Preying on Hope

My mother-in-law has Glaucoma with some complications that so far have defied diagnosis or relief. The disease is painful at times and of course it is causing distress with family and friends. And then hope came with a suggestion. A possible treatment called stem cells nourishment that comes from taking Olympiq Stemxcell. I must admit that I didn't realize just how cynical I'd become after years of listening to the software industry trying to sell the next silver bullet. I didn't want to be cynical but when I started to figure out that StemXcell was little more than a nutritional supllment there was no controlling it.

To be fair to the makers of this supplement, they never say that it will cure anything. The claim is that use of this product will boost the level of stem cells that are swimming about in our bodies. What made me uncomfortable was that the vast majority of the site is about "educating" us on the wonders of stem cells and how they can be programmed by our bodies to fix just about anything that ails us. The implication is quite clear, eat our pills and your eyes or what ever else is injured or sick will become whole once again. All I'm thinking is; this is just a nutritional supplement.

If you start to ask the question, whats in this stuff, things start to get a wee bit interesting. If you can find the list of ingredients you'll they little capsules contain; L-arginin, L-guutamine, L-asparigin, a polysaccharide, karotionid, fuchsine, and chondroitin sulfate. I'm not certain but I think there may also be flavonoid and resveratrol. Don't feel bad if you're unsure of what any of these things are because I don't believe that many do. I have a background in Bio-chemistry and I had to look up one or two of them to remind myself as to what they are. The amino acids are easy to spot. Karotinoids contain carotene which you may recognize as something you get by eating carrots. Fuchsine is a dye and chondroitin sulfate is a diatary supplement for those with osteoarthritus.

Why am I suspicious that this is little more than snake oil? First, the website makes a claim and then tries to lead you into believing something else. Neither the claim nor the strong suggestion that improved stem cell levels in the body will cure you are backed up by anything. In other words, this site is 100% pure marketing and worse than that, it slices together seemingly related bits of information that mislead you into believing that they are making claims that they are not. Secondly, and this is a common trick with the snake oil crowd, the amino acid L-asparigin is going to cause your urine to smell very strong. Fuchsine is a purple dye and although I'm not so certain, I believe it will change the color or your urine if not your stools. In other words, you are going to see a physical change when you start taking this stuff. Immediately and the website claims an immediate boost in stem cell levels. And that is the hook, it must be working because something has changed, I can feel it.

So far I've not mentioned the price. 60 pieces (tablet?) of this product will run you 135 Euros or just under $200 at todays exchange rate. I'd call that a pretty good ROI for packaging up a few common cheaply produced amino acids with a couple of other inexpensive powders. I took time to price the amino acids at GNC. The total for an equivalent amount was about 30 bucks and you've gotta know that GNC isn't hurting because of low markups.

Will the stuff hurt you? Obviously ingesting this stuff won't. That said if you rely on it instead of sound medical treatments, well, 'nuff said. In my humble opinion what is worse is the sense of hope that it has brought my mother-in-law and everyone around her. Here finally is something that is going to magically work wonders. It is the hope for relief that we all want for her. Or, is this only cheap marketing playing on peoples desperation. Who can say for sure. After all there is a nifty little graphic that shows elevated stem cell levels in the body. The elevation starts right after ingestion and continues for about 18 hours before tapering off. So maybe there is something to this and how will we live with ourselves knowing there was something that we could have done to prevent the inevitable.