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Reliv International has just hired Dr. Thomas G. Reynolds, Ph.D as their new director of research and development and technical affairs. Reynolds will focus on research and development. Dr.Reynolds has a Ph.D in food technology from Clemson, and brings with him over 2 decades of experience in the food research and development industry.

Reynolds has a long and distinguished background in the research and technology fields, specializing in food production. During his career, Reynolds has served as executive vice president, innovation for Ubiquity Brands as well as vice president, technical services for NutraSweet Company.

Most recently, Dr. Reynolds had been consulting with food industry company on new products and operational improvements as the owner of his own consulting firm, Innovative Food Solutions, LLC.

“Dr. Reynolds has broad ranging industry experience in the areas of product development, quality assurance, plant operations and sales and marketing,” said Dr. Carl W. Hastings, chief scientific officer and vice chairman of Reliv. “The breadth of his experience will provide great value to Reliv, and we are particularly happy to have his experience in creating innovative new products,” Hastings added.

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Reliv, a leader in nutritional supplements, has just announced their newest product, GlucAffect, a powder based formula that the company says has been shown to reduce blood glucose levels and aid in controlling weight.

GlucAffect’s main ingredient, Pycnogenol is a nutrient rich antioxidant that has been shown in clinical studies to provide many health benefits, namely lowering high blood glucose levels. High blood glucose levels along with excess weight are two of the main factors in metabolic syndrome, a disease which increases the chance of suffering from heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Nearly 47 million American has metabolic syndrome according to the American Heart Association.

Reliv conducted its own clinical study of 50 overweight people who showed signs of elevated blood glucose levels. During the eight week study, the subject taking GlucAffect not only lowered their
fasting blood glucose by around 30% percent, but also lost an average of 16 pounds.

“Metabolic syndrome is a serious, emerging health concern among the medical community, and physicians are more frequently looking to nutritional science as a complement to traditional care and prescriptive remedies. We see the study results of GlucAffect as a significant development,” said Dr. Carl Hastings, vice chairman and chief scientific officer, Reliv.

The new product comes in a powder form that can be blended with any liquid; water, juice, coffee or
milk to make a nutritional beverage. The product is now available to all customers in the 13 counties where Reliv operates. This is Reliv’s 13th nutritional product. The Missouri based company currently has five products that are already patented and 2 more on the way.

Of course, it is important to note that none of the statements above have been approved by the FDA-studies that corroborate Reliv statement were done for and by the company itself.

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Reliv International profit dropped 40 percent in the third quarter due to the sluggish economy,

The nutrition and direct-selling company posted Wednesday net income of $536,000, or 4 cents a share, in the third quarter, down from net income of $901,000, or 6 cents a share, a year ago.

Reliv reported sales of $24 million in the third quarter, down 4 percent from sales of $25 million a year earlier.

As of Sept. 30, Reliv’s distributor base totaled approximately 68,540, which represents a slight drop from a year ago.

“The third quarter was not as strong as we had hoped for, and we believe the shocks to the U.S. economy in September played a role in our sales decline,” said Robert Montgomery, president, chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

“Short-term, restructuring our European operations significantly reduced our pre-tax losses in that region as we expected. But that improvement was negated by lower U.S. pre-tax profits resulting from a sales decline.”

“We launched an automatic shipping program in the U.S. at our International Conference in August, which we believe will be a long-term positive for our business. We also launched the program in Australia this month,” he added.

“In addition to a planned product launch on Nov. 8, we continue to look for proven incentive programs to stimulate sales, and we have a national conference for U.S. distributors scheduled for February 2009, which should further motivate our field,” Montgomery said.

As of Sept. 30, 2008, Reliv’s distributor base totaled approximately 68,540, which represents a slight drop from a year ago.

“We are focused on turning around our U.S. business by sticking to the basics: Reliv makes nutrition simple. Our products can play a role in supporting many thousands of people’s efforts to live a healthier life. In addition, we offer distributors an outstanding business opportunity,” he added.

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Well, it’s almost that time again, time for companies to begin releasing their 3rd quarter results. In the next few weeks we will hear from several of the major companies about what their business has been like the last few months and practically speaking, we aren’t expecting anything great (maybe overseas).

As we all know, the economy has struggled quite a bit lately, and although history shows that direct sales companies generally thrive in times of financial crisis, the current economic landscape is unlike anything we’ve seen since the 1920’s - especially since this is affecting all global economies.

Reliv (NASDAQ: RLV), NuSkin (NYSE: NUS) and USANA (NASDAQ: USNA) are the first of many companies who have set dates to release the news. USANA will be the first of the group to release the results on October 14, 2008. Executives will hold a conference call to discuss the announcement the following morning at 11 am Eastern time.

NuSkin will release their results prior to the market opening on October 29th. Truman Hunt, NuSkin President and CEO will hold a conference call with investors that same day at 11 am. And finally, on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Reliv will hold a conference call to discuss results of the third quarter which will be hosted by President, CEO and Chairman Robert L. Montgomery and VP and CFO Steven D. Albright.

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