My last post  Nutritional Supplements – Going Going GONE  contained a article by Byron Richards which sums up perfectly the shocking plans of the FDA to destroy the supplement industry.

I hope all Americans who read it let their voices be heard by using the link at the end of that article to visit the ‘Take Action’ page on the wellness resources site and follow the instruction there.

It’s important to keep all American supplement consumers informed and up to date with this story and keep encouraging more and more people to contact both the FDA and their senators and voice their strong disapproval.

Today I’m reprinting an article from the Mercola.com website which discusses this story in further detail and also contains a link to another ‘Take Action’ site put up by the Alliance for Natural Health

FDA Set To Ban Your Supplements

Tuesday, September 13, 2011  -  Dr. Mercola

The FDA has issued a proposed mandate that represents the greatest threat to dietary supplements since 1994. Back in the early 1990s, consumers were so alarmed by FDA bullying that they staged a massive revolt. The result was that Congress passed a law prohibiting the FDA from banning popular nutrients (as the agency had threatened to do).

There was, however, a loophole in the 1994 law. The FDA was given authority to regulate ingredients introduced after October 15, 1994.

It has been 17 years, but the FDA just issued draconian proposals as to how it intends to regulate what it now calls “new dietary ingredients”. You can find the FDA Draft Guidance on New Dietary Ingredients (NDI’s) here. If implemented, some of the most effective nutrients you are taking will be removed from the market. This includes many fish oil formulas and natural plant extracts. A detailed analysis of the FDA Draft Guidance is available here.

These oppressive rules are exactly what the 1994 law (DSHEA) sought to prevent. The FDA is using its authority in direct violation of Congressional intent.

In order for these ingredients you are using today to return to the market, the FDA will require manufacturers to conduct outrageously expensive studies using absurdly high doses, in some situations multiplied by a “safety factor” up to 2,000-times the recommended dosage on a per product basis.

The FDA defines dietary supplements as being “new” if they were introduced after October 15, 1994. That means that even certain nutrients that have been safely used over the course of three decades will be subject to the FDA’s oppressive policies that mandate costly animal testing.

The FDA Views Supplements in Same Light as Synthetic Food Preservatives

According to the new guidelines, the FDA believes that “new dietary supplements” must be regulated similarly to synthetic food preservatives. The FDA guidelines have modeled the outrageous safety thresholds after those in place for food additives. This appears to be in direct violation of DSHEA, the law enacted in 1994 to protect consumer access to dietary supplements, which classifies dietary supplements as foods, not food additives.

The FDA proposes that new dietary supplement ingredients should adhere to aggressive safety margins, which are typically reserved for chemical compounds known to be dangerous in all but the most miniscule concentrations.

Since food additives or preservatives such as aspartame, monosodium glutamate, and sodium nitrate are known to cause cancer or other severe health problems, the FDA has implemented safety guidelines which limit allowable concentrations of these food additives to levels that are supposed to be physiologically inert.

The fact that the FDA is trying to impose the same limits upon dietary supplements seems to be arbitrary and completely unfounded. In fact, when someone takes a dietary supplement, their intent is to positively affect the structure or function of their bodies in some way – limiting dosages of dietary supplements to physiologically inert levels defeats the entire purpose of supplementation with health-sustaining nutrients.

The FDA’s new guidelines are so flawed that even nutrients shown to be completely safe in hundreds of human clinical studies would fail to accommodate the unreasonable safety margins.

To give you an example, each manufacturer of certain fish oils would have to conduct a one year study where animals would have to consume the human equivalent of 240,000 milligrams each day of fish oil.

Another option under the FDA’s proposed mandates is to conduct a 90-day, 1,000 – fold safety margin study in which two species of animals, one being non-rodent – likely young beagle dogs, will theoretically consume the equivalent of 2.4 million milligrams of fish oil daily. We know of virtually no species can tolerate this high dose, so by default, FDA guidelines will make it impossible for certain omega-3 supplements to be sold. (Note typical dose of EPA/DHA people take each day is around 2,400 mg—100 times less than what the FDA proposes must be tested.)

Since these are not patented drugs, no supplement maker will be able to afford these “safety” studies, which means that many of the nutrients you now purchase at low prices will convert into high-priced drugs.

Pharmaceutical Industry Profit Threatened By Low Cost Supplements

It appears that the FDA is claiming that dietary supplements are unsafe, and in order to “protect consumers” the agency must place a stranglehold on the dietary supplement industry by requesting exorbitant safety testing. These ludicrous safety thresholds are in excess of those required by pharmaceutical drugs despite studies showing supplements are far safer than drugs.

According to the 2001 report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), of the substances implicated in fatal poisonings in 2001, 84.6 percent were pharmaceutical drugs, with analgesics being implicated as the primary cause of death in 32 percent of fatalities or 341 deaths. This compares with 0.8 percent for all dietary supplements combined, even including substances such as dinitrophenol, a dangerous (and illegal) substance banned in 1938, as well as the central nervous system stimulant Ma Huang (Ephedra). Interestingly, the anti-asthma drug theophylline alone was responsible for 15 deaths, 66 percent more than all the available dietary supplements combined.

There is, however, a massive economic benefit for the drug industry if the proposed guidelines are enforced by the FDA. Health conscious Americans who properly supplement slash their risk of degenerative disease. The FDA’s new rules, if enacted, will force the price of many supplements to surge upwards, while removing many effective ones altogether. That means that more aging people will have to rely on side effect laden prescription drugs to treat the degenerative diseases they will contract because they will be denied access to health-promoting nutrients.

What You Can Do to Stop this Impending Carnage!

No one can sit on the sidelines with an emergency of this magnitude about to befall everyone who depends on dietary supplements. As citizens, we have the constitutional right to petition the government to redress our grievances. In this case, the FDA proposals pose a direct threat to our health and longevity.

We therefore have to take extraordinary measures to defend our right to continue using supplements that our very lives depend on, and to gain access to new natural ingredients that demonstrate efficacy in scientific studies.

I ask each one of you contact your representatives by following this link:

Contact your local representative now!  (Please use this link)

Recall how Consumers revolted back in 1994 and the result was a glorious victory over FDA tyranny!

Let your voice be heard by exercising your right to petition the government against these serious violations of the law and scientific principle.   Please be sure to call, fax, or send a certified letter to your representative – emails can be easily dismissed.

Here is a set of talking points for your consideration:

• My name is [Name] and I am a constituent of [Congress Member’s name].

• I am very concerned about the new FDA draft guidance on dietary supplements and new dietary ingredients.

• I request that Congress hold hearings and take action to review the FDA’s draft guidance and stop their overreach of power.

• The FDA’s draft guidance flies in the face of the original congressional intent of the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act: The guidance turns what was meant to be a simple notification system for new dietary ingredients into a preapproval scheme that Congress did not intend to create.

• Congress recognized that dietary supplements are natural ingredients and therefore inherently safer than drugs and chemical food ingredients. It did not intend that the FDA would have the power to approve or reject dietary supplements.

• The FDA’s draft guidance creates unnecessary regulations that limit my access to dietary supplements I rely on. The expensive and burdensome process will force between 20,000 and 42,000 dietary supplements to be removed from the market and will increase the cost of those supplements that remain.

• The draft guidance hurts our economy. Expert analyses show that this guidance will cause a total economic loss of $21.2 billion to $39.8 billion annually.

• Thank you for your time.

Tips:

• Be courteous and respectful.

• Keep your comments brief and focused on the facts.

• Always thank the staff member for their time taking your call.

SAMPLE LETTER TO CONGRESS:

The Honorable _________________________  Washington, DC

In direct violation of the law, the FDA is threatening to ban my access to new dietary supplements.

The FDA defines dietary supplements as being “new” if they were introduced after October 15, 1994. That means that nutrients that I have been safely using over the course of three decades will be subject to FDA’s oppressive policies that mandate costly animal testing, which translates into forced withdrawal from the market, and higher prices for me if the supplement is ever allowed to be sold again.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 states that:

“The Federal Government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers limiting or slowing the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers.”

It says that Congress finds that:

“dietary supplements are safe within a broad range of intake, and safety problems with the supplements are relatively rare.”

And it says that:

“legislative action that protects the right of access of consumers to safe dietary supplements is necessary in order to promote wellness.”

 

This draft guidance does the exact opposite of what Congress intended. It imposes unreasonable barriers that limit and slow the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers. I call upon Congress to:

1. Uphold the landmark legislation it passed seventeen years ago, and to direct the FDA to revise its New Dietary Ingredient draft guidelines to reflect DSHEA’s (and Congress’s) stated values and goals.

2. Vote against the newly introduced Dietary Supplement Labeling Act as this would give the FDA even greater arbitrary powers to remove safe dietary supplements from the market, and will profoundly impact this nation’s health in a negative way.

All of these proposals result in wasteful federal spending, while at the same time impose a massive new “regulatory tax” on consumers and the vitamin industry.

Kindly let me know what actions you are taking in response to the urgent issues raised in this letter.

Sincerely,
Name________________________________________
Address______________________________________
City______________________ST____ Zip___________

“I would like to know if you have evaluated Dr Ben Kim’s Greens powder”.

Thank you

Response from Brett:

Hi again Tricia

I’ve looked through Dr Ben Kim’s website and I’m sorry to say it’s just another example of a ‘doctor’ taking advantage of consumers lack of knowledge about supplement quality and nutrition.

In my site I have stressed to my readers many times that doctors have no formal training whatsoever in how to formulate professional grade supplements nor how nutrients interact at the molecular level in the body. This is a specialized science.

Any Doctors who have done additional training (and that is very little of them), clearly highlight those qualifications on their websites and it is impossible to miss it – you would instantly know about it.

Dr Kim states on his site that he is a “chiropractor and acupuncturist”. I see no other specialized qualifications other than his experience gained through treating his patients- which still doesn’t make him a credible authority on supplements. Some of the info below and much throughout nutritional supplement truths website shows that people like Dr Kim are not presenting the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

I’m not saying that you have to have specialized degrees in pharmacology, organic chemistry. Microbiology and the like (I certainly don’t) IF you have access to, and are going to, present the truth and scientifically established facts to your readers and customers. However this is just not the case with the majority of doctors, and other professions who can use the prefix ‘Dr’.

To give you some background, I just spent under 5 mins looking at the [tag-ice]multivitamin whole food[/tag-ice] formula which Dr Kim promotes (I will get to Greens powder which you asked about in a moment) as an exceptional product. That’s all the time I needed to be able to tell you the following.

His statement about the superiority of this supplement is misleading to say the least.

It is a very ordinary [tag-tec]multivitamin[/tag-tec] and at $48 a bottle it is REALLY expensive for what it is. I believe it offers very poor value for money.

To set a comparative benchmark for supplement value for money you might like to compare Greens to the supplement I use – [tag-ice]Total Balance[/tag-ice], (which is reviewed in-depth on [tag-tec]nutritional supplement truths[/tag-tec] (use this link)

http://www.nutritional-supplement-truths.com/Total-Balance.html

and then you will see that Dr Kim’s [tag-ice]supplement[/tag-ice] is missing key, highly efficious (and expensive) ingredients like:

• L-Glutathione

• Resveratrol

• Tocotrienols

• L-Carnosine (in fact no amino acids at all)

• Bilberry

• Turmeric (high potency)

• Zeaxanthin

• Gender support nutrients

and so on.

When it comes to the few expensive ingredients that are there (like cranberry) they are extracts (meaning much weaker efficacy).

Plus the [tag-ice]herbal extracts[/tag-ice] used are not standardized!!! That’s a big no – no (well there’s no info on them being standardized, only extract ratios for each herb used, so its obvious they are not standardized otherwise that would definitely be mentioned as it’s important).

This multivitamin contains 250 mg of vitamin C which is way too much. This is one of the cheapest ingredients which manufacturers use to fill up a tablet (cheaply)- yet Dr Kim boldly goes on to say how this supplement contains none of the usual fillers (pectin etc) which is technically correct.

Instead it is just filled with too much vitamin C (which he doesn’t mention of course). Manufacturers always try to justify these over the top amounts under the “optimal amounts” scenario and that you need more than the RDA recommendations (which health-conscious supplement users do not!).

Now, I know you didn’t ask about this product in particular (and I’m still coming to ‘Greens Powder’) but just wanted to show you how these ‘doctors’ are essentially just marketers in disguise and they are fooling people via their qualifications into buying average products at HIGHLY INFLATED PRICES.

Dr. Kim talks about the normal retail price of this multivitamin as being (over $70) which is CRIMINAL if that is the case, and then goes on to tell you that he only takes a small profit cut so he can offer it to you at $48 a bottle. This is clever marketing - ‘Make the consumer think you are doing him/her a favor – win their trust – establish a relationship with your readers!

So I hope I’ve at least partially set the stage for you with what’s going on here.

Certainly the manufacturing standards for the products he sells are reasonably good.

He talks about how each ingredient is tested for impurities etc but I notice that he does NOT MENTION that there is any independent testing (a must for professional companies) or that each raw ingredient is tested for compliance with its Certificate of Analysis (an absolute must!).

Tricia, you can learn more about these very important issues by going to this page on nutritional supplement truths.com:

http://www.nutritional-supplement-truths.com/super-supplements-2.html

Now, to Greens Powder.

It is described as a “wild-crafted [tag-ice]whole food supplement[/tag-ice]”, not containing any [tag-ice]synthetic vitamins[/tag-ice].

Firstly, these issues about whole food supplements and synthetic vitamins are largely misunderstood by supplement users.

So, you may like to read my earlier posts about ‘[tag-tec]Natural Vitamin Supplements[/tag-tec]‘, ‘Synthetic Vitamins’ and Whole food supplements so as to put these topics in a more correct perspective. (check the ‘Articles’ Archive)

Tricia, the story with Greens Powder is the same as with Dr. Kim’s multivitamin above.

$47 a bottle for this “whole food” supplement is very expensive!

Dr Kim talks about the wonderful results he achieved with his patients conditions after using this formula and I have no doubt in believing those results.

BUT…..

That’s because the body is capable of self-healing most conditions when it receives a daily broad spectrum supply of the right [tag-ice]nutrients[/tag-ice] – especially the potent [tag-ice]phytonutrients[/tag-ice] and [tag-ice]antioxidants[/tag-ice] found in whole foods ([tag-ice]fruits[/tag-ice] and [tag-ice]vegetables[/tag-ice] in this case) and in conjunction with other healthy dietary and lifestyle choices. Like minimal amounts of protein from animal sources, minimal amounts of alcohol, no smoking and so on.

But why pay close to $50 dollars a bottle for these nutrients when you can just eat healthy meals and snacks containing reasonable amounts of raw vegetables and fruits everyday and ultimately take in far more of these [tag-ice]disease[/tag-ice] busting nutrients than what you will get from a bottle of greens powder over 53 days.

The extent of nutritional value which you actually get from whole food supplements is exactly what I discuss in my Whole Food Supplements post which I referred to above.

Tricia, look at content on the greens powder info page:

“Ounce for ounce, it is one of the least expensive [tag-ice]green food[/tag-ice] products available throughout North America – amazing when you consider its exceptional quality and the fact that it has no fillers”.

This is just marketing as you will understand when you read my whole food answer. They are telling you what you want to hear.

So while the formula of Greens is, technically speaking good, in reality it is offering you very little (unless you have an appallingly bad diet to begin with) while costing you a lot.

The answer is to get your antioxidants and phytonutrients from real foods!

Dr Kim says of Greens powder:

“Again, I firmly believe that nothing can substitute for a minimally processed, whole food diet.”

Yes – that’s true

“…. But if you are looking for just one [tag-tec]natural health[/tag-tec] food product that can significantly enhance your [tag-tec]health[/tag-tec] now and as you age, I highly recommend that you try our greens.”

Well, Greens cannot even be compared with Total Balance. They’re not even in the same category.

Total Balance addresses every organ and system in your body and contains important ingredients (like several medicinal herbal extracts) which we cannot take in from our diets – even good diets.

It has an absolute ton more than what Greens offers. The comparisons on nutritional-supplement-truths.com will reveal this to you.

Hope this answer helps you with your decision making Tricia

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Everything is being completely revamped with a new format, design, color scheme, interactive pages, new content and some revision of existing content. It’s all being jazzed up!

I’m doing ALL of this myself and since my HTML and CSS knowledge is somewhat limited it’s taking far longer than expected to get all those changes displaying in your browser exactly the way I want.

Anyway for those that saw the old site I’m sure you’ll agree that the new design is far better and easier to move through.

The reason I’m mentioning this is to let you know that because of all this additional work my blog will only be updated 1 to 2 times a week for the coming months (or until it’s all finished).

So I hope you will bear with me and continue to read the juicy supplement and [tag-ice]health[/tag-ice] truths that I have in store for you.

Today’s entry explains the word “natural” as applied to [tag-ice]nutritional supplements[/tag-ice]

and my second entry later this week will look at a related subject – [tag-tec]Whole Food supplements[/tag-tec] and what they really give you.

Here we go!

Natural Vitamin Supplements

What Does That Word ‘Natural’ Really Mean?

The term [tag-ice]‘natural’[/tag-ice] has become a super buzz word in the supplement industry of late. Unfortunately it’s causing a lot of consumer confusion and so-called ‘expert’ argument to say the least.

And recently I considered (for a short 5 min period) of entering into the ma lee when I came across a nice keyword that a web page could be based around. From memory I think the exact keyword was “[tag-tech]natural vitamin supplements[/tag-tec]“.

My initial thought was to write a page around this keyword and then link it to the supplement my family and I personally use. After all, as you’ll understand in a minute, it can be argued that my supplement ([tag-ice]Total Balance[/tag-ice]) has no non- natural ingredients whatsoever!

Therefore it must be a ‘natural vitamin supplement’.

Technically I could argue that Total Balance is ‘natural’ but therein lies the problem because of the very definition of the word ‘natural’.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that this whole topic of ‘natural vitamin supplements‘ is an absolute can of worms. So I decided the best course of action would be to steer well clear of it as a web page and instead address it here in my blog.

The reason I say ‘an absolute can of worms’ is because the term ‘natural’ has a multitude of meanings, all of which are VERY SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT.

The problem is that there is no one definition that is the ‘right’ or ‘correct’ version. We can’t stick something in a test tube, analyze it and say “Yes,” this is natural or “No”, this is not natural.

The thing to remember is that this whole fixation on ‘natural’ comes from clever marketing that presents natural’ as good and ‘[tag-ice]synthetic[/tag-ice]’ as bad.

Thus many consumers have been bombarded into believing this. In the last couple of years manufacturers of ‘natural’ or whole food supplements have really been turning their marketing dials up full load.

Now, there are 2 main aspects to consider when looking at the term ‘natural’.

Firstly, when does something become ‘not natural’?

If a scientist was to make up a small amount of DNA in a test tube from precursors and [tag-tec]enzymes[/tag-tec] (a common process today), is this ‘natural’? In terms of the structure and properties of DNA it is no different to the DNA found in every cell in our bodies.

The only difference is that the DNA in our cells is closely coupled to a raft of other materials (RNA, proteins, cofactors, enzymes etc) that allow it to do its various jobs. If a scientist put the manufactured DNA into your body it would be absorbed and used just as if it were ‘natural’.

In a similar vein I think everyone would agree that [tag-ice]isoflavones[/tag-ice] present in a plant are ‘natural’. But what happens when those isoflavones are concentrated by extraction? Are they still ‘natural’?

How about if we performed a series of concentration steps and wind up with a highly concentrated form (say 90%) of the isoflavones. Are these still ‘natural’? If so, what if we chemically synthesized an identical material that contains 90% isoflavones?

What is the difference between the 90% stuff from the plants and the synthesized material? The two materials are, for all intents and purposes identical.

So why would one be ‘natural’ and the other not?

Can you see what I mean?

The second aspect is that there are lots of things which are ‘natural’ but which are actually bad for you.

For example red kidney beans need soaking before cooking to get rid of a powerful neurotoxin that is present as a normal part of their growth and development.

Many plants produce cyanide as a pesticide.

[tag-tec]Ginkgo Biloba[/tag-tec] extract contains ginkgolic acids that are poisonous.

Yet all these are ‘natural’!

So ‘natural’ is not always best!

That’s why you need to be careful before running off to buy [tag-tec]natural health supplements[/tag-tec] based on that gut feeling you get after reading a supplement company’s nifty marketing presentation.

They’re telling you what you want to hear based on what they and others have led you to believe.

A visitor to [tag-tec]nutritional-supplement-truths[/tag-tec].com asked me recently to comment on a whole food [tag-tec]multivitamin supplement[/tag-tec] for sale at a very well known supplement site.

This is a ‘doctor’ formulated supplement and for those of you who have read through my site, you know my opinion of doctor formulated supplements!

In his marketing spiel this doctor boldly attempts to scare his readers away from any [tag-tec]synthetic vitamin and minerals [/tag-tec](isolates) in supplements by stating that our bodies will only absorb a small percentage of an isolate form of vitamins and minerals and utilize even less. He goes on to say that our bodies absorb much more of the [tag-ice]whole food[/tag-ice] form.

But the truth of the matter is that we don’t actually know this for sure!

We assume it is the case, and we want it to be the case, but we simply do not know!!

I asked a friend in the supplement industry to add some backup on this for me by checking the scientific literature (he has access to a lot more than I do) and he came back to say he COULDN’T FIND A SINGLE STUDY that has looked at the absorption/utilization of ‘synthetic’ materials in the human body versus ‘natural’ materials.

Not a single one!

So you see this is an example of the kind of statement that people want to believe and so they do believe it, but there is no scientific evidence one way or the other.

In situations like this I recommend adhering to a very basic tenet: “If it isn’t documented, it’s a myth”.

Whoever writes the web-page copy for this doctor’s site is very good. They make this particular [tag-tec]multivitamin[/tag-tec] sound like the next best thing in supplements and something that you must have.

However, a closer look at the label reveals the following:

1) Over 75% of the total ingredient load is simply vitamin C, one of the cheapest materials in the supplement industry. That’s shocking!

2) They cannot be “[tag-tec]whole food sourced[/tag-tec]” because calcium ascorbate and niacinamide ascorbate (among others) DO NOT OCCUR NATURALLY !

3) The [tag-ice]amino acid[/tag-ice] chelates of the minerals also do not occur naturally!

—————————————————————————————

The bottom line is that these whole food ingredients are no better in terms of their ‘natural’ function than many other ingredients on the market.

So please keep in mind that there is a lot of supplement information out there that has no actual basis – or, even worse, is just plain wrong. In other words, deliberate lies and misrepresentation of the truth.

Unfortunately we humans have a tendency that if we want to believe something and it is repeated often enough then it becomes ‘true’, even though there may not be a scrap of evidence in support of the idea.

It’s the old story that if you throw enough mud for long enough some will stick.

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