How To Choose the Best Vitamins or Nutritional Supplements

Nutrition Supplements Info You Really Need to Know

What is the best vitamin or nutritional supplement? It can be maddening sorting through the unending number of vitamins on the market today. Based on my over 25 years of experience, I feel I can offer to you some simple yet effective tips when choosing quality vitamin supplements for not all vitamin supplements are created equal.

Until there is a medical review of emerging nutrition supplements, hopefully this short article will be that guide for you.

Clearly, it’s vitally important to your health that you choose vitamin supplements that are actually USED or assimilated by the body and not quickly eliminated. Did you know that 90% of vitamin supplements are actually urinated out?

Don’t believe me? Try this simple test.

Take an off-the-shelf vitamin brand, follow their recommended daily allowance and within an hour, sometimes less, you will urinate it out — and your urine will have a significantly darker yellow color.

I know talking about body elimination is not something one talks about at parties, but it is important to understand what is happening here.

Why does that happen? It’s because the vast majority of supplements are not assimilated by the body and because they are in fact literally not capable of being utilized by the body. Yet the supplement industry of which vitamin or nutritional supplements are a part, are a literal multi-billion dollar a year enterprise.

Without any further adieu, here are the key things to look for when choosing quality vitamin supplements. 

1. Product Development and Nutrient Reactions: The supplement you're considering should be rigorously tested and its creation process overseen by certified professionals. Vitamins work in a precise symbiotic synergism. Getting optimal assimilation is 0% art, 100% science. In other words, the vitamin supplements should be scientifically formulated and each batch should be certified (see point #2).
2. Manufacturing Procedures: These should utilize pharmaceutical blending not paddle/ribbon blender-type mixers. In addition, contact the company to ask if they have a Certificate of Analysis (COA) on file, confirming the potency of each batch. If the company ignores you or hesitates, that’s not a good sign. Lastly, you should select a vitamin supplement maker that adheres to pharmaceutical GMP compliance — this is the highest standard possible.
3. Optimal Delivery System: The supplement should have enteric coating for optimal assimilation in the human system. (I discuss this more in depth later on in this webpage.) This is critical yet almost nobody considers this when choosing a vitamin. If they did, they would save a lot of money.
4. Product Quality & Freshness: The ingredients the vitamins are made from should be made in smaller batches with the manufacturing process NOT outsourced out to other manufacturers. Remember, most vitamin and mineral supplement makers, as ill as herbal product manufacturers are unregulated by the FDA. While this has its pros and cons, a vast majority of vitamin supplements don’t even insert the claimed ingredients into the supplement and contamination is a legitimate threat (again, this is why you want pharmaceutical GMP compliance).
5. Nutraceutical Quality: You want a vitamin supplement that is pharmaceutical grade quality. Again, look for vitamins that are enteric coated.
6. Value for Money: They should be inexpensive yet provide discernible benefits. However, with that said, the old saying of "you get what you pay for" is true. For a nutraceutical-quality, pharmaceutical grade vitamin supplement, expect to pay $45 to $50 or so per 30-day supply. You get what you pay for. In the long run, paying for quality is never dumb.
7. Vitamins & Co-Factors, Standardized Herbal Extracts, Amino Acids, Active Enzymes, & Essential Minerals and Trace Elements. Ideally, a multi-vitamin should have vitamins but the necessary co-factors along with the other elements mentioned in the bullet point #7. The more comprehensive containing a broad range of synergistic nutrients and micro-nutrients is essential for maximum impact.
8. Excipients. The "excipients" should be the highest quality. Ask the vitamin manufacturer as to what specific excipients they’re using. Excipients are the binding agents that hold together the vitamin tablet. Excipients are substances that are added to vitamin formulas or tablets that bind while not providing nutritive value. Examples of excipients include monoglycerides, magnesium stearate, modified food starch, etc. Some vitamin companies even use silica — or what people usually refer to as "sand" — as an excipient.
9. Easy to Use: They should be easily ingestable at any time.
10. Product Delivery: The supplement should be easy to order and shipping should ideally be free.
11. Money-Back Guarantee: The longer the guarantee, the better. Look for guarantees longer than 30 days. You want 120 days or more. The longer the guarantee, the more convinced the manufacturer is of their product.
12. Contact Information: It should be very easy to contact the company via phone and email.

Manufacturing Process

Another key component of vitamin potency comparison is the manufacturing process. There are four main areas of manufacturing that are relevant here, i.e., scientific formulation, potency of ingredients (I’ve already discussed that), type of facility, and verification of ingredients on label. Let’s discuss them now in more depth.

Scientific Formulation

When doing a vitamin supplement comparison, the ideal supplement should be scientifically formulated yet literally almost all of the vitamin supplements on the market worldwide are not.

It’s critical that in a multivitamin with many nutrients be formed with scientific knowledge at the cellular level. Did you know that some vitamins cancel each other out and some need other minerals to do their job. For example, Vitamin D actually enhances calcium absorption in the body, and inhibits its excretion by the kidneys, yet boron is important for calcium utilization; vitamin B5 is critical to metabolizing amino acids. In addition, a good vitamin will stimulate the liver to make CoEnzymeQ10 thus avoiding the need to purchase this important but expensive ingredient, (unless the user is taking a statin drug).

Type of Facility

In the vitamin potency comparison process you may be engaged in, look for GMP certified facilities that are regularly inspected by government authorities. Do you think this irrelevant? Supplement fraud is utterly rampant Here’s one example. As reported by Medscape 1/24/2000, "High levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been identified in five brands of shark liver oil capsules that are available internationally over-the-counter." PCBs are toxic to the body.

In another study done by Time Magazine as reported July 31, 2000, eight of 21 brands tested we’re found to have pesticides and lead. This dovetails into my next point, verification of ingredients. Pharmaceutical GMP compliant facilities verify not only purity and potency of ingredients, but they also validate the existence of label proclaimed ingredients. Many so-called vitamin manufactuers actually don’t have the ingredients in the vitamin as stated on the label! Such fraud is commonplace, unfortunately.

Specifics About Enteric Coating

I referred to enteric coating earlier in this report but now let’s discuss it in depth. Before we discuss this, however, please don’t underestimate the importance of the delivery system. This is absolutely vital! In fact, most don’t even consider it and it is the most important aspect of the vitamin supplement outside of the formulation of the ingredients. Without a good delivery system a supplement is rendered useless. Many supplements will pass through the body with the active ingredients never being released. Other supplements will lose their efficacy when active ingredients are released in the stomach and they are converted to less potent ‘salt’ forms by the hydrochloric acid present in the stomach.

The design of good vitamin supplements uses two techniques to ensure that the active ingredients reach the liver via the blood stream for distribution to various body organs and cells. Look for a synergistic, scientifically engineered blend with all ingredients assessed at molecular level to ensure synergy, safety and effectiveness. This is crucial because when some ingredients are combined they will help create other substances in the body. For a vitamin manufacturer to enteric coat their vitamins says a lot about the quality they want to give their customers for it is expensive and sophisticated to do so.

Enteric coating is an inert substance that protects the active ingredients. It encases the active ingredients using the technology known as enteric coating — the same coating almost all pharmaceutical drugs have. This enables the active ingredients to be released in the upper intestine (the duodenum), thus avoiding damage to any of the nutrients. It binds various active ingredients with larger molecular size to selected enzymes which when released in the upper intestine break the molecules down to a smaller size to enable easy transfer of the nutrients through the intestinal wall into the blood stream and then on to the liver.

This delivery system enables the tablets to pass through your stomach undamaged by the harsh stomach acids. When your enteric-coated vitamin tablets go into the alkaline environment of the duodenum (the first part of your small intestine), the enteric coating dissolves in 20 to 30 minutes. Once that is accomplished, the active ingredients of the vitamin tablets are released over a period of 25 to 35 minutes. This happens before the tablets finish its journey through your duodenum. The end result is that the active ingredients are absorbed into the blood stream.

So, now you can see why you should only settle for the sophisticated enteric coated delivery system. To settle for run-of-the-mill vitamins is a waste of money for you’re almost literally flushing your money down the toilet.

There you have it. Follow these guidelines and you will not only save money but you will get the best vitamin supplement possible.

If you only remember one thing from this report, remember this: You want pharmaceutical grade quality supplements. Anything less is a waste of money and you’re being taken.

After literally looking years for the best vitamin supplements around, I found a company that meets all these criteria discussed in this free report.

I was at first skeptical as so many vitamins I’ve tried in the past didn’t come anywhere near close to their promised benefits (read my home page to see just how jaded I was). As this company has a 6-month, 100% money-back guarantee, though, that persuaded me to give it a try.

No company offers that kind of guarantee unless they are absolutely sure their products are top quality. Moreover, they actually guarantee a minimum of 80 percent assimilability! That is, to the best of my knowledge unprecedented in the supplement or vitamin industry.

Of course, you won't be able to quantify the exact percentage of bio-assimilation without your system. However, you will feel the difference in your health. I know I did and it was tangible.

When I decided to give them a shot, I thought if they’re willing to back up their products with such a bullet-proof guarantee, they must be really confident in their line of products.

So, I gave them a test period and I literally and immediately felt better. I’ve been taking their vitamins now for five and a half years and have improved my health commensurately. I realize now I felt better as I had a vitamin deficit and such a feeling of "flushing" is common to those who don’t have enough critical vitamins and minerals in their system. Of course, everybody’s different and you might have another effect.

I take these vitamins on a daily basis. (Or, I take their other supplements, e.g., their bee pollen supplement or their fish oil supplements.) They have female specific vitamin as well as male specific vitamins that are formulated with the differences of the sexes in mind.

They are based in New Zealand and in their country, vitamin supplements are actually required to adhere to the same quality standards that drug manufacturers in the US are required to follow. As you may know, vitamin manufacturers are not regulated in the US and that may be why there is so much dishonesty and fraud being committed right now with the supplement industry.

I had to go out of the US to find my supplements (they ship anywhere in the world with orders over $60 USD getting you free shipping). Even without qualifying for free shipping their shipping prices are comparable to prices in the domestic US. Delivery only takes 4 to 10 business days. I live in California and get mine in four to five days typically.

I recommend them heartily without reservation. You can find out more about their product line here by clicking this best vitamin supplement link.

Yours in health, hope, and harmony,
Nutritional-Supplement-Bible.com