Price: $3.99
Features: Unappealing taste, questionable benefit, unpronounceable ingredients
Found in: Vitamins
Air Armor is TJ's generic equivalent to Airborne, the supposed "immune boosting*" effervescent tablets that so many people swear by these days. Do I sound a little skeptical? Well, that little star up there next to immune boosting corresponds to this warning, printed no less than 4 times on the package: "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."
At least they are upfront, because they are forced to be by the FDA, in saying that their product is basically useless. No study has proven with any conclusive evidence that Airborne is at all effective. In fact, the study which purported to have positive results was disqualified because it was paid for by the manufacturer and conducted improperly. Read about that here.
I have tried both the lemon-lime and orange flavors of Air Armor. The lemon-lime flavor is less unappealing, but still tastes like bad medicine. Personally, I have not felt that this product did anything to prevent a cold from coming on or decrease its duration. I do find it to be an extremely effective method of increasing flatulence (perhaps that is a type of Air Armor in itself).
Questions of effectiveness aside, I'm not even sure this stuff is good for you. Each tablet contains 1000mg of Vitamin C, 1667% of the RDV. The directions say to take one every three hours up to 4 times a day. That is a mega-dose of Vitamin C, and far over the RDV of Vitamins A and E, Zinc, and Manganese, plus 44% of your RDV of sodium. Not to mention alot of "Herbal Extract Proprietary Blend," with things like Arabinogalactan and Shizonepeta extracts. What the heck?
The bottom line is that this product which claims to boost your immune system but then also states that it isn't supposed to do anything is best left on the shelf. The only good thing I have to say about Air Armor is that it is $2.00 less of a rip-off per package than Airborne. So if you must, at least waste less money!
2 comments:
I tried Airborne for the first time a little while ago to help combat a minor cold. The outcome, Airborne: 2, cold: 0. It absolutely destroyed my symptoms, which was well appreciated. However, I should note that this could be from a placebo effect, possibly similar to how Kombucha does wonders (in the "it's so bad it must be good for you" approach). This is not to say that the taste was bad, but rather the ridiculous price and list of "ingredients."
I just recently returned from Alaska where everyone is getting the Flu, and I took Air Armor and didn't even get sick!
It has some of the herbal antiviral's as the chinese Yin Ciao
+ Larix and V cit + all the other stuff in there.
It is BETTER Than Airborne b/c it has Larix in there, Which is known in herbal circles as "super Echinacea"
Now I just went to TJ's to find it and she said they are not going to carry it???? I sure hope not b/c it is better than the original!
Post a Comment