Bio-WHAT? Yep. That’s what I thought too. When Lauren first told me about this, I thought it was a complete scam (not scan). So after some attempted brainwashing and convincing with a little help of a Dr. Oz clip, we were in the car and on the way to our first antioxidant scan test.
What is it exactly? It is a small machine produced by a company known as Pharmanex. The scanning machine is able to measure the carotenoid levels in the skin and determine how much antioxidants you are receiving through your diet. This handy little machine, the biophotonic scanner, uses technology called Ramen Spectroscopy. Ok, lamens terms, it points a laser into the palm of your hand and measures the amount of light reflected back. For all the pilots out there, it’s like a mini weather radar. What is special about this device is that the laser reflection is caused specifically by the unique molecular structure of the antioxidants, or carotenoids in the skin. So the more fruits and veggies one eats, the more carotenoids in the skin, the more reflected light, the higher the score.
What makes this so great is that prior to this device, the only way to accurately test for antioxidants in the skin was through a massive biopsy of a large piece of skin. Ouch! Pretty invasive, so no wonder no one went for that. This device is a bit less intrusive. You don’t feel a thing and it takes less than a minute to complete for a whopping $10. A great price to find out what your antioxidant levels are.
Why should I care about that? In a nut shell, antioxidants are vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that protect and repair cells fr0m damage caused by free radicals and oxidative stress. Oxidation creates molecular reactions that create free radicals which become a chain reaction. This leads to cellular breakdown which damages the DNA and can lead to mutations spurring cancer growth. Antioxidants stop this chain reaction.
Your score and what it means. The scores start from low to high: 0-19,000 (red), 20,000-29,000 (orange), 30,000-39,000 (yellow), 40-49,000 (green) and 50,000+ (blue). Think of it like the TSA warning colors at the airport, red is bad and green is good while anything blue is great. It gives you a good idea of where you stand and how good your body is at eliminating free radicals and preventing cancer and oxidative stress leading to heart disease.
Keep in mind that as flight crews, we are exposed to a massive amount of radiation flying all day at altitude. Couple with that a poor diet and we are really in trouble. So all the more reason for a whole foods, plant based diet. Sorry, there are no antioxidants in meat products.
So the big question still stands …. What were our scores?????? Ok, enough tech talk. Here it is ….
JOSH’S SCORE = 92,000
LAUREN’S SCORE = 78,000
To learn more, visit their website:
[button style=”btn-success” url=”http://www.nuskin.com/content/nuskin/en_US/products/pharmanex/scanner.html” size=”” block=”false” target=”_blank”] NuSkin Pharmanex Bio Scanner [/button]
There is also a plethora of information on the internet, independent studies and some Dr. Oz videos from his show that featured the scanner as well, happy searching! I was skeptical to find that they conveniently sell a product that will help raise your score. However, after the papers I read about the scanner itself and research performed, it seems pretty legit in it’s accuracy. I do believe that it is completely possible to obtain optimal results through diet alone, without supplements, and our scores prove it!