Food Grade -vs- Pharmaceutical Grade Nutritional Supplements

What is the difference between food grade and pharmacuetical grade supplements? The difference is like coal and diamonds.

Pharmaceutical grade means that the product has been manufactured under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) conditions and is pure, safe and reliable. Under GMP every step of the process is followed using established procedures to assure the best quality possible.

This includes training, equipment, raw materials, and facilities. Processing and manufacturing can be traced back to the date, time, lot number, and equipment used.

Food grade nutritional supplements may or may not follow good manufacturing practices and may or may not contain what is actually listed on the label. The FDA allows questionable fillers and binders such as; cork by products, chemical dyes, sodium benzoate, dextrose, and propylene glycol to name a few.

In most cases, Impure ingredients are used by many companies. The FDA does not require manufacturers to list these ingredients on the labels if they are not added when making the final product.

Many times the raw materials may contain only 90% or less of the listed ingredients along with 10% or more of fillers, such as, corn starch and lactose. Lactose and corn are known allergens for some people.

Surprisingly these ingredients are legal, but what are the nutritional benefits?

Reports have indicate that some of these ingredients can be toxic at certain levels with prolong use.

There are basically three different grades of raw materials used in products, they are:

Pharmaceutical Grade - meets pharmaceutical standards

Food Grade - meets standards set for human consumption

Feed Grade - meets standards set for animal consumption

Currently, the Food and Drug Administration has not finalized Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for dietary supplements, as they are required to do under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Rather, Congress has initially stated that dietary supplement GMP should be modeled after foods.

Because of this statement, many supplement manufacturers have chosen to follow GMP for foods.

However, there are a few nutritional manufacturing companies that voluntarily follow the GMP for pharmaceuticals as the basis for its quality assurance program in the manufacturing of all of its products, meaning the company treats nutritional supplements with the same care that goes into the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.

When choosing a company to purchase your nutritional supplements from, you want a company that provides pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplements using good manufacturing practices and uses the purist ingredients available and that have the least hypoallergenic effects on the consumer.

This type of company will insure that what is printed on the label is actually in the bottle. Their processing facilities are state of the art and well maintained and controlled for cleanliness and are not shy to allow the public to inspect their facilities.

Your chosen company should have a potency guarantee and will stand behind it. This company may be certified by quality assurance agencies like the NSF, which is the Public Health and Safety Company.

The NSF helps protect the consumer by certifying products and writing standards for food, water and consumer goods.

There are several criteria by which pharmaceutical grade are judged. The product must be in excess of 99% purity with no binders, fillers, excipients, dyes, or unknown substances.

Choose wisely. Your health depends on it.

P.S. If you want to know which pharmaceutical grade company I use that has the high quality traits listed above, sign up for my free news letter and I will send you the information. You will love their products.

Charles

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Progentra Reviews
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Book Review - NutriSearch Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements, 4th Edition

Vitamins, if properly understood and applied, will help us to reduce human suffering to an extent that the most fantastic human mind would fail to imagine.

—Albert Szent-Györgyi, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine (1893-1986)

The fourth edition of the NutriSearch Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements (Professional Edition) is now available.

This new edition is twice the size and rates three times (over 1,500) the number of nutritional supplements as the third edition. There are over 1,500 US and Canadian supplements scientifically rated and compared; compared using 18 critical Health Support Criteria required to evaluate supplements; illustrated with 300 full-color graphs so you can easily compare top-rated products.

The NutriSearch Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements (Professional Edition) is your road map to understanding the remarkable protective powers of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Discover recent scientific evidence that shows supplements can optimize health and retard the aging process. Determine which supplement is best for you and your family, using a scientifically-based approach.

Using 18 criteria, a Final Product Rating, based on a five-star scale, is determined. A five-star rating highlights those products whose characteristics for optimal nutrition are clearly superior to the majority of products on the market and that approach or meet the pooled recommendations of the Blended Standard.

Conversely, a one-star rating or less represents products possessing few, if any, of the characteristics for optimal nutrition reflected in the Blended Standard. The five-star scale, divisible in half-star increments, provides an intuitive means by which the consumer can compare products, based on product content.

Show Me the Science. For each Health Support Profile criterion, we provide a review of the scientific justification for those nutrients included in the criterion.

This review is a more comprehensive overview than is available in the printed 4th edition of the Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements; it is provided for those wishing to delve deeper into the available scientific evidence supporting the value of supplementation with a particular nutrient or nutrient group.

The 18 criteria the Comparative Guide uses are:

1. Completeness. Over the years, scientific research has documented numerous micro-nutrients that are required for optimal health. We now know that the body requires approximately 17 vitamins and vitamin-like substances, a diverse group of plant-based antioxidants, at least 14 trace elements and minerals, and several essential fats necessary for proper cellular function. The body cannot manufacture many of these substances; they must be obtained through the diet.

2. Potency.

3. Mineral Forms. Minerals are essential components of our cells and serve as co-factors in the thousands of enzyme-controlled reactions that power the machinery of the cell.

4. Bio-activity of Vitamin E.

5. Gamma Tocopherol. Does the product contain gamma-tocopherol (or a mixture of gamma, beta, and delta-tocopherols) at a potency of up to one-half the potency of alpha-tocopherol in the same product?

6. Antioxidant Support

7. Bone Health

8. Heart Health

9. Liver Health (detoxification)

10. Metabolic Health (glucose control)

11. Ocular Health

12. Methylation Support

13. Lipotropic Factors

14. Inflammation Control. Chronic inflammation, frequently induced by uncontrolled oxidative stress, is a principal mechanism by which degenerative disease takes root.

15. Glycation Control

16. Bioflavonoid Profile

17. Phenolic Compounds Profile

18. Potential Toxicities

An exceptional complete guide comparing various Nutritional Supplements, this book also provides an education into battling degenerative disease and how all the nutrients work to provide the body with optimal health. This book is a must have.

For a complete review of the 18 criteria, please visit the Comparative Guide’s web page at: http://www.nutrisearch.ca/showmethescience/ProductRatingCriteria.html

Why You Should Take Nutritional Supplements

Vitamins and minerals are vital nutrients for bodily functions. There is an old argument that a person can get everything they need, nutrient wise, from food.

This is certainly possible, but are you doing it? The reality is that a person would need to consume vast amounts of fresh, whole foods in order to provide the body with the required levels of nutrients for optimal health.

The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is a very minimal level to judge today’s nutritional requirements by. The RDA was established in over 60 years ago and intended as a minimal nutrient requirement in order to ward of diseases of that time period, namely scurvy and rickets.

Vitamin and Mineral Supplementation is absolutely necessary for the following reasons:

Poor Digestion- Eating too much, too quickly combined with the stress of live can create an imbalance of friendly bacteria in the digestive tract which reduces the absorption of vitamins and minerals. The older you get, the more this is a factor.

Over Cooking- Over cooking can easily destroy the remaining nutrients in foods.

Microwave Cooking- Do yourself a favor – trash the microwave! Studies are on-going, but tend to reflect the concept that microwave’s alters the nutrient structure and value of foods.

Food Storage- Length of storage and freezing depletes the remaining nutrient value of foods.

Food Selection- Most people eat from a limited range of foods resulting in nutrient deficiencies.

Food Omission- Allergies to foods, on again – off again diets all omit significant nutrients to a person’s diet.

Anti-biotics- Anti-biotics alter the gastrointestinal environment and interfere with the absorption of essential nutrients.

Poor Lifestyle Habits- Smoking, alcohol, excessive caffeine, and other bad habits inhibit the absorption of vitamins and minerals and increase the loss of essential nutrients.

Stress- Can be emotional, physical and/or mental which can wreck havoc on the body’s immune system and greatly increase the need for nutrients.

Imbalance- Vitamins and minerals need to be taken in supporting levels to create a synergistic effect. Singular each nutrient is not as powerful as in combination with other nutrients.

Nutrient variance- Carrots are not equal to other carrots, and tomatoes are not equal to other tomatoes. There is a great variance from one product to the next.

You cannot tell outside of a laboratory. We have read where it takes eight Florida oranges of today to compare to the nutritional value of one Florida orange from 10 years ago. Soils are being depleted which add to the reduced nutrient content. Harvesting, processing, shipment and storage are takes much of the nutrient content out of products.

The Bottom Line- Everybody should be taking high quality nutritional supplements to ensure they are providing their body with the simple nutrients their bodies need to fight off the free radicals created from oxidative stress.

However, not all supplements are manufactured to the same standards. There are two basic standards: food grade; and, pharmaceutical grade. The educated consumer should do two things: Read the Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements; and, research to see if the supplements you are interested in are manufactured to a measurable standard.