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Quality
The Key to Purity and Potency
Essential
Oils Quality
Nature's
Sunshine Quality Assurance Booklet
After using many different brands during our first seven years
of herb and supplement use, we found out there is a difference in quality, purity
and potency. That's why we now use and sell only Nature's Sunshine. A good illustration
with a bit of humor goes like this:
Quality
is Like Buying Oats
If you want nice clean, fresh oats, you
must pay a fair price.
However, if you can be satisfied with
oats that have already
been through the horse, that comes a little cheaper.
Being from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, I grew up learning to be
very frugal. I looked at the price of everything first and made my decision based
on that. My husband needing to keep the budget balanced, taught me about "price
vs. cost."
Yes, I was getting the best price for the herbs
and supplements we bought. However, sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't.
We noticed a difference in the brightness of the color of the herbs from Nature's
Sunshine's. From that we learned that many manufacturers leave a lot of dirt in
their herbs, which reduces potency and adds more potential problems with contamination.
If the company that produces the products doesn't have their
own equipment to test the raw materials coming in, they don't know if the raw
materials have been cut with a filler that is not noticeable to the eye. With
herbs, the essential oils are often removed and the product is then sold to herb
companies. Without the proper equipment to detect whether the actual 'fingerprint'
of the plant is there with all of the volatile oils intact, there's no way to
know whether you're going to get the potency you want from the plant/herb.
My husband determined that the cost was more
to use cheaper brands. When we switched from Nature's Sunshine, he noticed the
other brands we bought didn't keep us healthy which avoided many medical bills.
They also weren't as effective at correcting the problems for which we were buying
them.
We switched back to Nature's Sunshine. After
we tried the rest, we're staying with the best!
Nature's Sunshine guarantees purity and potency
and their quality is unsurpassed.
Nature's Sunshine Quality Control Process
This is the hallmark that separates Nature's Sunshine
Products (NSP)from all other herb-based products offered by health food stores
or other direct sales companies. No herbal product manufacturer in the country
can surpass Nature's Sunshine when it comes to quality.
The Company buys raw materials from the most reputable suppliers
in the world and Nature's Sunshine has state-of-the-art quality control equipment
and procedures in the industry, which includes safeguards that allow them to scrutinize
and analyze from the incoming shipment of raw materials to the end-line product.
Because of this, Nature's Sunshine starts out with base ingredients and components
of unquestionable quality.
Throughout the entire manufacturing process, NSP monitors
the products' level of quality. This takes strict adherence
to testing procedures, which requires a battery of costly,
highly technical equipment. Nature's Sunshine has paid, and
will continue to pay, the "price" for quality control. That's the only
way they can be absolutely certain that every product leaving its facility reflects
its "100% pure" philosophy.
Government regulations do not require Nature's Sunshine to
be so strict or to set such uncompromisingly high standards.
They choose to manufacture to pharmaceutical standards, which
guarantees the potency and purity you expect from a health
product.
Steps Taken by Quality Control
1. Samples of each herb or raw material (purchased only from the most reputable
suppliers in the world) are taken, using a statistical method to ensure that the
sample reflects the entire lot.
2. Microscopes verify the identity of the powder on a cellular
level. Each lot is also compared to previous samples.
3. Physical testing continues through a wide variety of tests,
depending on the nature of the materials. Quality Control
checks for foreign materials in the herb. Dirt, sand or other
foreign inorganic material in the herb sample will not burn,
and can be seen under the microscope.
4. Screen Analysis ascertains the particle sizes of raw materials
in order to ensure uniformity of capsule weights.
5. After physical tests, raw materials are submitted for Chemical
Testing. Some of the most important tests require the Liquid
Chromatograph and the Gas Chromatograph. Coupled with a computer,
the Liquid Chromatograph identifies the specific chemical
components and active ingredients of a particular raw herb
sample. The Gas Chromatograph makes it possible to test volatile
oils and check for pesticide residues.
6. With the Direct Current Plasma Emission Spectrometer (DCP),
materials can be tested for both toxic materials and beneficial minerals. Testing
for microbiological cleanliness is also performed.
7. Samples of each batch of raw matereial are set aside in Retention Cabinets
and are retained for up to 10 years for future reference and for shelf-life durantion
testing.
8. Post-Production Testing checks manufactured products for
contamination of any kind during the production cycle, and
to ensure that the end product is exactly as it should be.
For instance, vitamin tablets are tested for hardness, disintegration
and dissolution. Time-release products are assayed to ascertain
the percentage of vitamins released over a given period of
time.
Go here to find
more information on quality related to essential oils.
What is NSP doing for research and development?
Every year the list of Nature's Sunshine products gets bigger
and many of the existing products get better because of their ongoing emphasis
on research and development. Comprised of botanists, biologists and chemists,
the NSP Research & Development team keeps the product line new and exciting
- a pacesetter for the industry.
An advanced, well-equipped research lab enables these scientists
to explore new possibilities, assessing their feasibility and finally developing
product prototypes. The equipment used for R&D purposes reflects the highest
order of sophistication and state of the art technology.
You can be certain that any product you purchase from Nature's
Sunshine will meet uniquely high standards for performance and excellence.
Nature's
Sunshine has been named Supplement Manufacturer
of
the
Year!
Does Quality Matter in Supplements?
Most people are not aware of any difference
in getting a drugstore
supplement or buying a natural food supplement.
They will also tell you
that they don't notice any difference when
they take it (unless it makes
them sick).
Supplements are used to "fill in" what
you miss from your diet, so you
should be using food-based supplements, not
synthetic ones.
Consider the ingredients in two currently
popular drugstore supplements:
Centrum Silver contains:
Polysorbate 80, Red 40, Silica Gel, StearicAcid,
Titanium Dioxide, Yellow 6,
FBC Blue 2, Crospovidone, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose,
Lactose, Magnesium
Stearate, Polyethylene Glycol
Os–Cal 500 contains:
Pharmaceutical grade glaze, Titanium dioxide,
Methyl Propyl Paraben,
Carnauba Wax, FD&C Yellow # 10, FD&C
Blue # 1, Oyster shell powder, Corn
syrup solids, Hydroxypropl Methylcellulose,
Cornstarch, Sodium starch
glycolate, Calcium stearate, Polysorbate
80
Polyethylene glycol #3350 is present in almost
every cheap vitamin as is
Polysorbate 80, which has been associated
with the contaminant 1,4 dioxane,
known to cause cancer in animals.
People take supplements to add to their health.
Do you think the above
ingredients builds health in a body? I don't.
We use food-based
supplements because we want to add natural
nutrients that we may be missing
from our diet.
Learn
more about supplementation
Nature's
Sunshine Quality Assurance Booklet
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