03.01.11
The National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has determined that Pharmavite, LLC, Mission Hills, CA, can support challenged advertising claims for the company’s Nature Made GreatMind dietary supplement. According to Pharmavite, the product is a cognitive health supplement based on a formulation developed and studied by Dr. Thomas Shea, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. The formulation has been studied by Dr. Shea and his colleagues in subjects with early, moderate and late-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Those subjects showed improvement on certain cognitive and dementia rating scales, and the formulation was then later studied in healthy subjects using cognitive scales to evaluate the effects.
Pharmavite stated that GreatMind contains vitamin E, folic acid, vitamin B12, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), acetyl-L-carnitine hydrochloride (ALCAR) and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM-e), in the same formulation as the ingredients used in the studies conducted by Dr. Shea and his colleagues, although the amount of vitamin B12 in GreatMind was increased to 12 mcg from 6 mcg. Following its review of the evidence in the record, NAD concluded that the results of the Shea Studies, which found statistically significant improvement in various measures of cognitive ability in those participants taking GreatMind, provided a reasonable basis for the specific claims about the supplement’s ability to improve and maintain memory and cognitive ability.
Pharmavite stated that GreatMind contains vitamin E, folic acid, vitamin B12, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), acetyl-L-carnitine hydrochloride (ALCAR) and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM-e), in the same formulation as the ingredients used in the studies conducted by Dr. Shea and his colleagues, although the amount of vitamin B12 in GreatMind was increased to 12 mcg from 6 mcg. Following its review of the evidence in the record, NAD concluded that the results of the Shea Studies, which found statistically significant improvement in various measures of cognitive ability in those participants taking GreatMind, provided a reasonable basis for the specific claims about the supplement’s ability to improve and maintain memory and cognitive ability.