Pharmavite’s GreatMind claims vetted by NAD

NEW YORK — The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus on Wednesday announced that Pharmavite is able to support advertising claims for the company’s NatureMade GreatMind dietary supplement, pursuant to NAD’s ongoing monitoring of advertising for dietary supplements.

NAD, the advertising industry’s self-regulatory forum, reviewed claims that appeared in print and Internet advertising and on product packaging, pursuant to NAD’s ongoing monitoring of advertising for dietary supplements.

According to the advertiser, the product is a cognitive health supplement, based on a formulation developed and studied by Thomas Shea at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. The formulation had been studied in subjects with early, moderate, and later-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Those subjects showed improvement on certain cognitive and dementia rating scales, and formulation was then later studied in healthy subjects using cognitive scales to evaluate the effects, NAD stated.

GreatMind contains vitamin E, folic acid, vitamin B12, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, acetyl-L-carnitine hydrochloride, and 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. NAD noted in its decision that the first Shea study was a double-blind study, with 93 participants; the second, a six-month trial with the 38 subjects and no control; and the third, a two-week study with 43 subjects that compared treatment with the nutraceutical formulation with placebo.

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 believes consumers are best served when advertisers are held to the rigorous standards employed by NAD and appreciates the opportunity to participate in the self-regulatory process,” Pharmavite stated in its advertiser statement to NAD.