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| From the label, this vehicle could be a Yugo, a Ford Taurus or a BMW. All of them meet and exceed the minimum requirements for a moving vehicle. However, according a survey done by the Hartman Group, if that ingredient list represented a nutritional supplement, 66% of us buy Yugos. That is, two thirds of supplement buyers get their vitamins and herbs from WalMart, Kmart, or the supermarket. In terms of quality, most “house brand” supplements of mail-order companies, discount chains and mall franchises also belong in the category of “mass-market supplements.” Of course, Vitamin Connection customers are the ones who know the difference. I would also be the first to say that taking mass-market supplements is probably better than not taking anything at all. Still, I have to bite my tongue when I walk through a pharmacy department and see someone reading the label on a product I know will disappoint them.
So what makes one supplement a BMW and another a Yugo? Two basic things: 1) quality of ingredients; and 2) delivery system, or how well does the product get absorbed by your body to do what it is supposed to do. Quality of materials is the easiest to discuss. A couple of years ago I toured the Nature’s Way plant. I noticed that alongside the Nature’s Way supplements were products in identical bottles with different labels. When I asked what they were, my guide explained that they were products to be sold through a supermarket chain. I commented that it was convenient that they can run the same product and just change the label. “Oh, no,” he corrected me. “These products are much cheaper to make.”
Herbs, like other forms of produce, are sold through brokers. These herbs are purchased based upon the wants and needs of the manufacturer. Nature’s Way, Nature’s Herbs, and the other high-end manufacturers make sure they get the cream of the crop—and they pay more for the product to do so. Product samples are sent ahead to the manufacturer’s in-house labs, and verified for potency and impurities such as pesticides. Once a bulk shipment is approved and the batch arrives, it is tested again. If the batch passes, it is placed in quarantine for one to three months, and tested again. If at any point the product fails to meet standards, the shipment is rejected. The brokers, however, sell all their product. The lower the quality, the lower the price. Five hundred mg of poor quality Echinacea is legally still 500 mg of Echinacea, even if it is worth half the price of Nature’s Way Echinacea. How strict are the standards for high-end manufacturers? Several years ago, hurricane Hugo decimated Florida’s saw palmetto crop. Low quality saw palmetto was available, but the major herb manufacturers chose not to produce saw palmetto supplements that year, rather than lower their standards.
When discussing delivery systems, a further distinction can be made. 1) How easily does the form of a supplement get absorbed into the body? And 2) are ingredients combined for most effective absorption? As a rule of thumb, supplements are most easily absorbed in the form of liquids, then loose powders, capsules, and finally tablets. For the most part, however, liquids and powders are not as convenient or palatable as the pill forms. Capsules are more expensive to make than tablets. However, tablets probably vary the most in absorbancy. Generally, the looser and the more absorbable the binder, the more expensive it is to produce. The candy coated rock you get from a nationally advertised grocery store brand could contain just as much vitamin D as a multiple you find at Vitamin Connection. But it may still contain it when you eliminate the rock in your stool.
To demonstrate how combining ingredients can affect nutrient delivery, let’s look at a specific problem. The doctor says you need more calcium. So you do your research and find out that milk actually takes calcium out of your body, oyster calcium does about as much good as a candy coated rock and calcium citrate is better than calcium carbonate.* Next, you find that you need magnesium and vitamin D to form an enzyme needed to transport calcium into the bones. You also read that silica and boron can aid the process. So you head down to WalMart or Vitamin Connection and look for a calcium citrate with magnesium and D, and if it happens to have boron or silica, so much the better.
Unfortunately, body processes are more complicated than that. Calcium and magnesium are both absorbed by the same receptor sites in the intestines. Calcium gets there first and blocks the absorption of magnesium. The magnesium cannot form the enzyme in time, so the calcium is not ported to the bones. Some manufacturers’ research and development teams have tackled this problem. Rainbow Light increased the proportion of magnesium to calcium. Typical supplements contain 2 parts calcium to 1 part magnesium. Rainbow light reversed that ratio and produced a product with 2 parts magnesium to 1 part calcium. By increasing the magnesium concentration, more magnesium is absorbed, and therefore more calcium makes it to the bones. Source Naturals approached the problem differently. In their product called Calcium Night, the calcium is time-released so the magnesium has a chance to create the enzyme before the calcium enters the system.
Another example of how effectiveness can be increased by properly combining ingredients involves quercetin. Quercetin is a bioflavonoid found in the white layer between lemon slices and the peel. Because it decreases the permeability of cell walls, quercetin reduces the release of histamines, and is therefore used by allergy sufferers to guard against allergy season. Quercetin, however, does not digest easily, so manufacturers add bromelain, a digestive enzyme found in pineapples. Researchers have also found that 1000 mg of vitamin C greatly increases quercetin’s effectiveness. But when the popular press grabs hold of a hot topic such as quercetin, it may leave out explanations of how to best deliver the product to your body. Then a shrewd marketer rushes a product to market, labels it Quercetin, and says it contains 500 mg. But without the partner ingredients, will it work for the consumer?
By this time, some people might throw up their hands and cry out, “There’s just too much out there to know.” Even if you do your homework, it’s nice to be able to ask a question. If you want to know whether astragalus or echinacea is better for building your immune system, whom do you ask: the checkout person, the shelf stocker, the pharmacist, or the person working the vitamin store?
*In Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Balch and Balch recommend that you take a combination of different types of calcium. Some people absorb one kind better than another.
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