‘Getting old sucks' goes the saying, and there is nothing we can do about it. But many people wish and hope there is something that can slow down the inevitable and, at the same time, reduce the ‘side effects' of aging. So it comes as no surprise that these wishes are exploited by ‘quacks' proclaiming to have found the ‘Fountain of Youth' and created a product (or products) able to slow down the process of aging.
One of the companies offering these kinds of products is LifeVantage and is the subject of my review today.
What Is LifeVantage?
LifeVantage Corporation is a publicly traded (Nasdaq:LFVN), science-based company, dedicated to helping people reach their health and wellness goals through science-based solutions to oxidative stress. Founded in 2003, LifeVantage develops nutraceutical products, including Protandim, that leverage the company's expertise and that are intended to deliver significant health benefits to consumers.
LifeVanage is lead by Dave S. Manovich, Executive Vice Chairman, and the company's mission statement reads:
“LifeVantage Corporation is a company dedicated to helping people achieve their health, wellness and financial independence goals. We provide quality, scientifically-validated products and a financially rewarding network marketing business opportunity to customers and independent distributors who seek a healthy lifestyle and financial freedom”
What Are The LifeVantage Products?
The company carries ‘Products That Promote Health‘ in four categories:
Protandim – The Nrf2 Synergizer:
This is the “Flagship” of LifeVantage and described as ‘Protandim activates the body's natural ability to reduce age-related symptoms on the cellular level. Protandim reduces oxidative stress in humans by an average of 40 percent in 30 days. It activates Nrf2 to communicate with your DNA to deliver a biochemical wake-up call to your genes.
LifeVantage TrueScience ? Anti-Aging Regimen.
Introducing TrueScience™ with enhanced Nrf2 technologies, a revolutionary beauty system proven in a clinical study to visibly address the signs of aging.
LifeVantage Canine Health, Nrf2 for your dogs
LifeVantage Canine Health is a daily supplement specifically formulated for dogs. Using Nrf2-activating ingredients, collagen and omega-3 fatty acids, it is specifically formulated to reduce oxidative stress, support brain, skin, eye and joint function, as well as mobility, flexibility and cognitive function.
AXIO Energy Drink – Guilt-free physical and mental energy
And like an ‘after thought', LifeVantage added an energy drink to their product list in 2014.
What Is The LifeVantage Business Opportunity?
It's your typical MLM where distributors make the sales of these products. Distributors also make money recruiting others into the business opportunity. It's a business model that LifeVantage recently switched over to in recent years. A while back you could have bought their products in health food stores and even off the shelves of some grocery chains.
Obviously, the sales through regular distribution were not strong enough to satisfy stockholders, so LifeVantage decided to pull their products of the shelves and go the route of network marketing through a force of independent product partners.
If MLMs give you the “heebie jeebies”, then you may want to consider easier ways of making money online. You can make money taking surveys at SurveyJunkie.com. You can also make money doing what you already do online like watching videos, playing games, visiting websites and more at SwagBucks.com, InboxDollars.com and FusionCash.com. But if you want a real work at home job, then check out My Top Work At Home Recommendation!
LifeVantage Complaints
Like every company LifeVantage has complaints against their company. But these complaints cover the products and the business opportunity. We've laid them out here for you to consider so you can make an informed decision.
It's an MLM
Most people complain about MLMs with good reason:
- You're required to place a monthly order (no matter if you need the product or not) to stay “active” or earn commissions.
- Qualify and maintain active status every month to participate in the ‘pool of commissionable sales'
- Recruit new product partners (Preferred Customers) like Lucifer collects souls of ‘The Bad”
- Understanding a convoluted compensation plan. At least, LifeVantage provides a table that shows YOUR percentage commission of your down line to 9 levels deep.
Nevertheless, reading the complete compensation plan, and understanding it, requires at least a 4-year college degree; better yet a PHD.
Protadim Does Not Work As Claimed
To fully understand this statement we have to take a look at the ingredients Protadim is made off:
- Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) extract (225 mg)
- Bacopa (Bacopa monniera) extract (150 mg)
- Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) root (150 mg)
- Green tea (Camellia sinensis) extract (75 mg)
- Turmeric (Curcuma Ionga) extract (75 mg)
LifeVantage is billing Protandim as an Nrf2 activator, but numerous researches show that all 5 ingredients, by itself, are Nrf2 activators. Therefore, the claim that ‘only THEIR invention (Protadim)‘ is the correct antioxidant and Nrf2 activator able to slow down the aging process is untrue.
Yes, they have received ‘patent status‘ on their concoction. However, the patent office does NOT conduct tests. Rather they're just making sure that there's no existing patent for a similar product.
They lied about WHO invented Protadim!
A certain Paul Myhill recreated a 100% herbal version of a previous LifeVantage product that failed. Mr. Myhill did so without any medical background, degree or respectability in the industry. LifeVantage solved this problem by hiring a well-known and well-respected scientist, Joe McCord.
Dr. Joe McCord accepted stock option worth millions of dollars and lied to the world that he was the inventor of Protadim. The lie didn't hold up though. Mr. Myhill posted an open letter on April 13th, 2012 on Facebook, saying…………
“LifeVantage's communications are downright false, misleading, and perpetuate an ongoing fraud – one that the SEC and FTC should be made aware of”.
He also posted a letter, for further proof, from McCord himself, saying that he couldn't take credit for inventing Protandim, because “it was so close to its final embodiment prior to the beginnings of our association.” However, not long after, Mr. Myhill took down the FB post.
LifeVantage claims NOT to pay for Protadim Studies!
On LifeVantage's Science page, there is this quote:
Apparently, this is another outright lie, especially when LifeVantage disclosed several cases where they did pay for research. Why is that important, you ask? If I would offer you $100,000 for your research study, would it be 100% unbiased even if your findings would prove that my product DOES NOT WORK?
LifeVantage Canine Health Product is A Blatant Scam
It seemed like a brilliant marketing strategy to prey on people that love their dogs. I cannot understand why they expect people to spend $30 to $100 bucks a month on a product that is unproven to be totally safe for their animal. Particularly in light of one study that says……….
“The manner in which LifeVantage and its distributors are marketing Canine Health is extremely deceptive and irresponsible. The company made initial claims about the therapeutic efficacy of the product based on a study which by all appearances was so critically flawed as to be worthless….”
LifeVantage Products are Insanely Expensive
A one month supply of Protadim pills cost you $40 (Preferred Customer price) and contains 30 pills, each 625 mg. ONE LifeVantage pill cost you $1.33.
The pills are a blend of the 5 main ingredients I have listed above. These are easily available on the market and you can get them even at Amazon. Buying these 5 ingredients there, one pill would cost you 40 cents. Adding up the milligrams, you would get a whopping 2090 mg by taking one of each pill per day. LifeVantage pills cost you 3 times more and you get only 1/3 of active ingredients. Enough said.
If that turned you off you may want to consider free to join sources of supplementary income such as SurveyJunkie.com survey company or FusionCash.com, Swagbucks.com, and InBoxDollars.com. These companies will pay you to do what you already do online. The tasks vary from visiting websites to reading emails or even playing games and so much more. But if you're looking to start a real online business, you can follow what I do using My Top Work At Home Recommendation.
It is Very Difficult to Cancel the Monthly Order or get a Refund
Apparently there have been reports that LifeVantage has made it very difficult to cancel their monthly orders. This isn't a big surprise to me. Their business model obviously depends on having reps stay active. That's simply so they can use some of that money to pay other reps.
Extremely High Failure Rates of Distributors
All MLM companies have a high failure rate of their product partners. One reason is that not many people have what it takes to build and maintain a strong team of sales people. They also overprice these products of little value. That said, the usual failure rate is about 67%. LifeVantage however, has an extremely high failure rate of 92%.
They tried to ‘whitewash‘ this fact by announcing in their quarterly earnings report to the share holders, ‘that they were able to retain 57% of new Preferred Customer for the the last quarter‘. This equates to a failure rate of 92% for the year. Again, many people realize after a short while that the product DOES NOT WORK as promised and simply quit.
Not Many Distributors Make Money
Let me tell you again, this is a typical symptom of many MLMs. Only very few folks on the TOP of the MLM are making lots of money. It is a well known fact that in MLM schemes less than 4% make a liveable income and many folks don't break even.
Conclusion To My LifeVantage Review – Is LifeVantage a Scam?
I find it hard to say anything good about this company. LifeVantage products are obviously not what the company claims them to be. I could not find a single, independently conducted study that would confirm the efficacy of Prodatim. The handful of research studies I could locate, were obviously ordered and paid for by LifeVantage and sound fake. They also lie about the creation of Prodatim. The products are grossly over prized. According to some reports may even be harmful to humans as well as to their dogs.
The business opportunity is a bad one, to say the least. Considering the contras of the products AND the dubious marketing tactics, some of them borderline fraudulent. They make it sheer impossible to build a sustainable business, even for people experienced in MLM.
If you're looking for easier ways of making money online that are free to join, you can make money just sharing your opinion at SurveyJunkie.com. You can even make money doing what you already do online like visiting websites, reading emails, watching videos and playing games at InboxDollars.com, SwagBucks.com and FusionCash.com.
At the end of the day, if you are looking for a business that doesn't force monthly orders on you and you want to work with products and companies you believe in you may want to consider My Top Work At Home Recommendation.
Unlike LifeVantage you have nothing to lose. It's FREE and you can work with companies like Amazon, Google etc promoting real products and services that you believe in and have probably used.
In any event, I hope you enjoyed reading my LifeVantage review and would love to hear your opinion. Chime in on your way out and let us know what's on your mind in the comments below. It's always great to hear from you and reps of these companies.
Until next time,
Eddy with a y
Expensive? Yes. But my dog actually smiles now. He has been on petandim for almost a month. He is more active and happy! He was neither a month ago. He suffers from degenerative joint disease of the hocks.
I’m happy to hear it’s helped your dog.
Yes I’m not surprised as my dog was about to be put to sleep but after using two weeks of there product he was walking and trotting again. Still with me over a year later !!
75mg curcuma, which is even less curcumin, with which bioenhancer? lets assume its piperine (if any)… i take a curcumin capsule with 500mg curcumin in micelle form, which is said to have the 185x potency of piperine (bioenhance-wise). A whole bottle of this lifevantage nrf2 synergizer could not keep up with one curcumin capsule 500mg micelle.
Hello Eddy,
I never respond or write on these things online but I thought I would share my story. I spent two years going from doctor to doctor experiencing weird MS symptoms and anxiety and depression. I had numbness in my arms and legs, nerves problems, and bunch of other weird symptoms. I lost multiple jobs because of this until one day my mom took me to an Asian doctor. I told her Asian doctors are a joke and all they prescribe is phony herb medicine that you can probably find in your backyard. I was so desperate I didn’t care anymore and he gave me a bottle of Protandim. I grabbed but left it on the shelf for couple days but when my symptoms came again I didn’t care. I took it for one week and noticed I had more energy and my mood was changing. After about a whole month I slowly forgot I even had any symptoms. I just turned 30 years old and I can see why my moms church friends love this product. I know I won’t change your mind but It really worked. I don’t try to convince people because I know they probably won’t believe me. All I can say is more for me less for them. Thanks for reading this.
Nice research, verified what I found out in conjunction with the University of Washington Med School. Sucks in people a bunch of mumbo jumbo, not based on real studies or science. Well said!
Well apparently some people swear by it. So to each their own. Thanks for chiming in though.
Pyramid scheme? Just look at the typical modern corporation. Now there is a pyramid scheme! At least the people who make big money in MLM have worked hard to get it and have been forced to work with all levels of of the enterprise, and they must work ongoing with everyone to keep making the big bucks. The people who make big buck on the top of corporations almost NEVER even associate with the lower levels of the corporation, and spend their time on golf course etc. They got their big income from going to the right college and having the right connections. Think about it, which is more fair and equitable? Hmm?
Jim,
You’re over simplifying the people on top of corporations. I can guarantee that none of them were just made CEO just fresh out of college. Otherwise everyone that graduated college would be a CEO. That said, I can appreciate your disdain for corporate america. Yes it’s very shady and does resemble a pyramid structure and in some ways it is. But the reality is most corporations are selling real products and brands that people buy and trust. Whereas many MLMs are pushing garbage. And most corporations aren’t reliant on recruiting new distributors to get paid. They’re making most of their money from selling real products and services. Not all MLMs are really structured that way. So there are differences. That said not all MLMs are bad or pyramid schemes.
Funny thing. Bought this “product” from a friend @ his cost which was still quite pricey but thought I would give it a try for my arthiritis….miracle drug…4 months, nothing but developed stomach pain. I am 72 yrs old, 5’9″, 155 lbs & in very good shape…except for “Arthur” in my wrists. Stopped taking the nfr2 & within 2 wks pain went away? Just had a CT scan while vacationing in AZ & with great relief nothing bad showed up. This is a scam to the 10th power. I found it on Amazon for 60% of the price my friend (the distributor) was buying it for….& then I showed him the invoice from Amazon. He then compared it to his invoice….BOTH came from the same warehouse??? Maybe the product is good for some folks but these scam artists are using their distributors as pawns. If you are using a pyramid scheme to fool the less fortunate, go for it ….sad, but does happen…these thieves are working both ends….under selling “Their Team” on AMAZON??? Low Life SOBs…just sayin…same sociopaths that sell vacuum cleaners to the elderly that don’t need a new Vacuum let alone cannot afford one….same people, different career: ) Ok, I’m done…….
I see the reason for this “review”. To promote your own business, or one you get paid for. Could you please site some references too, would add to your credibility.
Oh no you’ve discovered my dirty “secret”. Yes genius I write reviews to point out the pros and cons of a company and give my audience an alternative. If that makes me lose credibility so be it. Or I could just write all positive reviews promoting everything that pays me the most like a lot of marketers do.
Dr Skip Campbell (chiropractor) whose quote you posted is one of the founding members.
His member number is 12.
Of course he endorses it, LOL!
Well isn’t that something. Lol
Hey Eddy.
Hope you are not scaring people away by just giving your opinion about this product call Protandim. If people are satisfied with the outcome of that product who are you to judge. Furthermore if the product is expensive and people want to buy it you have no say in this area. You are just making a point that this company called livevantage are ripping people off. So you have a better way for people to make money more decently. All scam artist are the same. You chose this company in particular. I wonder why. Have you try the product. Viewer can say what they want. They just giving the company a bad name. Learned from experience if you or your family had more than 12 illness in your body what will you do. Continue taking 20 bottles of doctors medication or find other sources to better your health and well