I've seen lots of people ask about Mannatech products over the years, whether they might help. Here's some skinny on the company and their claims of health benefits. Little scientific evidence but yet testimonials galore. And a company being sued.

My question is if their products really ARE so good, and if their sales are generating hundreds of millions of dollars, why WOULDN'T they run some trials to validate their claims? Afraid that the results would hinder sales maybe?

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15486290.htm

what does it take to set up a trial? I have wondered why no trial has been done on LDN.

Hi Christine,

I think it costs about 1/2 a million to run a clinial trial. And I think sometimes people won't when a product can't be patented.

But then we DO see some trials for some supplements, like curcumin or vitamin E or other stuff too like aspirin (even though generic ASA is also available). so they ARE done. And companies like this MUST have some kind of proprietary formula they are using that IS patented? it gets confusing to me when I DO see some trials for some stuff but yet others, not.

LDN's patent for MS isn't held by a large corporation, isn't it held by bihari? so he probably doesn't have 1/2 a mil to spend on a trial. but with so many people with MS, I would think that no matter if something can be patented or not, there would STILL be big money in it for all if something was proven to work, and it would be worth the expense to prove it. And if you were the one that proved it. Surely there would be some consumer attraction to your product if you were the one that demonstrated it's effectiveness.

I don't know why someone wouldn't run at least a smaller trial of something, it makes me suspicious when they don't though and just prefer their general claims of benefit. I guess so long as consumers aren't demanding evidence that something works before they buy it, the companies won't spend their money on doing trials to prove that it works.