The GreenDetox Scam

By Daniel Grinberg

Disclaimer: The author of this article has no conflict of interest and is

not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned throughout.
 This paper is an informal examination of the deceit and dangerous marketing tactics
that surround the supplement industry. Companies who claim to manufacture products that
are “science based” are in fact not based on science or reality at all. It is alarming how ignorant
these companies really are. It is fascinating that a company will cite articles on their own
websites which disprove the efficacy and credibility of their products. Instead, they rely that
their customers will be on a greater level of ignorance than themselves. Even if the product
may in fact be harmless, it is worrying that the company who is producing this product seems to
not possess any working knowledge of basic human biology and physiology. We infer that the
“researchers” at these companies search modern day buzzwords in medical databases and copy
and paste the first article they find to their website as supporting evidence without reading
them at all. Due to this voluntary negligence, it was quite simple to disprove the efficacy of
their product. What’s more troubling is the average consumer seems to be incapable of sensing
the predatory nature of these companies and forgoes utilizing the healthcare system in favor of
these dangerous and unregulated alternative therapies. We will examine sixpackabs.com’s
“Science-Based GreenDetox” supplement in this paper. We will be using Green Detox
advertising page as the main target. The website breaks down the benefits of their product
carefully and makes sure to cite their claims with research that they link throughout the page.
We will be examining the research articles they cite and prove that Green Detox is in no way
science based and is a predatory marketing scheme. Green Detox isn’t the only predatory
product in the supplement industry but, we chose to focus on this product since it is widely
advertised on websites such as YouTube.Com and has garnered millions of views. It is important
to spread the truth in the name of science. This product may not be harmful to consume, but, it
should not be marketed as an alternative to established treatments such as weight reduction
and life span prolongation. Note: Any further mention of sixpackabs.com will be referred to as
“The company”.
The company claims that acai, one of the many ingredients in their GreenDetox product
has many antioxidant properties and is very beneficial to overall wellbeing. This is simply not
true. According to The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the first
article that the company cited, “There is no definitive scientific evidence based on studies in
people to support the use of acai for any health-related purposes” (NCCIH, 2016). The company
also claims that acai is one of the many ingredients that can promote rapid weight loss.
According to the same source, “No independent studies have been published in peer-reviewed
journals that substantiate claims that acai alone promotes rapid weight loss” (NCCIH, 2016).
Acai was tested in a murine model and it was concluded that acai alone had no significant
impact on weight loss. There was no difference between animals that received the juice and
animals that didn’t. Furthermore, the uninformed patient may run into trouble if they do not
notify their healthcare provider that they are consuming GreenDetox. Acai may actually
interfere with MRI test results. This is especially dangerous if this leads to an improper
diagnosis. Nowhere on the website does the company warn about this. Even if it was proved
that acai did in fact have potent antioxidant properties, consumers could just as easily purchase
strawberries and blueberries at their local grocery stores for a much cheaper price.
Perhaps most interestingly and perhaps the most infuriatingly, the company states that
their product will “promote energy, stamina, mineral replenishment and provide optimal
support for the body systems”. The company claims that they infuse their product with
chlorophyll which will produce a greater amount of ATP when compared to normal oxidative
phosphorylation. The study entitled “Light-harvesting chlorophyll pigments enable mammalian
mitochondria to capture photonic energy and produce ATP”, examines the effects on increased
ATP synthesis when chlorophyll metabolite pyropheophorbide-a (P-a) is added. The study
claimed that when P-a was exposed to light, ATP was produced in mammalian models.
However, there are a few prominent flaws throughout the study that do not correlate with the
intended uses of GreenDetox. ATP was only synthesized from ATP when exposed to red light
(λmax = 670 nm). The article specifically states: “In the presence of P-a, mitochondria exposed
to red light produce more ATP than mitochondria without P-a or mitochondria kept in the dark”
(Xu, Zhang, Mihai, Washington, 2014). This makes no practical sense. The GreenDetox
consumer would have to be exposed to the sun or intentional red-light lamps in order to
produce more ATP. Furthermore, this study was never tested in humans yet GreenDetox is
made for human consumption. It was tested in isolated mouse liver mitochondria. The test
subjects were not even exposed to sunlight, which means that this could not possible be
applicable to everyday life. Instead, “300 W halogen lamp equipped with a variable transformer
and band pass interference filters [500, 632, 670, 690 nm with full-width half maximum
(FWHM) of 10 nm] or a 1.70 W, 660 nm, LED light bulb” was used. The company never
mentioned that the users of GreenDetox would be required to languish under a red light until
the supplement became effective. To top it off, the study admitted that “The intensity of red
light used was 30-60 times less than the level of red light that we measured on a clear March
afternoon in New York City and is less than the level that several organs were exposed to in
vivo.” (Xu, Zhang, Mihai, Washington, 2014). One can theorize that the company may have
assumed that the customers would accumulate ATP as they exercised outdoors or as they went
about their day. As we have discussed, this would not be possible since there’s no conclusive
evidence that P-a reacts with red light that is derived from the sun. The rays from the sun
would simply be too strong and the production of ATP would be unsuccessful. The entire
premise of GreenDetox giving you extra energy is riddled with fallacies and inconstancies yet,
the company claims its products are science based.
GreenDetox also claims that its Vitamin B6 will reduce weight. The cited study titled
“Vitamin B6 status improves in overweight/obese women following hypocaloric diet rich in
breakfast cereals, and may help in maintaining fat-free mass”, seems to claim that Vitamin B6
helps to reduce fat content in overweight subjects. This is simply untrue and completely
misleading. Correlation does not equal causality and the company has appeared to completely
gloss over that. In reality, Vitamin B6 was not the cause of weight loss. Instead, it was a
hypocaloric diet which was low in fat that overtime lowered weight. Nowhere in the study does
it state that the women were placed on a vitamin B6 supplement and consequently lost weight.
Vitamin B6 is only helpful in maintaining the weight achieved after being placed on a strictly
hypocaloric diet. The study explicitly states, “Such an improvement could help maintain fat-free
mass during periods of weight loss” (Rodriguez, 2008). Vitamin B6 helps prevent weight regain,
not the initial loss of weight. Stating that the vitamin B6 contained within GreenDetox may help
people lose weight is not only a lie and deceitful, it is also quite dangerous.
The company claims that “Antioxidant support has been shown to accommodate
healthy aging and immune functions” yet, Scientific support for the claimed anti-aging
properties of antioxidants are seriously lacking. According to the research article cited within
the website titled “Effects of antioxidant supplementation on the aging process”, “Even if
antioxidant supplementation is receiving growing attention and is increasingly adopted in
Western countries, supporting evidence is still scarce and equivocal. Major limitation in
literature are still needed to be addressed to better evaluate the potential benefits from
antioxidant supplementation: 1) an improved understanding of oxidation mechanisms possibly
at the basis of the aging process, 2) the determination of reliable markers of oxidative damage
and antioxidant status, 3) the identification of a therapeutic window in which an eventual
antioxidant supplementation may be beneficial, 4) a deeper knowledge of the antioxidant
molecules which in several conditions act as pro-oxidants”. (Fusco, 2007). According to the
article which the company cited in their own website, antioxidants have no conclusive evidence
demonstrating their mythological anti-aging properties. The paper even admits that it is not a
study: “The aim of this paper is to provide the main basis from which future studies should start
and indicate which the main limitations that need to be addressed are”. It is a humorous
spectacle to debunk.
Perhaps most striking in all of this is the lack of regulatory oversight. Companies like
sixpackabs.com are able to get away with predatory marketing behaviors without
repercussions. This leads to a rapid spread of misinformation. It is possible that these predatory
marketing habits are decreasing the public’s trust in the established, regulated healthcare
system. GreenDetox should not be marketed as a health product with the self-proclaimed
benefits of weight loss, anti-aging properties, and energy boosters. All these claims are
completely false and have never been proved. It is most despicable that the product prides
itself in being scientifically backed by evidence when in reality it is the complete opposite. All
the evidence cited on website actually refutes the efficacy of GreenDetox, rendering the
product itself virtually useless. With proper regulation and oversight, these claims would need
to be scientifically proven before they could be marketed to the public. Dangerous interactions
are possible even with supplements and the public seems to trust these supplements more
than real medicines. This is a dangerous practice and we will work on uncovering many more
cases similar to this embarrassment.
 Citations

https://bit.ly/2zpzf0O
Berg JM. Light Absorption by Chlorophyll Induces Electron Transfer. Biochemistry. 5th
edition. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22535/. Published January 1, 1970.

Xu C, Zhang J, Mihai DM, Washington I. Light-harvesting chlorophyll pigments enable

mammalian mitochondria to capture photonic energy and produce ATP. Journal of cell
science. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24198392. Published January 15, 2014.

Rodríguez-Rodríguez E, López-Sobaler AM, Navarro AR, Bermejo LM, Ortega RM, Andrés P.
Vitamin B6 status improves in overweight/obese women following a hypocaloric diet rich in
breakfast cereals, and may help in maintaining fat-free mass. International journal of obesity
(2005). ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18679411. Published October 2008.

Fusco D, Colloca G, Monaco MRL, Cesari M. Clinical Interventions in

Aging. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685276/. Published September 2007.