MNI Lifestyle - Almost like Scientology, but less pushy. And less science.

So whilst I was researching Antagolin (see previous post and watch this space - these people are going down), I noticed the website on which it is marketed has a "free stress test".

Seriously? - I wondered whether I had just stumbled upon a treasure trove of ridiculousness and bad science - all rolled into one delicious morsel, ready to be torn apart by anyone with have a brain and a bit of common sense.

Alas, LRH will have to wait for another day (and I have a substantially smaller chance of legal repercussions now).

Left: L. Ron Hubbard, founder (or discoverer?) of Scientology.  Right: Phillip Seymore Hoffman in the film, The Master, which has apparently nothing to do with Scientology, apart from everything.

No, the stress test didn't ask me whether I wanted to buy Dianetics (amazing how far sciencey words will get you in the world).  Instead it asked me for my email address and made me fill out a form with a likert scale.  The questions asked about my "quality of life, emotional wellbeing and social interaction".  Normally, because of my enormous interest in positive psychology and the like, my response to these questionnaires is somewhere along these lines:

http://threewordphrase.com/depression.htm

But for science, I used the method acting techniques of Stanislavsky to fill the questionnaire in like a depressed, overweight push-over (and it took me seconds of clicking on the left column to get into that mindset).

The results I got, as previously stated, didn't ask me if I wanted to accept Lord Xenu into my heart (I know this isn't the gist of it, but it doesn't make a difference, really), but instead didn't seem too crazy, at first.  I will quote select passages for you:

"Your Stress Level.
- is very high and will require urgent attention.
Your ability to concentrate.
- is significantly impaired and will require urgent attention.
Your general mood.
- is severely compromised and requires urgent attention.
Your burnout risk.
- is very high and will require urgent attention.

Steps to manage stress:

Get the basics right
Think more strategically
Act logically
Take a supplement to enhance your mental functioning
Avoid collateral damage
Ask for advice"

Seems perfectly reasonable and I might just...wait.  Hold on one cotton-picking minute right there!

"Take a supplement to enhance your mental functioning"

What do you mean, like methylphenidate? (That is, ritalin)  I took a closer look:
They went on about rhodiola and inosotol.

"What makes Rhodiola attractive is that it is a highly effective natural substance
with an extremely low side effect profile."  They even quote a "trial" involving "56 doctors".  They give no references.

At this point I would like to make clear that neither of the above are currently used in psychiatry.  Plus - if these were in fact psycho-active drugs -  I wouldn't be too keen on taking them on the advice of an automatically generated pdf report from a site that sells Antagolin.

Also, did I mention that MNI Lifestyle just so happens to sell Rhodiola and Inosotol, but racily repackaged as "NeurovanceTM" (along with a few other fancy-named herbs with no actual clinical data to support their fantastical claims)?

For your education and enjoyment, I have included their advertisement, creatively labeled as "English - Female" to show you how well they target customers (based on gender and language).
Convenient.  What are the chances that you so happen to sell the very supplements I am told I need, MNI Lifestyle?!

Are people actually gullible enough to be fleeced by this kind of shenanigan?

Feel free to take the test yourself and post your results below.  I am almost certain they will advise "supplementation" regardless of your supposed sanity or Scientology-deficit:
http://assessment.mnilifestyle.co.za

Also, see their silly "drug-blurbs" for NeurovanceTM and other trademarked placebos:
http://www.mnilifestyle.co.za/products/neurovance/
(See below for Antagolin)

To avoid backlash from alternative medicine zealots, I will post the wikipedia pages for Rhodiola and Inosotol below (in case you have trouble working a search engine), along with a caution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inositol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodiola_rosea

Caution:
Do not be fooled by a few initial studies showing "promising" results for any drug.  A lot of "promising" research translate into inert, useless (or far inferior) drugs or, in worst case scenarios, straight-up poisons.

The reason we don't go guzzling anti-freeze the moment we find that it kills Influenza in a petri dish, is...well, painfully obvious, but my hyperbole illustrates that elaborate theories or lab-results (or even small trials, that include, for example, 56 people) don't necessarily translate well to real-life.

A prime example of this is the issue of anti-oxidants (along with a myriad of drugs that will never be known by fancy names like Losec or Tramadol, but rather linger in obscurity, known only forever only by codes, such as Cp3421).

But someone much more experienced, knowledgeable and outright better than me has written brilliantly on these topics.
I will address this briefly in a future blog post.

This is overwhelming.

More posts to follow.