Turns out…not much.
See every once in a while, someone sees the information I deliver and while usually with a genuine heart to serve, offers to help me “do it better” with xyz product.
Sometimes a simple, “nah, no thanks…” really works and sometimes its a little more persistent than that. This time it totally aired on the side of a little more persistence and my personal news feeds on social media being COMPLETELY blown up with this stuff. I decided to take this persistent pal up on her offer and find out about this Plexus stuff.
Assuming that all of these people couldn’t possibly be having the fleece pulled over their eyes…I asked her to send me some information.
I posed the question, “What would you recommend if I came to you Ms. Plexus Peep and said I wanted to lose weight?”
Here is Plexus Peep’s response:
I would recommend the Triplex, Triplex is SLIM, Probio5, and Biocleanse.
She also described a bit which sounded like this might be a legit product line:
SLIM (the Pink Drink) is a once a day drink mix that safely & effectively helps regulate blood sugars, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides while helping burn fat and reducing hunger….PROBIO5 encourages a healthy intestinal tract and immune system by restoring the internal flora of your gut to its proper state…BIOCLEANSE oxygenates the entire body, enhances weight loss efforts, and detoxifies & cleanses your gut…All plexus products are plant based and have no artificial sweeteners, also all non GMO.
OKAY! Sounds good right?!! I can see with her description WHY so many people might be thinking this is the good stuff.
So here’s my “no skin in this game” review:
Plexus SLIM (aka “The Pink Drink”)
There are some ingredients that are generally wise to avoid, or at least not intentionally take on the daily. The good news is, I would NOT call it clinically dangerous I would put it in the “do not use” category. It is basically an energy drink, and we know the common issues with those. There are better ways to feel full and to gain energy and to even lose weight.
The problem with relying on something like a “slim” drink that energizes you and has fillers (although mostly plant based there are synthetic fillers listed on the ingredients list… polydextrose is the very first one) to make you feel full is that you are again only providing a bandaid to weight loss. Sure you may be able to lose weight, but then when you stop drinking this pink drink…you gain it all of your weight back and some. You put a bandaid on your weight issue, instead of dealing with the root causes. And not to mention for a company that is “truly about health” some of the ingredients are damaging to the gut.
Plexus ProBio5
I applaud Plexus for getting peeps on the probiotic bandwagon. Probiotics are important for EVERYONE from breast feeding infants all the way thru the elderly. I 1,000% agree that every human needs a good probiotic and that health begins in the gut.
So what’s wrong with PROBIO5? Well, it has a REALLY low CFU at only 2 billion. I recommend that kids take 30 billion and adults 30-50 billion per day depending on the answers to a few lifestyle questions.
One of the biggest concerns (other than not being therapeutic for the typical American diet), is that the CFU isn’t guaranteed after it leaves the manufacturer. Most probioitics (and certainly any that I recommend) guarantee that at least 50% of the little good bugs will be good until the expiration date. ProBio5 does not. So again, while its not dangerous…if its 100% alive, and that’s a big IF, it is still barely therapeutic.
BIOCLEANSE
This one might have been the MOST surprising to me. After all it sounds good right? “Oxygenates the entire body and helps your body eliminate toxins faster.” Turns out it just helps you poo — but only if you take it by the fistful.
Again, with BioCleanse, your local Plexus peep isn’t selling you anything that is dangerous…but there also isn’t anything that is in a high enough dosage to be helpful.
BioCleanse has 2 main ingredients, Vitamin C and Magnesium Hydroxide.
Vitamin C is a good antioxidant, and is good for lots of things. But at 150mg this isn’t really a therapeutic dose. At least not when its delivered without fats to create a liposomal Vitamin C and allow for better absorption. Bottom line, is it’s far from the claim of “oxygenating the whole body.”
The magnesium is in the hydroxide form which isn’t the beneficial bioavailable form for headaches or muscle cramps. Its actually listed right on the bottle as “magnesium hydroxide” which is…drumroll please…the generic form Pedia-lax (antacid and laxative for kids).
The dose listed on the label of 380mg, is 20 mg below the effective dose for a 2 year old. So it literally doesn’t do anything unless you take at least 4x the dose on the bottle if you are about an 150lb adult. It’s clear why Plexus would say that BioCleanse “speeds up the toxins leaving your body” because it is a laxative, but it is in the dose for a 2 year old child so that is a completely false statement for an adult taking the supplement as suggested on the label.
I had really high hopes that Plexus would be different, especially because an old friend was peddling it with a good heart.
The bottom line is, that you have to do your own research, find experts that you trust, and run things through your own intuitive filter before spending money on a bandaid. If you would like more information on what supplements fit most adults (and no, I’m not selling them — check out this post.)
Want to listen to this info? Check this Podcast out: