Sunday, December 9, 2007

WARNING - Your Multivitamin May Not Be What It Claims


If you’re like most people...


If you have a hectic lifestyle and rely at all on processed or fast foods, chances are you don’t get all the healthy nutrients you need from your diet.

Ideally, it would be best for you to receive all your nutrition from high quality unprocessed foods. Unfortunately, I realize it may not be practical or possible for you to do that 100% the time.

So, if you currently supplement your diet by taking a multivitamin every day, good for you. You’re obviously a forward-thinking person who knows that you need the protection and fortification that a good multivitamin provides.

And if you make sure your spouse takes one every day, then you deserve extra kudos for showing how much you care about your loved one.

Multivitamins help promote your optimal health and strong immune system, providing support for defense against a growing number of health concerns.

Taking pro-active steps, including taking a multivitamin to help maintain and boost good health and wellness, is about the best thing you can do for yourself — and your health.

However, there are important issues for you to consider...

Is Your Vitamin Natural or Synthetic?

How do you know if your synthetic multi is as good as its advertising says it is?

Are you gambling with your health by taking “their” word for it? If you are taking a multivitamin, this is something you definitely want to find out.

Please don’t make the mistake of shopping for supplements at discount stores or large chains like Wal-Mart or Walgreen’s. In my opinion, these are classic examples of companies that primarily use cheap synthetic supplements.

Synthetic alternatives to whole foods are known as “isolates”. Your body will only absorb a small percentage of an isolate form of vitamins and minerals — and utilize even less (Your body absorbs much more of the whole food form.) On top of that, there may be side effects, depending on the quality of the isolate.

Don’t sell yourself short! Many retail outlets and online sellers are primarily interested in your money, not your health. Supplements are not their specialty.

You wouldn’t go to your local burger joint for a nice filet mignon, would you? The same attitude should apply to your health products.

Consider these items when choosing a supplement:


* If the ingredients were all natural, it would say so — very prominently — on their label.
* If the product went through vigorous quality control, you can bet that it would be mentioned — many times.
* If there were no additives or major potential allergens in the product, they would definitely tell you all about it.

Additionally, the ingredients many companies use are not only synthetic, but there is a likelihood they may not have been thoroughly tested for purity and potency confirmation — and may have come from overseas.

The manufacturers will often base their claims solely on the word of their suppliers.

The suppliers’ word may be good enough for them, but is it good enough for you and your family?

I don’t think so!

That is why I chose the manufacturer of my product very carefully. It meets the most stringent standards in the industry today, ensuring that the end product is exactly what it says it is!

Finally, a multivitamin to get excited about…

Introducing My New Whole Food Multivitamin

Raw Foods-Based ‘Whole Food Multivitamin’ is as Close to Nature as it Gets!

I’m very pleased to give you a new choice of multivitamin. You’ve trusted me in the past to provide you with supplements that are safe and natural, as well as ‘head and shoulders’ above their synthetic counterparts.

Well, I believe we knocked it out of the park this time.

My team and I have been working for many months to develop the ideal multivitamin — and the best manufacturer to produce it.

Each dose is chock-full of essential vitamins, minerals and ever-important antioxidants*. Everything you expect in a good multivitamin is there, plus everything you’d expect from Mercola.com — all natural, free of ALL major potential allergens, and absolutely FREE of ANY additives*.

Unlike many of those other multivitamins you see being sold everywhere, my Whole Food Multivitamin is made from raw foods. That makes them as close to natural as I could get, meaning that they are more readily absorbed and used by your body*.

Just as important as being raw foods-based is the manufacturer I chose to create my multivitamin. This award winning company is not only ISO 9001 and ISO 17025 certified, it’s also NSF certified. A very high standard indeed!

Is Your Supplement Made by a Company That’s ISO and NSF Certified? You’d Better Find Out!
Do you know just how many things can actually go wrong when a supplement is being made? Any one of them can produce an inferior product.

And it doesn’t take much — an oversight here, a little corner-cutting there, and before you know it, the quality of your supplement is headed downhill.

To prove to you that a product is made using the highest standards available, a manufacturer will voluntarily submit to exhaustive — and costly — auditing of their processes to achieve important certification.

So call, write, visit the website, or whatever it takes to find out whether or not your multivitamin is made at an ISO or NSF certified facility.

Why?

Because you may be wasting your money (or worse) by believing in a product that doesn’t meet the highest standards in the industry.

Don’t take anything for granted when it comes to your health. Every detail is worth your attention…

What If the Raw Materials Used by Your Vitamin Supplier Weren’t Fully Inspected and Certified?

Believe me, you don’t want to get this one wrong.

It is the RARE company that actually has an aggressive quality control process. One that will confirm and INDEPENDENTLY validate that their raw material is identical to what the certificate of analysis from the supplier of the raw materials used to make the supplement claims it to be.

In fact, there may even have been pesticides used on the raw materials that could have slipped by a less-than-thorough check. The supplier’s word may have been good enough, as opposed to a thorough examination being done.

Unfortunately, their word just isn’t good enough for the manufacturer of my multivitamin.

You see, they’ve voluntarily adhered to the Vendor Certification Program (VCP). This ensures the quality of the raw materials used in my product.

So why don’t other manufacturers adhere to this program?

What If Your Vitamin Supplier’s Testing Equipment Isn’t Up-To-Date?

Another way for manufacturers to “cut corners” is by not bothering to keep important testing equipment up-to-date, or taking the time to calibrate it properly.

Obsolete, inaccurate equipment can really skew the results.

That’s because it results in downtime, affecting the bottom line. What you could end up with is a product that differs from its advertising. Is it worth the gamble to you and your loved ones?

And many manufacturers don’t have consistent, written procedures for each ingredient. That happens to be important criteria for meeting ISO certification.

You may not realize that certain testing methods can be valid for one ingredient, but worthless for another. ISO certification ensures that all methods are valid, and I urge you to find out whether your current multi meets that standard or not.

What If Your Vitamin Supplier’s Quality Control Procedures Are Lower Than Industry Standards?

Let me reiterate: If every manufacturer of supplements met high quality control standards, they’d all be bragging about their ISO certification. Somehow, they remain strangely silent…

ISO and NSF certifications mean superior quality control.

It means you can rest easy, knowing that the ingredients are checked many times throughout the process for contamination that could occur at any point during the manufacturing process.

It means that environmental conditions such as heat and humidity were appropriate throughout the process, which could also radically decrease the quality of the supplement you will eventually swallow.

It also means that your supplement wasn’t manufactured on the same equipment as banned substances or allergen-containing foods, and that the personnel involved in the process are highly aware of those substances…

Do you see the pattern here?

Would you eat in a restaurant that wasn’t clean and thoroughly inspected?

Of course not. So why settle for a supplement that might have been created under less-than-ideal conditions?

ISO and NSF standards ensure that the quality of your product is top notch. Does your multi boast ISO or NSF certifications? Mine does.

What If the Personnel Involved In the Manufacturing of Your Vitamin aren’t Fully Trained?

The truth is, the personnel involved in the manufacturing process may not be fully trained for the particular testing or manufacturing equipment that they are working on.

But they would be if the facility was ISO and NSF certified. They would also be supervised throughout the entire manufacturing process. The manufacturing company I chose uses PhD’s to supervise their manufacturing process.

As a matter of fact, their supervision teams provide continual on-site training for every shift.

So find out if your multivitamin company is ISO or NSF certified. The few minutes it takes will be well worth it, for your security and peace of mind.

Or, you can choose my Whole Food Multi, a product that you can trust...

ISO 9001, ISO 17025 and NSF – Now That’s Quality...

I put many hard hours into carefully choosing a highly qualified and certified manufacturer, so that you don’t need to worry about the quality of the supplement you put in your mouth.

Don’t Gamble With Your Health — Use ISO/NSF High-Quality Certified ‘Whole Food Multivitamin’ Every Day!

But what — exactly — do ISO and NSF certifications mean?

The term “ISO 9001” refers to a detailed set of quality management standards that the company must adhere to in order to meet the requirements of certification.

The more rigorous ISO 17025 provides a third-party accreditation of the onsite laboratories.

The supplement is tested onsite by hard-working PhD’s to guarantee the final quality of the supplement you eventually purchase —throughout the entire manufacturing process.

I searched long and hard to find the best company out there. I think I succeeded because the company I finally selected has won the NutriSearch Gold Medal of Achievement, an award given by an independent third party agency. Of the over 1,400 products tested, only 4 manufacturers of those products won the award.

But what may be the “ace” of all of them is this — being approved for NSF Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) certification.

NSF International is an independent, not-for-profit organization. This body of audit and inspection is one of the most comprehensive and quality driven initiatives in the nutrition industry.

They are committed to making the world a safer place for consumers.

They work hard to make sure that you don’t have to question the safety — or quality — of your product, my Whole Food Multivitamin.

Very few companies can boast this claim.
This tells you that they have, at great expense, gone the extra mile to achieve excellence.
This ensures that everything from the choice of ingredients to the testing of the final product meets the highest standards in the industry today

The FDA wants all manufacturers to someday adhere to Good Manufacturing Processes for dietary supplements. In fact, the FDA has recently ruled that, depending on company size, manufacturers have until up to 2010 to achieve GMP adherence.

However, the manufacturer I chose for Whole Food Multivitamin is YEARS ahead of the curve, as it has already been certified! And it did so voluntarily…

But this is the technical side of choosing a quality multivitamin. There is also the matter of ingredients.

As you’ll see, I chose naturally sourced ingredients wherever possible. In fact, I chose all of the ingredients in my Whole Food Multivitamin based on two factors. Factor number one: the ingredients are based on whole or raw foods. The second factor is their high bioavailability*.

Why Do I Call This a Whole Food or Raw Food Multivitamin?

Most of the nutrients in this formula can be directly linked to their natural source. For instance — iodine from kelp.

Where it was impossible or impractical to link them directly, I chose a form that provided the most bioavailability possible — so your body can readily utilize them*.

The importance of whole or raw foods cannot be overstated. In fact, I would encourage you to get at least 50% of your diet from raw foods.

Just as it implies, raw foods are foods that have not been cooked or heated in any way. Look at some of the things heat does to once-healthy foods:


* Essential nutrients are depleted, altered or destroyed altogether
* Toxic substances can be created and may burden the immune system
* Enzymes, which are important to digestion, are destroyed
* Your body metabolizes cooked food much differently

All of that has been avoided, simply by using ingredients derived from healthy raw foods.

See for yourself the foods I’ve chosen for Whole Food Multivitamin, and take a quick look at the benefits you can expect from them:


* Pomegranate extract – to support your healthy circulation
* White tea extract – support for your immune system
* Green tea extract – more support for your immune system
* Grape seed extract (Activin) – support for your healthy circulation and cholesterol level
* Apple – support your immune system and lungs
* Blueberry – support for your urinary tract and immune system
* Broccoli – support for your healthy prostate and immune system
* Cranberry – support for your urinary tract and cardiovascular system
* Kale – support for your healthy prostate
* Orange – support for your immune system
* Prune – support for your brain and immune system
* Raspberry – support for those healthy cholesterol levels
* Spinach – support for your healthy immune and cardiovascular systems
* Strawberry – more support for your healthy immune and cardiovascular systems

To get an equal amount of nutrients and antioxidants from your diet, you’d need to eat a boatload of fruit and vegetables. But I don’t recommend it. In my opinion, eating too much fruit can lead to blood sugar concerns.



A Quick Look at the Importance of Vitamins and Minerals

Perhaps you wonder why vitamins and certain minerals are so important, and why you need to supplement your daily intake of them…

Each vitamin plays an important role in maintaining your normal bodily functions, repairing cellular and tissue damage, and maintaining your optimal wellness*.

But to explain each one could double the length of this letter, so I’ll give you a brief overview of a few. Plenty of information about them is available on my site and on the internet.



Coenzyme Forms of Vitamins. I use the amino acid chelate of minerals, which is one of the best possible forms you can use. In a nutshell, this increases their bioavailability, meaning that the important minerals will easily pass through your intestinal walls*. This is unlike many other cheap brands, whose larger mineral size may be blocked altogether.


Iodine – Necessary for the normal metabolism of your cells*. Metabolism is the process of converting your food into energy. You need iodine for normal thyroid function and for the production of thyroid hormones*.


Chromium – Important in your ability to metabolize fats and carbohydrates*. Chromium stimulates fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis, which are important for your brain function and other body processes*. It is an activator of several enzymes, which are needed to drive numerous chemical reactions necessary to life*. Chromium is also important in insulin metabolism*.


Phytonutrients From Whole Food Concentrates. These phytonutrients (or plant nutrients) are loaded with powerful antioxidants that limit free radical production*. Extracts include those from pomegranate, white tea, green tea, grape seed (Activin), apple, blueberry, broccoli, cranberry, kale, orange, prune, raspberry, spinach, and strawberry.

As I mentioned before, chances are pretty high that you’re not getting all these important vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in your daily diet.

That’s why I strongly urge you to consider supplementing with a good multivitamin to support your optimal health and wellness*.

CAUTION: Children should not take this multivitamin. It was designed specifically for adult needs.

Superior Preparation for Superior Ingredients

I pride myself on offering you products that have the highest quality ingredients. Those ingredients must be as natural and unprocessed as possible – so they are easily recognized and maximally utilized by your body*.

But I consider the preparation of the product to be just as important as its ingredients.

At a quick glance, see how my Whole Food Multivitamin stacks up against some of the leading synthetic multivitamin brands:



Help to Reduce Free Radical Damage

Free radicals are unstable, destructive molecules that lack electrons. They form naturally from normal metabolic processes such as breathing, but their production can rise beyond optimal levels for many reasons:


* Stress
* Cigarette smoke
* Environmental toxins
* Strenuous exercise
* Food additives
* Poor diet

How Do You Really Know if Your Multivitamin is Any Good?

Your body's natural defense system creates its own supply of antioxidants that "mop up" these scavenger molecules before they get the chance to do any harm.

Unfortunately, when your body lacks adequate antioxidants to fend them off, free radicals start attacking normal tissues and molecules in the body.

* Protecting against free radicals can help to:
* Help boost your energy and stamina
* Promote your immune system health
* Fight the signs of normal aging

My new Whole Food Multivitamin is loaded with natural antioxidants that are present in the whole foods, and are capable of neutralizing free radicals produced through an oxidation reaction* (similar to rust developing on your car).

And with increased exposure to health-impacting free radicals these days from food additives, environmental toxins and stress, your body needs extra sources of antioxidants to combat them.

Many experts consider free radicals the root cause of aging, contributing to all kinds of health-related issues.

So rest assured — my Whole Food Multivitamin gets to work soon after you swallow it, helping support your body’s defense against these pesky free-radicals*.

Please note, however: although multivitamins provide extra antioxidant backup, they do not take the place of a heavy-duty antioxidant, such as my Krill Oil or Purple Defense*.

Make the Smart Move — Order Your Whole Food Multivitamin Today

If you are already taking a multivitamin, I’d urge you to switch to my Whole Food Multivitamin right away. Just take two capsules per day — it’s that simple!

Don’t throw your money away on a multivitamin if you’re not 100% sure of its quality. When it comes to your health — and that of your family — it just isn’t worth the gamble.

Not taking a multivitamin right now? You’re taking an even bigger gamble with your peak health, especially if you eat processed and fast foods. They just don’t give you all the nutrients your body needs to support your optimal health.

So try my Whole Food Multivitamin today.

Sure, you may find cheaper multivitamins out in the marketplace, but is saving a buck or two worth the gamble? Rest assured — with this product you get exactly what you pay for.

Triple redundancy quality testing ensures that every penny of your hard-earned dollar will be hard at work supporting your optimal health and peak wellness*.

Does it make sense to put off your health any longer? Of course not… Make a smart and simple move by ordering your Whole Food Multivitamin right now.
Another reason to act fast.... BIG SAVINGS!

For More Information and Ordering please visit Dr. Mercola's Website @




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