Advice and Tips about Health Supplements

Given today’s fast paced and essentially unhealthy lifestyle that most people are almost forced to adopt, health supplements are without doubt needed more than ever nowadays.

This was the basic inspiration for creating this site, in order that those people who may be considering taking a supplement can be helped to make an informed decision about the products they buy.

We find that most people choose a supplement in a bit of a haphazard way, they walk into a health store or even in the supermarket nowadays and grab a bottle of pills with a bright label that says “Multivitamin” thinking that in a few days time they will be glowing with health.

The bad news is that this is probably the worst way to choose your supplement, an awful lot of hours of research have led us to some quite surprising findings and we thought people ought to know about them.

How are nutritional supplements regulated ?

Well actually, they aren’t. The FDA in the US has no specific regulations in relation to the vitamin industry. Really !

This is akin to the old “Snake Oil” days, where anyone could slap something together, bottle it and label it with all kinds of claims and sell it, with impunity.

Now don’t get us wrong we aren’t suggesting that everyone out there is robbing you, it’s just that you deserve to know and be informed about who you deal with. This is supposed to be your health after all.

Let’s establish some basic facts about supplements before we go any futher.

What happens when you take a supplement?

Essentially when you take any tablet the active ingredients are released to your stomach as the tablet is broken down by your body.  These ingredients are then absorbed into your bloodstream in the lower intestine.

The harsh fact of the matter is that with most of the “cheaper” supplement 90% of what you put in your mouth goes down the toilet, now that isn’t very good value when you think about it. This is quite simply because most of the active ingredients get destroyed by the acids in your stomach. So you are getting virtually nothing of the contents of the supplement.

So what can you do about this ?

You need to ask some questions before buying your supplement.

Tablets or Capsules?

This is probably the single biggest question to get answered first in our opinion, as there is a form of tablet which does not break down in the stomach and only dissolves when in the small intestine. This ensures that you are getting the maximum benefit from your supplement. This form of tablet has what is known as an Enteric Coating, this is definitely something to look for, Enteric coated tablets do usually cost a little more, but when you consider than without it 90% of the supplement goes right through you, it’s worth paying a tiny bit extra.

Capsules would be second best, with traditional tablets a very distant third.

Check the label

The label should tell you the names and the amount of each of the ingredients contained and the number of tablets. It should also ideally tell you the recommended daily dose for an adult and a for a child if applicable.

It should also give you some basic information about the company, some contact details and a manufacturing or use by date.

Manufacturing and testing information.

HDoes that manufacturer have a GMP compliance certification (Good Manufacturing Practice), do they use pharmaceutical grade manufacturing processes ?

Has the product been independantly tested and analysed for purity and efficacy. You should be able to get this information from the manufacturers customer service department, if you can’t then they are more than likely not people you should be spending your money with.

Do you know enough about supplements?

For optimum results, you really ought to have some basic knowledge yourself. You should know how vitamins work together, for instance how vitamins E and C should be taken together as they mutually reinforce each other.

Some other supplements work far more effectively when taken in tandem with other supplements, your chosen manufacturer should be able to advise you of this.

Where possible you should purchase chelated supplements, chelated means that the active ingredients are bound to each other and therefore literally stick together until they are absorbed into your bloodstream.

There is an interesting article on the whole subject of tablet disintegration and what has become known as bio-availability which we have reproduced here.

Choose only natural health supplements.

Put quite simply this means that your supplement must be free from dyes, allergens or artificial preservatives. There are always some additives included with supplements, usually required as part of the manufacturing process, these should pass straight through the body without being absorbed and therefore do neither harm nor good.

So, where can you get all of the above ?

One particular health supplement manufacturer that we have no hesitation in recommending to people is Xtend-Life of New Zealand.

Xtend Life review of the company

Xtend Life’s products are GMP compliant and are also fully guaranteed to be pharmaceutical grade. They have audited facilities and certificates of analysis are supplied for each supplement batch produced.

Due to Xtend-Life’s use of enteric coatings and chelated ingredients Xtend Life supplements are fully bio-available, so you can be completely sure that you are receiving the full benefit of the supplement that you have paid for. Xtend-Life supplements contain in some cases more than 70 active ingredients, working together to deliver maximum health benefits for you.

Backed up with a full 12 months money back guarantee, it becomes almost impossible to find a supplement manufacturer who provides such outstanding products at such an amazing value for money price.