A health product sales group on the mainland has been exposed for using middle school chemistry experiments to create so-called “miraculous effects,” selling “Year of the Elderly Oral Liquid” at high prices to the elderly. The products involved are actually just ordinary sports drinks containing vitamin C, and over a thousand elderly people were deceived, with an amount exceeding 3.6 million yuan involved.
According to reports from multiple mainland media outlets, Mr. Liu, a resident of Qingpu District in Shanghai, reported to the police that his mother had participated in an offline health seminar and purchased a product called “Year of the Elderly Oral Liquid.” After taking the product for some time, many elderly individuals did not see any significant changes in their bodies. Some even experienced symptoms such as palpitations before realizing they might have been deceived.
Since October 2025, individuals like Li and Zhao recruited members for the group, using methods such as forging order screenshots and fabricating product efficacy to advertise on online platforms. They also collaborated with offline stores to hold health seminars. Group members, posing as “lecturers,” went to stores in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and other places to promote the products to the elderly.
During the sales pitches, the salespeople demonstrated a so-called “experiment”: they placed what appeared to be darkened and diseased pig lungs in a basin, then poured in a small amount of liquid. Within a short period, the liquid went from murky to clear, and the pig lungs also regained a brighter color. Salespeople used this to claim that the product had “purifying” and “repairing” effects.
The report states that this experiment actually involved soaking the pig lungs in a potassium permanganate solution to dye them, then pouring in a vitamin C solution to trigger an oxidation-reduction reaction that restored the color. Analysis revealed that the products in question did not contain any “Year of the Elderly” ingredients, but were simply a common vitamin C nutritional solution.
The salespeople packaged this chemical reaction as “stem cell repair” and “detoxification purification,” claiming that the related products could “cure all diseases” and even “reverse aging.”
The group lured store partnerships through methods like “3.5-fold supply, high-profit returns,” and promoted the so-called “Year of the Elderly” products to the elderly. The cost price of this health product set is around 130 yuan, where the group initially sold it to offline stores for about 900 yuan, which then sold it to the elderly for around 3000 yuan.
As of the time of the incident, over 1200 sets of the products had been sold, with the amount involved exceeding 3.6 million yuan.
Currently, Li, Zhao, and 20 other criminal suspects have been taken into criminal coercive measures on suspicion of fraud, and the case is still under investigation.