The Truth about Fancy Supplements

[MineralMan]

You're looking for vitamin and other supplements? There are dozens of slick websites with shopping cart applications for you to buy them. Some of those places have lots of content telling you why you should buy their particular brand of supplements. They're "better, purer, and have better ingredients and formulas" than those generic brands of supplements you find at the corner drugstore or supermarket. That's why they're more expensive, you see.

Well, in almost every case, here's what they're not telling you: They don't produce the ingredients that go into their pills and capsules themselves. In almost all cases, they don't manufacture the pills and capsules themselves, either. They're buying the finished pills and capsules from companies who will print nice labels and put the pills and capsules manufactured at their factory in them. If you want a special formulation, they can do that, too.

Here's one such company. You can go to their website and read all about their private labeling for supplements:

http://www.vitalabs.com/Private-Label-Vitamins/

They have over 100 formulations to offer. You just put your own name on them, get a graphic designer to design your fancy label and place your order. They'll ship your stuff to you and you can sell it on your web site. The markup is entirely up to you. Whatever the market will bear. You don't even have to know a thing about supplements. They'll print the proper labeling information for you and you're good to go. Starting small? Order as few as 24 bottles of a single formula. No problem.

Other companies that do the same thing:

http://www.vitakem.com/
http://www.dietceutical.com/
http://www.ionlabs.com/

Where do the raw materials come from that go into all of these nice pills and capsules? Well, there are only a few places that manufacture and wholesale them. The pill-makers, like the ones above, order the raw chemicals that go into these private-label supplements, then put them together to make those pills they'll put their label on. Some of the bulk supplement suppliers and distributors include:

http://purebulk.com/
http://www.bulkfoods.com/health.asp

There are many other sources of bulk ingredients, too. China is big in the manufacture of bulk supplement ingredients. The actual manufacturers of the individual ingredients sell them to the suppliers and distributors in drums and barrels.

So, whether you buy your supplements from Walgreens, your supermarket, or order them from that slick website and pay lots more for them, they all come from the same sources. Different labels. Different looks. Different formulations, perhaps. But all from the same sources. That website? They don't make anything. They just sell stuff. There's no factory there. More likely, it's a cheap office suite in some dreary commercial building.

So, if you're looking for supplements, shop around. Why pay more for the same pill or capsule. Do your research.

[HuckleB]

1. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Why do you hate capitalism?

;)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. lol

:)

[uppityperson]

2. Had a ND try and sell me his for double the price I found elsewhere

You are on a roll, aren't you? Thanks for posting and taking back the Health forum.

[CanSocDem]

3. "....taking back the Health forum."

From whom...???

The 99% of the population that isn't depending on the medical industry for a paycheck...???

Getting well known "liberals" aligned with the crusade to 'medical-ize' life, is a testimonial to die for. Reasonably well read liberals, who quite correctly earn their reputations questioning the status quo or at least the excesses of the corporate state, become, for whatever reason, oblivious to the machinations of ModernMedicineInc. As if Medicine isn't a corporation but rather this wonderful agent of life itself. The ONLY agency between the individual and good health.

As I was growing up my healthcare was free if I needed it, and I occasionally did. However, despite a high risk lifestyle, I learned to do without. I learned that the human body is a lot more resilient than the free-market medical industry would have you believe.

I understand how that realization, if spread to the masses, would be a disaster to the economic viability of your industry and the culture itself. In a society like ours, self-reliant, free thinkers like me and many others are challenging the institutions that want us to sit down and shut up and take what they give us(sell us...).

It could be the same spirit that led the OWS to lose faith in the economic system or the the TeaParty's lost faith in government. Whatever it is, people are taking a closer look at what they think is right rather than what they're told to think.

Are we the ones that have been holding the 'Health forum' away from you???

But since the forum is HEALTH and not 'INDUSTRY' don't expect the people to "sit down and shut up"....

.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. +1000

[uppityperson]

7. Since Big Vita and Big Supplement are also "INDUSTRY", guess you don't like them either.

Or do you mean that Health forum should be solely for those "INDUSTRY"s you approve of?

Since you write "challenging the institutions that want us to sit down and shut up and take what they give us(sell us...)", how can you them support all the supplement promotion?

Just because it is labeled "natural" or can be bought without an Rx does not mean it is good or needed. Just because something might need an RX does not mean it is bad. Trying to limit discussion to one or the other is bad.

[CanSocDem]

9. Close...but no cigar.

I don't promote "supplements". The only 'industry's' I support are the ones that put individual or community issues above corporate profits. In a free-market economy like yours, there are very few.

You may think that it is "Supplements vs. ModernMedicine" but that is only because one or two of the regulars here have no way to further their pro-industry agenda other than attempting to discredit the alternatives. I wouldn't go so far as to say that any pro-industrial position is essentially anti-humanist, but I'm thinking that is the case.

I support personal choice. Having worked in the advertising industry, I am aware of their ability to deprive you or deceive you on matters of choice. ModernMedicineInc. has successfully positioned themselves in the culture with the same deception that fuels 'the church'; as in without us, you're doomed. The profound irony is that the medical scientists rail against the 'magical thinking' of the religious by denying the personal power of individuals, in favour of their own industrial objectives and 'placebo' methodology.

I believe personal reality trumps everything. Of course, I encourage individuals to educate themselves without the influence of corporate groupthink. That means they can experiment with whatever is available. If they make a 'mistake' and suffer the consequences, it is still their choice. If they are free from institutional hype, there is nothing to worry about.

I should also add, that I don't support the church's contention that death is the end.


.

[BuddhaGirl]

10. +1

Indeed...such a lack of open-mindedness on this forum.

The alternative health/supplement industry isn't going away - more and more Americans want to take charge of their health :thumbsup:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Agreed ND's should not make a profit on medicine or supplements. There should not be

an incentive to push stuff on people that they may not need, and especially not for a hefty profit.

[uppityperson]

8. Which is a reason I don't sell products in my

massage therapy business. Too easy to take advantage of the susceptible. My father taught me to not buy glasses from the place that tested my vision or hearing aids from the place that tested my hearing. Same thing with medicines/supplements. I worked with a DC who made a LOAD of money selling stuff to his patients. Not "good to take X amount of Y" but "buy this and take it", even though was found many other places at a less expensive price.

Recommendations are 1 thing, but marked up whatever? Nope.

[Warpy]

11. I worked in a health food store many years ago

and was on the food side of it because I knew how to cook the stuff so that people wanted to eat it and didn't miss fast food when they did. One whole wall of that store was vitamins. I'd tell people that all the vitamin E at that time came from the same place (Eastman Kodak back then, believe it or not, the Eastman Chemical Corp. was a subsidiary) and so did the other stuff so they might as well stick to the cheaper labels and the RDA because anything more would only give them expensive urine while it drained their pockets. The store owner would just laugh because they'd always head up to the counter with the superduperultrastressmassivepotency stuff with the prettiest labels and the highest price.

But yes, all this stuff has come from the same few companies for a very long time. You're much better off buying supermarket or drug store vitamins if you take them.

[HuckleB]

12. .

:kick: