Many have written us to share the healthful results that they have observed in their own practices. Doug Odom, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist in Jackson, Mississippi, took his observations one step further, carefully documenting and analyzing the outcome of more than 350 pregnancies within his group practice over an almost three-year period.
“I’ve delivered literally thousands of babies over the past 30+ years,” says a smiling Dr. Odom. “And I’ve talked with expectant mothers about the importance of good nutrition ever since I started practicing. But it wasn’t until Juice Plus+® came along that I felt really comfortable recommending anything more than prenatal vitamins. “I was always worried that something I recommended could turn out to be harmful to my patients,” he explains. “Juice Plus+® is whole food based nutrition – a wide variety of nutritional elements from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. That just made good sense to me from the very first time I heard about it. On top of that, it’s backed by a whole body of published, peer-reviewed clinical research that’s impressive in terms of both quantity and quality. “You never see that with other nutritional products.”
Dr. Doug Odom began sharing Juice Plus+® with his patients in May 1998. “I started noticing improvements here and there, but we really saw it in the expectant moms. Pregnancy is a very physically demanding nine months: there’s such a rapid acceleration of tissue growth and, as a result, a rapid acceleration of free radical damage [oxidative stress]. I’ve always recommended ‘standard issue’ prenatal vitamins. But we started to see healthier pregnancies more often when I started to add Juice Plus+® to the regimen.”
Over time, Dr. Odom and his nursing staff noticed that with the Juice Plus+® moms, they were seeing fewer Caesarean deliveries (“Csections”), fewer premature deliveries, and a lower incidence of preeclampsia – a condition of late pregnancy that is characterized by high blood pressure and that can be potentially lifethreatening to both mother and baby. They also noticed that the newborns of these moms tended to have higher birth weights, fewer admissions to neonatal intensive care units, and a lower incidence of respiratory distress syndrome.
“It made sense to me that better nutrition would lead to healthier moms,” Dr. Odom recalls. “So, I decided to get a little more formal about my Juice Plus+® observations. “Looking back to January 2000, I categorized expectant mothers into two groups: one composed of women who took Juice Plus+® (two Orchard Blend and two Garden Blend capsules) every day in addition to prenatal vitamins, the other comprised of women who took prenatals only.” Dr. Odom “matched” subjects for age, ethnicity, prior pregnancies, and insurance status – “everything I could think of to make sure that the two groups were as close to identical as possible” – and ended up with 178 mothers in his Juice Plus+® group and 178 in his non-Juice Plus+® comparison group.
Dr. Odom compared pregnancy outcomes by reviewing the medical records of all 356 patients after delivery. “The results even surprised me,” he confides. He found that women who had added Juice Plus+® to their regimen had significantly fewer Caesarean deliveries (47% versus 66%), no premature deliveries before 37 weeks (compared to 35 women or 20% of the comparison group), and no diagnosed incidents of preeclampsia (versus 38 cases or 21% of the comparison group). The Juice Plus+® babies fared better as well. They weighed about a half-pound more at birth on average (7 pounds, 11 ounces versus 7 pounds, 3 ounces). None of the Juice Plus+® babies had to be admitted to neonatal intensive care (compared to 17 or almost 10% of the comparison group babies). Similarly, none of the Juice Plus+® babies studied were diagnosed with respiratory distress syndrome (versus 13 or 8% of the non-Juice Plus+® babies).
Dr. Odom offers a simple explanation: “Healthier moms have healthier babies.” Dr. Odom presented these findings to his medical colleagues at the annual meeting of the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in October 2003. The findings are also being published as a “retrospective descriptive analytic comparison” in the March 2006 issue of JANA, the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association. More importantly, Dr. Odom’s findings have led to the initiation of a methodologically rigorous (prospective, doubleblind, placebo-controlled, and randomized) clinical trial of the impact of Juice Plus+® on pregnancy health currently underway at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. “I am pleased to see that what I observed in our practice is now being taken to the next level of scientific investigation by my academic colleagues.
“Eight years ago, when I first started recommending Juice Plus+® to my patients, I did so simply because I believed that better nutrition would lead to improved medical outcomes,” he concludes. “Now, I recommend Juice Plus+® because I know that better nutrition leads to better outcomes.” Dr. Odom and his expectant mothers learned what so many of us already know: that good nutrition – including Juice Plus+® – really can make a difference in the health and wellness of people of all ages and at all stages of life. (from The Health & Wellness Newsletter of Juice Plus+®)
Dr. Angie Bell is an obstetrician/gynecologist and has been sharing Juice Plus+® with patients, friends, and families for several years now. She is so excited to see her patients having less preeclampsia, less c-sections, thicker and healthier umbilical cords, less constipation, lower homocysteine levels, less morning sickness and nausea, less pre-term labor, lowered risk of blood clots and miscarriages, and more.
