Eat tomato or you will die
 

Today a team of people came to my gym class.

They had a "Biophotonic Scanner" and everyone in the class was to be tested.

At first I didn't really know what this device was, the pamplet has some crazy Japanese in it.
But some of the Biophotonic team explained it as a health scanner, that if my values were low I needed to eat better.

After about 5min with my hand on this device (some blue lazer) the readings came out. Everyone was very suprised.

The noise they made was something like "UUUOOOWAAOOAH", "it is too bad".
My score was only one step from the lowest!!

That means the free radicals in my system are crazy.

I was by far the worst in class, many people were in the top range of the test.

I was very suprised and have become more and more worried about my health.

As I look online it seems I have been doing things quite wrong anyway.

Working out without the right diet can be worse for your health, then sitting on the couch watching TV...

Plus I have been drinking lots of tap water, creates lots of "free radicals".

I dunno, I was very suprised, and my teacher seems worried for my health.

It is funny to hear from a older japanese man, in english, "eat tomato or you will die."

I'm trying to Google for information about this device, not really finding much except sales literature. It sounds like snake-oil to me. Anyone know differently?

Dude, unless it's been tested thoroughly by someone reputable, don't trust it. If you're exercising, that's good. If you're trying to eat right (fresh food, veggies, etc) that's good. Tap water I don't like at all but that's because they dump so much crap into the water to kill all the crap that was in the water that you couldn't drink. Go for bottled, anyday. And don't listen to some crackpot device!

A lot of bottled water come right from municipal taps... Don't be fooled into thinking it is anybetter.

Google Groups doesn't come up with much other than people pushing the product and quoting sales literature.

Vince, you've been had.

Well, I would be inclined to believe that, if everyones test was low and they were selling some product.

It does look like tons of sales crap though when trying to find information.

But, other then me, everyones test was in the high zone. I don't see how they can make the cash this way.

Adding:

I do know that Japan always like 'western' things, because this came from America it could be thought of as good.

The school also had a bone marrow test. And according to one of my Japanese teachers, it is one of the top 3 or 4 schools in Tokyo, for sports.

I was always thinking most of this stuff 'free radicals' etc were just buzz words, all the FDA non-approved crap.

Sucks how much bullshit you have to get though to find the right way to be healthy.

I know a dentist who uses this thing, sounded like a quackery device.

So I'll do a bit of research......right now.....

Ok so far lots of infomercial like sites, trying to sell me stuff....

Ah ha!

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPr...s.html#scanner


Thats about what I figured. While I'd love a machine to answer these questions instantly and painlessly I don't think this is it.

i don't know of any technology that allows you to bounce a laser off stuff and decide the amount of free radicals in it. certainly not in a portable machine that costs less than a million dollars. maybe i'm ignorant. maybe they're full of shit.

if they're not full of shit, i'd love to know how it's done.

Well, I am sure the school here paid for them to come visit to scan everyone.

What has me even considering it is that mine was so low (when my food / health is bad right now) and my score was so low. While the japanese in class, who live with their mothers who cook, have high scores.

They didn't try to sell me anything.

This school isn't dumb, but maybe they fell for something too.

Even if the scan works, what does it tell you to do, "eat better, stop smoking" duh.

But I posted this and then went and looked on line, and have become very wery of the entire thing. As we all see, it is hard to find real information about the device.

I stilldon't know what good it is for the school to have a 3million dollar bone marrow scanner either...

http://www.splinfo.com/scanner_faq.htm#perform

For some of the science behind the device. It doesn't sound so bad.

If everyone score was the same, I would have thought bullshit... but with mine being so low. It has me a little convinced.

Eat ketchup, it's concentrated tomato, and tastes good too!

That machine sounds like a big scamy-scam-scam to me.

Two words... Red wine

Sounds great but what about skin tone?

It would be very easy to make it look like it was working without it really working. It may be measuring that wavelength of light, it may be the right wavelength, but there is nothing that says just because you shine a laser on someones skin and detect a wavelength of light that it really is able to measure what it says it does. It would always give the same number for the same person too. Its really a perfect device for scamming.

The science is really quite basic, we use that to determine what atoms are in distant stars etc, so the science is 'real'. What is in question is the results. Unless you see a controlled test of a device, not paid for by the company, your best bet in life is to assume the device is bullshit. The history of medicine has 1000's of devices that at best did nothing and at worst harmed people, all based on peoples ignorance and what sounded good. These devices showed up in clinics and hospitals over the years as well, I know many doctors who even advocate the use of some devices where there is NO proof at all that they work.

So while I won't say with 100% certainty the device doesn't work, what I will say is that if I had to bet if it worked or not, I would say no, and a very strong no.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards the bullshit.

But I gotta say, I think it works a little. It isn't a random number generation machine.

In Japan they love things from the west, and I could see how even this school could be fooled. Just because the machine is from America.

But, the fact that I have horrid eating habbits and my score was low. And all the Japanese people with good eating habbits have high scores. it says "something" for the machine.

As I said before, even if the machine worked flawlessly... all it tells you is "eat veggies, stop smoking and drinking"... kind of "duh"

As far as skin tone goes, several of the Japanese people (mostly girls) are 'whiter' then I am.

I am willing to say there is a little truth behind the machine, but the rest is just a huge MLM style scam. Make tons of money, just buy our expensive machine.

It's a lazer.

So that's one frequency of light.

From one single frequency -- which, importantly, they don't get to fine tune[1], on the surface of someone's body, they claim to be able to pick up the amount of some important metabolite?

I doubt it.

As noted by Ustwo, it is easy to generate such a scam, if you assume it is picking up some detail of skin pigmentation (it is just one frequency, so you wouldn't even be able to see the difference). It could and probably is a random number -- but it might be a random number on a per person basis.

People like stories. So lets describe this as a story.

Someone learns that you can shoot lasers at people and get some small amount of chemical information back. So, they find a relatively cheap laser that tends to generate the same result when shot at the same person. They then either find some chemical, or make up some chemical, that this laser detects.

Now, you have a totally neat marketing tool. You go around and 'measure' using high-tech devices some number that means absolutely nothing, and tell people with low scores that they really need to buy your product.

It's a perfect high-tech snake oil scam.

Given the tendency towards quakery in medicine, it seems best to assume a scam until proven otherwise.

[1] Lasers are not that flexible in frequency, as far as I know?

Fake or not, I'd say any prompt to eat better is a good one.

Center for Biophotonics

and

Biophotonics International

Both seem to be reputable sites with a lot of information on this process. I really can't say that it isn't something you could get information with but the thought of gaining medical information about my body without a needle or some tests seems too good to be true. I know I will be reading a little more on this subject. It sounds interesting at least.

I’m inclined to believe the machine is legit.
While I am sure it isn’t insanely accurate. I think its readings have a good correlation with the persons eating habits.

The main reason is, all the people in my class with good healthy diets get good scores. I with my horrid diet received the worst score in class. My friend, even though she is a vegetarian, she received a low score (she sometimes eats nothing but rice balls for lunch etc) so she has an unhealthy diet as well.

Now, even if this machine works perfectly.. I still say it is rather worthless.

All it says is “eat right, take vitamins”. – duh

But it does work as a ‘shocker’ for looking for better health.

BTW, they didn’t try to sell me anything, even though I said “I guess I’ll go buy a multi vitamin.”

Granted, this was at a school, maybe they said “no selling.”

Eating more tomatoes can't hurt!

Are you so sure about that? Are you aware that ninety-two point four percent of juvenile delinquents have eaten tomatoes? Follow that link to read more about the Dread Tomato Addiction.

(I've tried to restrain myself from posting that link. Again. Really, I've tried. But, I'm only so strong...)

you should get into drinking green tea, tons of anti-oxydents in there.

Tap water is not going to kill you dude... Bottled water is one of the greatest conjobs in history. Drinking it because of taste or convenience is one thing, but for them to say drinking tap water is generating lots of free radicals is horse puckey.

Oh my God - tomatoes killed Kenny. You bastards!! Now my life is in ruins as I wait for the hammer to drop!! The horro....the horror.

Too funny!

dude, from the explanation you've quoted, it's is precisely measuring this: how many tomatoes you have eaten

it says it measures light re-emmited by carotenoid molecules at 510nm but i suspect that what it really measures is how red you are. at the best it's only reading approximately how much of one type of anti-oxidant you have.

but eating tomatoes is probably a good idea, however it was arrived at.

Agreed. Don't see how drinking water of any kind is going to increase the free radicals.

This is called fluorescence. If you have anything in your body with this property I would say you're poisoned. What they probably mean is absorbtion of light. Your skin color can become visibly orange/yellow if you drink enough orange juice, so I guess it's possible to determine carotene content by analyzing absorbtion spectra.

It can also turn orange if you eat too many carrots, interestingly enough.

Heh, I actually meant carrot juice :)

Any excuse to eat better is a good one. Eat more antioxidants, it can ward off against cancer which can be caused by freeradicals (like tomatoes). I have cancer in my family tree so I have to drink Green tea every day to ward it off. I also drink Roobios (red tea) which has the most antioxidants than anything on earth (or so the teashop broshure (spelled wrong I'm in a rush) said). also, the more antioxidants you eat the better you will feel.

A few facts to help with the speculation
 

Wow, what a lot of controversy this has generated!

I have first hand knowledge of the BioPhotonic Scanner and have used one over the last 6 months in New Zealand scanning dozens and dozens of people.

A few basics ...

The scanner was developed over a 6-8 year period by the Huntsman Cancer Institute of the Utah University

It uses Rahman Spectroscopy (Sir C. Rahman was awarded a Nobel Prize for the discovery) to detect the level of carotinoid antioxidants in the cells. Carotinoids are the most powerful antioxidants and are a good indicator of what else is in your system. Not in the blood or urine, which are only transport mechanisms of nutrients to your cells - telling what you ate in the last 12 hours, not what has actually arrived in your cells, the "site of action" - where it all happens. This measurement is far more relevant than any blood test.

It was offered to Pharmanex, a nutritional company, who initially rejected it as "too good to be true", but after a lot of research discovered it was genuine and finally paid $60M for the patent rights (to 2020) to measure anti-oxidants with light. Then another $60M to develop it to what it is now.

If it was a scam it wouldn't have won a Stevie Award (similar to an Oscar) last year as the most innovative product introduced into the US market. This was competing in the league of Oracle, FedEx and Microsoft.

It has been proven more consistent and accurate than the "Gold Standard" test for anti-oxidants – taking 4 square inches of skin and doing standard tests..

It is also becoming a "lie detector" for the supplement industry. In over 2,000,000 scans done and more than 1500 supplements tested, only 5 show any results. The supplement industry is a veritable scam party, because until now there has been no way to prove if they do anything. So all sales are made on hype and hope. Clinical trials and proof is as scarce as “hens teeth” in the supplement industry.

Pharmanex is a very serious nutrition company with currently 129 PHD scientists on staff. No other supplement company in the world has even 30. It has also been the only supplement supplier to the US Olympic Team for the last 8 years. It was the first company to have a Guaranteed Banned Substance Free certificate for all it’s products..

That’s probably enough to stir the pot …. any questions?

Working out with the wrong diet isn't as good as with the right diet, but it is still working out, and a good thing.

Tap water is water. That free radical nonsense sounds like just that; nonsense.

I agree with what another poster said though, in that anything that motivates you to improve your diet is a good thing.

Also, green tea is great. Not the sugared down kind Turkey Hill sells, but the hot tea, is great.

Are you really sure? http://www.dhmo.org/ :D

Oh wait, the bottled water would be included in that too.

I love that website.

I'm sure thats a bunch of BS, and you are definately better off then a coach potato eating fast food every day. I do hear that drinking distilled water after working out is good for you though.

Yeah... who are you? This is your only post on the board, and you registered just before posting this. Do you work for the company?

Your search - "Rahman Spectroscopy" nobel - did not match any documents., and neither did a bunch of related searches.
I've never heard heard of Stevie's, but I see that they exist (Welcome to Stevie Awards). Their website is pretty bad, I couldn't find Rahman on it, although he is probably there.

Hope you don't think I'm attacking you; I'm just naturally sceptical.

Link 1
Link 2

Sir C. V. Raman and the Nobel

Raman (not Rahman) spectroscopy is legitimate. I don't know anything about it, or whether the application of the bioscanner is real. But some people in the lab down the hall from me this summer did research with a Raman Spectrometer, trying to come up with an experiment suitable for high school students.

(And I hope I'm slightly more well known than Calgary ;) )

Haha, this is back at the top?

Well, I haven't been tested again but I should be soon. I've been taking multi-vitamin etc so we can see how it goes. Unless my school ditched them :P

The thing that had me thinking non-scam was they didn't try to sell me anything.

, , , here are a few commas you can put these were ever you want.

Vincentt - They didn't need to sell you anything. Theyd've likely charged the school a pretty hefty 'consulting fee' just to be there.

Also, trying to sell to high school kids might raise suspicions. Were they affiliated with any supplement manufacturers? It's worth considering that they may have been looking for brand recognition.

And as to why you scored so low, as has been pointed out before me there are dozens of ways to fake that. If everyone scored low it would look like an obvious scam. If one or two people score low they make sales without raising any red flags.

Until I see a qualified independent study on the device I'm not going to believe it.

From what little I scanned, it looks like this thing works but I didn't see how with biological, living animal.

What a load of crap