Does anyone know anything about ASEA Water / redox signaling molecules, or would be willing to tell me what they think please?

[ASEAskeptic]

I have a friend who is very keen for me to try ASEA Water to help with a health condition I have (autoimmune). She has apparently had quite incredible improvement after using it for a month in relation to her health condition (also autoimmune but different to mine). The ASEA website says it contains redox signaling molecules, which are apparently key to cell health / healing, ie they can help the body to tell itself to sort itself out instead of staying ill / inflamed.

That all sounds great except, on my reading of their website and a bit of googling, they seem to be a MLM company - which makes me skeptical in the first instance - and the ingredients of their ASEA water seem to be salt, and water. Apparently, they do various processes to it to create /release these redox signaling molecules.

I am not a scientist, in any way, and I don't have anyone sciencey enough to ask. Is this just snake oil in the form of salt water? The testimonials look incredible, the science looks indecipherable, and the stuff costs something like $35 US dollars per litre (hard to know, exactly, as it is only supposed to be available through their MLM distributers, but seems to also show up on Amazon).

My friend is absolutely adamant that they've been able to cut down hugely on their painkillers after starting to take this stuff. My friend isn't a distributor of it, and I really don't think she is trying to be misleading in any way. But I am very confused about how something that seems to be salt water could have even a placebo effect this good, let alone an actual effect --?

If anyone has any insight I would be enormously grateful. I'm 99% confidant that, surely, it has to just be all hype rather than that much of an incredible product, but the other 1% of me REALLY wants it to do exactly what is says on the bottle because that could be life changing for me. But so expensive and I'm so skeptical!!

aseascience.com/
aseaglobal.com/products/asearedoxsupplement/

It's bollocks

Thank you for replying!! That is pretty much in line with my reaction but then is my friend just having a placebo effect? Did you try it out?

Placebo effect is making your friend feel better.
It's sound like absolute quackery. I believe there's a website called Quackwatch, or something similar, that lists things like this, I'd do a bit of googling.

Oh thank you, I will have a look at that

No, I didn't, but it's clear from their marketing materials and press about it that it's not a medical product. If there actually was this cheap (er not for water I guess, but for a medicine) product that actually conferred all of these benefits in a scientifically measurable was, it would be being prescribed en masse rather than sold through an MLM, surely?

It's absolute, pure, marketing scam woo bollocks, as is crystal clear from that site.

For starters, no actual proven product or scientist or doctor would ever talk about a "weak immune system". And what even is a redox molecule?! A made up thing, is what.

If this water(!) had been shown to have real effects in clinical trials, it would be rightly classified as a drug and not available willynilly on the internet, because everything that has effects has side effects and those need to be understood and controlled.

File under S for Scam for the Soft-headed.

Thank you everyone this is very helpful in steeling my resolve not to cave to the pressure!
When I expressed some (gentle) reservations to my friend, she sent me a link to a password protected website where you can view testimonials which was. Why on earth would you put testimonials behind a password? I thought maybe was to make it all seem more desirable because it's all exclusive or something like that

*which was odd.

Absolute unmitigated bollocques.

There is absolutely no need to put testimonials behind a password lock. And bear in mind that anyone can write a testimonial. The company can write a hundred testimonials. A bot can write a million.

"Testimonials" are worth fuck all when it comes to medical and health products. You want to see actual scientific papers, published in reputable journals (anyone can start a "scientific journal"), referenced by other articles in reputable journals, with transparent reporting of all aspects of the experiment and results.

Well done for keeping your critical thinking hat on. You might enjoy the book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. As well as helping you spot and cut through this kind of bullshit, it's brilliantly funny and a very enjoyable read.

Bad Science, which I thoroughly recommend

Sounds like utter nonsense.

The placebo effect is real so I don't dismiss it.

But I'd choose something cheaper that I liked anyway: I take turmeric and ginger tea and laugh that it's "for my joints" but it also stops me drinking more coffee. So I figure it's an overall positive and enjoy the feeling it may be doing me some good.😉

It's expensive and it comes in a pretty bottle with a large side-order of sciencey woo. No wonder it's doing some top quality placebo-ing on your friend. The more expensive a painkiller, and the shinier the box, the better it works.

Redox is short for reduction and oxidation in school chemistry. It's a bit of flummery to trap the unwary.

Absolute bollocks!! MLM too by the sounds of it.

Redox reactions are reactions where both oxidation and reduction are taking place.
Redox signalling reactions from salt water. Give me strength!

Thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate you replying. That book looks great @BuffySummersReportingforSanity - and will almost certainly provide much better return on investment than a bottle of ASEA water

Does anyone have any ideas about what I can say to my friend? I don't want her to feel like I'm completely dismissing her experience and I don't know how to say 'thanks but I think it's all a con' without it pretty obviously implying that I think she's been conned. Of course if she's getting great results then perhaps it is still worth it to her even if it just for the placebo benefit... but not sure how to say that tactfully!

She's using 2 bottles of the stuff per week atm so it is a pretty big investment for her

@MinesAMassiveSalad thanks that is a great way to look at it. Perhaps I will take medicinal hot chocolate morning and evening.

Point her to this statement on their website “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

If the product had any actual medical benefits this wouldn’t be there.

That'll be the cocoa antioxidants you'll be after.😉

Yup, agree with everyone else. It's a steaming pile of horseshit.
It makes me angry that people try to exploit others by peddling this absolute rubbish.

Yes I'm feeling pretty upset/angry about it too. Because of course people who have conditions that really badly affect their quality of life are going to find it really hard not to think 'but WHAT IF this really is something that will make it all better' - it's much harder to just write it off as bunk if you don't have any decent proven medicines/therapies available to treat your condition (this is the situation I'm in) as there is a part of you that just really wants to try it JUST IN CASE. Very difficult to keep your rational head about you in these circumstances, so thank you all very much for helping me to keep mine! It really highlights how these companies prey on the vulnerable

I'd probably just stick to broken-recording "Thanks, but I don't think it's for me". She's a grown woman, and you telling her it's bullshit, while unquestionably true, is unljkely to go anywhere that positive for either of you.