the dosage of this poison is within “safe limits,” and the patient is also avoiding foods high in Vitamin K, and many other medications which interfere with these anticoagulants.
 
Patients are usually asked to not eat leafy greens such as spinach because of high vitamin K content, and because if one day they have spinach and the next day they don’t, their blood thinner dose would have to be monitored daily.

Because a person would be taking the same amount of Juice Plus everyday and therefore get a consistent amount of vitamin K in their diet, it is usually the case that a person can safely take Juice Plus with these blood thinners.
 
Fortunately, those patients who are so motivated will often eliminate taking blood thinners since improving circulation through all three blends of Juice Plus (orchard, garden and vineyard) might be a more intelligent answer to the challenge at hand.

Remember that we cannot play doctor and we can only help those that are willing to look at the information and be in charge of their own health. So this information is for those few people – make sure you ask first if they are willing to take a closer look at what they are choosing to do before sharing this information. Ask questions before you jump to giving people answers they aren’t looking for.

Here is the official NSA info from Dr. Madero:

We have many Juice Plus+® customers who take Coumadin.  People who take Coumadin are asked to keep their intake of vitamin K consistent (The information sheet the patient gets with their Coumadin has a section entitled “Information For Patients”, and it states “Eat a normal, balanced diet maintaining a consistent amount of vitamin K”).   You can also look at the following link from the National Institutes of Health.

MS is an autoimmune challenge that Juice Plus+® can make a difference with, in time. It may take double the dosage, however, if the MS is severe. The immune study shows that B-cells become less hyperactive with Juice Plus+®, i.e. make fewer antibodies against the body itself, which is the problem with all autoimmune disorders. Autoimmune disorders show up in different ways in different people, manifesting symptoms based on our own unique genetic weaknesses. Instead of focusing on the name of the disease, if we can go back to the cause of all autoimmune diseases – a trigger-happy immune system – then we do better. Juice Plus+® makes the immune system less trigger-happy.

Remember that it's a digestive disease, and since Juice Plus+® is bio-available, it does not need to be digested. It is simply absorbed. This greatly increases the chance of getting nutrition into the system.  Work slowly up to an adult dosage, starting with taking 1 capsule of garden one day, orchard the next day and vineyard the next day.  After a week, try taking 2 garden one day, 2 orchard the next and 2 vineyard the next.  If tolerated, increase to 1 of each kind each day for a week, then 2 of each kind the next week.  Eventually, you can double the adult dosage of 2, 2 and 2 of each kind for faster healing.

Juice Plus+® is simply fruits and veggies.  It is safe to eat fruits and veggies during Chemo.  Please read this article on the subject.

The small amount of oxalic acid in certain fruits and veggies is not the issue – the body secreting it from trying to compensate for the acidity of the modern diet is the issue. Taking Juice Plus+® and eating more plants is the answer.

There is a voice message on this topic, which I've made available on this website, detailing the impact that Juice Plus+® may have on the formation of kidney stones.  You can listen to the message or read the transcript of this message here.

We don’t make claims to cure or even necessarily help any specific disease or problem that a person may have. What is clear is that Juice Plus+® has been proven to strengthen the immune system, and both Epstein Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are immune related. People can live with the Epstein Barr Virus and never show any signs of fatigue, lesions, weakness, sore muscles and so on. These people tend to have a stronger immune system. It is important to let your folks know that if they don’t work on getting their body well through health and wellness, they will still be trying to “treat” these conditions years from now. When someone has CFS, they tend to continually “wear down” due to lack of proper rest. When your body isn’t given the proper fuel to repair itself and replenish itself, this fatigue will remain a vicious cycle and rest will be hard to come by.

Yes, it is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself and your unborn baby.  Please see my article on Juice Plus+® and Pregnancy which I've posted on my website.

There is not a reason on earth to worry about Juice Plus+® and nursing. On the other hand, there are a million and one reasons to take Juice Plus+® during nursing. Nursing is almost as critical as in-utero as far as nutrition is concerned. When is nutrition not important? When would fruits and veggies be dangerous? The baby is not going to become colicky because of Juice Plus+®.

“Colic” is a term that doctors use when they can’t explain why babies are especially fussy, or in extreme discomfort. Quite often, babies have an intolerance or allergy to a food like soy, dairy, or wheat. It’s passed through the breast milk to the newborn, causing terrible pain or gas. Many pediatricians will chalk it up to “colic,” and never think to have the nursing mother go on an elimination diet to see which foods upset her baby. They’d rather try a prescription medication for the baby, or put the baby on formula.

One thing is certain: the fruits and vegetables in Juice Plus+® are extremely good for both the nursing baby, and the mother.

It is also useful for nursing mothers to eat whole ground flax seeds in order to get some “good fat” into her diet. Good fats and fruits and veggies make for the most nutritious breast milk.

Please read my latest article on pregnancy and nutrition found on my website. Click here to read the article. No cow's milk. Goat milk is OK until they are 2 years old…but of course breast milk is the best option. Soy formulas are better than other formulas with cow casein.  Soy formulas are better than other formulas with cow casein.

I have answered this question at length and posted my answer to this here on my website. You can listen to the recording of the voice message or read the transcript by clicking here.

I have explained the relationship of micro and macro nutrients, as well as what Juice Plus+® provides in this recorded message and transcript.