From time to time I get letters asking about the products in our Vitamin Store—how do they get there, why are they chosen, what makes them different?
So here’s the scoop:
I’m a vitamin product nerd. With few exceptions (like Barlean’s) the companies I choose for the website sell exclusively to health care professionals– their products are rarely available in stores or malls. I comb the catalogs of these top boutique manufacturers and I look for the products I think are outstanding formulas at fair prices. I look not only at “how much” magnesium something has, for example, but what kind of magnesium the company used (oxide? citrate? glycinate?) I consider whether the amount of an ingredient included in a formula is a clinically useful dosage. I look at the overall quality and reputation of the manufacturer, many of whom I actually meet and talk to in person at the various trade shows and nutritional medicine conferences.
I try to pick no more than one or two products in each category (vitamin E, joint support, multiples, omega-3’s) products that I think are the best on the market. Sometimes- in a crowded market like omega-3’s—I’ll have a few options (all excellent), but more often than not I try to narrow it down so that the choices aren’t overwhelming.
I can honestly say that there are no “bad” or “inferior” products in our catalogue, and that you really can’t go wrong with any of them.
In the last few months, I’ve been revisiting the catalogs of the companies that I’ve found to be consistently outstanding, as well as a few newcomers that have been thoroughly vetted. And I’m now proud to announce that we have expanded the product catalog by about 100 new products and I’d love you to go in and take a look at what we’ve got.
For example: I finally found a skin care line that I totally believe in. It’s as good as any of the insanely high-priced brands at Neiman Marcus and Nordstrum yet fairly priced. And it’s paraben-free, all-natural, not tested on animals and amazingly effective. I’ll be telling you more about that line in a few weeks.
We’ve added a multiple vitamin which comes from real food sources only. Several great products in the Women’s Health category (like AM/PM Menopause formula ). The superb pre- and post-natal line from Dr. Dean Raffelock. Several new products for stress, sleep and anxiety control. A number of top products for boosting the immune system like PureDefense and Immunitone Plus.
And… I’m really pleased to announce… we will now carry select products from the acclaimed Metagenics line, including the original “cleansing” medical food UltraClear, UltraClear Plus, and the Wellness Essentials for Men and Wellness Essentials for Women.
And that’s just a few of the new ones!
I hope you’ll go into the store and poke around. We’re very proud of the products we’ve chosen to be in the select group offered on our website, and we stand by each and every one of them.
And, as always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to write to me or post a question or comment to my blog. We’ll try hard to answer every one of them. You can also call our office anytime at (815) 331-5341– expect a call back within 24 hours.
Hi Jonny,
Thanks for all the time you spend doing this hard research for us. What I’d really like to see is your list of the supplements you think every person on the planet should be taking. There are so many to choose from in the store, and a lot of them are for very specific things, I just want a simple way to choose my basic supplement stack, and then add the things I need for my individual situation.
Alan
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Dr. Jonny,
Given this update about your supplement catalog, I thought this might be an appropriate place to ask you the following question.
I have a friend who is a personal trainer and he recently asked me if I thought it would be worthwhile for him to take Charles Poliquin’s BioSignature course. I contacted some fairly prominent nutritional folks with a presence in the online world, and they, much to my surprise gave it a thumbs down, and were making claims that it didn’t have much basis in solid science.
Since you are a no-BS guy and are very well versed in many aspects of nutrition and a lot of the cutting edge stuff that goes on, I figured it would be great to ask for your take on it, to the best of your knowledge, and if attending this would be a quality investment. From what I can tell, Coach Poliquin is anyone but a guy who doesn’t base his practices on things borne out by research. And he clearly gets top results, so this made the opinions I received somewhat surprising, almost as if bordering on sour grapes.
Hi Fred
The thing about “solid science” is it’s a pretty shifting target. If by “solid science” you mean has Poliquin funded multi-million dollar studies that meet the guidelines for FDA approved clinical trials, no there isn’t any. But you’d be surprised at how much “solid science” is spun data for the purposes of marketing (i.e. Lipitor). In any case, my overall impression with Charles is that his stuff works and he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t really know all the specifics of his BioSignature program, but he’s a pretty smart guy and been doing this a very long time and he has a lot of clinical experience which shouldn’t be discounted just because he doesn’t have double blind placebo controlled studies to “prove” it. After all, does Phil Jackson of the Lakers have double blind placebo controlled studies to show how his coaching methods work?
I don’t mean to disparage good clinical studies. They’re deeply important. But i wouldn’t dismiss Charles work based on some nutritional gurus opinion, especially since- as you point out- there’s an awful lot of sour grapes going on in this field. Just my opinion.
warmly
jb
Hi everybody!!!
I’m David.Douglas from Houston.
I am 41.
I’m working in Service
and i m very happy.
I’m married with 3 children.
My hobbies are :
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I often come here to read some news, i find them very interesting.
Regards,
Do not really know all the details of its program of bio-signature, but is a very intelligent and been doing this for a long time and has a lot of clinical experience that should not be dismissed because it has no double-blind placebo-controlled studies to prove it.