Herbal Nutrition and Health Supplements

There are certainly good supplement companies and bad ones and not all products are created equal. Here are some tips to help you make good decisions.

• Be wary of any information you read on websites that sell product or that primarily endorse specific products. Try to go to neutral sites to get information.
• Don’t believe product reviews you read on retail websites. NutritionalTree.com is a good neutral source for supplement reviews.
• Understand that price often is not directly related to quality. Products marketed by network marketing (multi-level) or infomercials are usually overpriced.
• On the other hand, understand that you will pay more for quality products. The sourcing of the raw ingredients and other factors will impact the price.
• When companies claim that their products are innovative and one-of-a-kind, be especially cautious. Good products have published, solid research behind them.

Some companies go the extra mile to build trust. Note Atlanta-based Vitabase, which is growing rapidly because it has built a reputation for emphasizing quality. For example, it uses herbal extracts in its products that meet very strict European pharmaceutical standards. In our opinion, their emphasis on quality more than justifies the modest price difference.

There is a lot of debate about whether you should take supplements as tablets, capsules or in liquid form. There seems to be some evidence that liquid supplements may be more bioavailable. If you choose to take supplements in tablet form, it might be worth a little research to ensure that the manufacturer conducts disintegration testing to make sure that the tablets break down quickly in the stomach.

Our best advice is to do a bit of research at the beginning of your buying process and once you decide you can trust a company, stick with them. Until more regulation of the industry is put into place, you can trust a product only as much as you can trust the company that makes it.