Beware of Long-Winded "Health" Sales-Pitches
(updated August 2018)
What follows is one of my most popular articles in a long time. So, I thought I'd edit and rejuvenate it because we all need a break from the official nonsense and fear-mongering that dominates our lives these days. COVID, monkeypox, foot and mouth disease, the war in Ukraine, global warming, and what is a woman? Give us a break!
One of my clients, a lovely woman in her 80s, struggling with health issues, wrote me about Dr Ralph Perez, asking my opinion about what he is selling.
Start the video above, click on the image, or here: https://gut-solution.com/index_vd0120s.php. Watch one minute of it. Stop watching before you fall asleep, or end up so brain-dead that you hit the "Buy" button! Leave it running in the background to get an appreciation of the sales tactics while coming back to read this article (Crikey - he drones on and on!):
Someone wrote this about the presentation:
"Yes, this is a wonderful sales technique. First, a video that says the same thing over and over and over and over again. Then you are asked to order not at this price, not at this price, not even at this price – order now and get it for an incredible price! The more you order, the cheaper it gets. So, there is a huge markup if you buy a small amount as the price goes down a lot if you buy six months' supply. I feel like someone is trying to take me for a fool.
You've made a supplement of some sort. If it's any good, people will order more. Sell it for £15 a month. Say what it does and how it works in a video no longer than 2 minutes long. Cut the waffle, cut the flannel, and cut the special offers. You never know; you might get people other than half-wits buying it."
If I wanted to make a lot of money - millions of it - I'd find some vague nutritional research, then set myself up around it as having made some astounding discovery - lectins, for example. But let's not go there. Let's talk about this doctor, including what and how he is selling.
The research
Follow the "Resources" links at the bottom of his page and you will realise that the lot are basically useless information. That, alone, is a red flag.
The ingredients
Look up the ingredients. If you can find a list, you are doing better than me! I got an idea of what the ingredients might be from listening to the video and reading the linked information (Incidentally, he's French, apparently, with a rather high-pitched voice. The voice in the video bears no resemblance at all - a red flag!). Easy Digest probably contains "healthy" ingredients such as turmeric, which you can buy for a few dollars from the supermarket. The thing is, by cramming a lot of ingredients from A-Z into a single capsule, it would be necessary to take a bucket of them to get a therapeutic dose! Until we know more, I assume the capsules are probably ineffective and over-priced.
The claims and the testimonials
If the claims, including the testimonials, seem too good to be true, then they are probably untrue.
The price
He's selling a bottle for English 70 pounds, but if you buy now after listening to him drone away for what seems a lifetime, you can get it for 50 (sorry, 49.95). I can't find any information about how many pills are in a bottle, probably 60 or 90, which means you are paying an incredible amount of money for a few grains of many individual ingredients.
Conclusion
It could be a scam, or it could be a genuine product. I think it may be both going on the limited information they supply us. The best scams in nutrition are the ones that sell a genuine product with genuine ingredients that have genuine health claims. However, while the ingredients may be great, is the product itself effective in how he put it together and is it value for money? My conclusion is that it is probably of little benefit for improving health and is over-priced.
My advice to my dear old lady is to not spend her precious pension and meagre savings on this, or similar products. She is better off spending more on fresh produce, adding lots of brightly coloured cold spices to her food and adding a few key dietary supplements for her specific health needs.