Fierce price competition is forcing the majority of manufacturers of nutritional supplements to purchase their ingredients from China. Many of these ingredients are just not up to par.

To find out which of the nation’s most popular supplements didn’t make the grade, read on.

Supplements purchased in China means that many formulations have considerably less of the active ingredient in the bottle than is stated on the label. A more significant problem is that many ingredients are contaminated with dangerous compounds and heavy metals.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. In just the last year American consumers found that their favorite pet foods made with ingredients from China were killing their pets because of melamine contamination. Children’s toys made in China are contaminated with lead. Now even the pharmaceutical heparin made in China has been linked to the death of thousands of people because of contamination of the Glucosamine sulfate used in its formulation.

This occurs because the FDA is not doing its job. Its cozy relationship with drug and food manufacturing firms mean that we have the best inspections their money can buy – for them. The American people however are left holding the bag.

Short-selling and contamination are not the only problems. Products can remain on store shelves for months or even years. Expired products returned to manufacturers are simply re-bottled with newer expiration dates. Consequently, even if a manufacturer has re-formulated its product to meet new recommendations, consumers may still be buying the older version.

So what is a consumer to do? In addition to selecting a product that appears to have the right ingredients, one should be confident that a nutritional supplement:
•    contains what it claims;
•    breaks down properly once in the body so its ingredients can be effectively utilized;
•    and is free of impurities.

How can the quality of your supplements be assured when neither the U.S. government nor any agency is responsible for routinely testing multivitamins or any other dietary supplements for their contents or quality?

That is where we come in. At Conscious Living Systems we take our responsibility to our customers seriously. We don’t sell the cheapest products we can find. Our mission is to sell the highest quality products it is possible to obtain.

As part of that mission we subscribe to ConsumerLab.com. This organization independently evaluates products that affect our customer’s health and nutrition. They purchase many of the leading multivitamin/multimineral products sold in the U.S. and Canada and test them for their quality.

The only products we offer to our customers are those independently tested by ConsumerLab.com. In fact, our industry-leading nutriceutical products made by Biotics are now recognized as the nation’s highest quality nutritional supplements available anywhere in the world. They are sold only through doctors and other health care professionals like ourselves. Unlike cheaper brands EVERY BATCH of ingredients is tested for quality before being used in any Biotics product.

Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, and the many catalog companies like Swanson’s and Puritan’s Pride don’t do that. They use products made of cheap Chinese ingredients, and this fact shows up in independent tests.

Quality Concerns and What ConsumerLabs (CL) Tested For In Their Most Recent Round of Testing:
Multivitamins/multiminerals are among those supplements most likely to have quality problems. They contain multiple ingredients and, therefore, more possibility for error. Earlier tests by ConsumerLab.com have found multi’s that were short on ingredients, failed to dissolve properly, or were contaminated with heavy metals.

What CL Found:
Among twenty-one products for adults and children that ConsumerLab.com independently selected and tested, only ten met their claims and other quality standards. Two pet multivitamins were also tested, only one of which passed testing.

Here is what CL Found:

General (Adult):
    Eniva® VIBE™, a liquid sold in packets, had only 54% of its claimed 5,000 IU of vitamin A.
    Healthy Moments™ Mint Cream Flavor Vitamin Strips contained none of its claimed vitamin A. It also contained 180% of its claimed 2 mg of niacin per strip.
    Swanson® Daily Multi-Vitamin & Mineral had only 77.5% of its claimed 400 mcg of folate per capsule.
    The Greatest Vitamin in the World had only 85% of its claimed 800 mcg of folate in its suggested nine capsules per day — although this still meets the adult RDA.
    WEIL™ Andrew Weil, M.D. Daily Multivitamin for Optimum Health had only 73% of its claimed 10,000 IU of vitamin A (as beta-carotene) per tablet — although this still meets the adult RDA. It also had 251% of it claimed 60 mg of calcium — possibly an oversight of the calcium contributed by di-calcium phosphate, a binding agent listed among its inactive ingredients.

Women's:
    Nature's Plus® Especially Yours® Women's Multi-Vitamin failed to break apart properly, requiring more than one hour to disintegrate rather than the 30 minute limit established by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP). Such products may pass through the body without being fully utilized. It also contained 292% of its claimed 50 mg/tablet of calcium — possibly due to an oversight of the calcium contributed by the di-calcium phosphate in the product.
    The Vitamin Shoppe® Multivitamins Especially for Women was contaminated with 15.3 micrograms of lead per daily serving. This is more than ten times the amount of lead permitted without a warning label in California — the only state to regulate lead in supplements — and several times the normal daily exposure to lead. Lead at this level may not in itself be toxic to adults, but lead is stored in the body and unnecessary exposure should be avoided. This product should not be shared with children, as they are susceptible to lead poisoning at levels as low as 6 micrograms per day. This product also contained only 54% of its claimed 200 mg of calcium in its suggested daily dose of two tablets.

Men's:
    Now® Adam™ Superior Men's Multi failed to break apart properly, taking 40 minutes to disintegrate rather than the 30 minutes set by the USP.
    Win™ Fuel Men's Formula had only 81% of its claimed 4,000 IU of vitamin (although this is still above the RDA of 3,000 IU for men) and only 75% of it claimed 400 mcg of folate.

Seniors:
    AARP Maturity Formula failed to break apart properly, taking 50 minutes to disintegrate rather than the 30 minutes set by the USP.

Children's:
    Hero Nutritionals™ Yummi ® Bears contained 216% of its labeled amount of vitamin A, potentially delivering amounts in excess of those tolerable in children up to eight years old. The product contained 5,400 IU of vitamin A in the retinol form in a daily serving of three bears. The upper tolerable level (UL) set by the Institute of Medicine is 2,000 IU for children one to three years of age and 3,000 IU for those four to eight years old. Children of these ages only need to get 1,000 to 1,333 IU of vitamin A (see RDAs for Vitamin A in the ConsumerTips™ section). Excess vitamin A in the retinol form is of concern as it may lead to bone weakening and other problems.

Pet:
    Pet-Tabs® Complete Daily Vitamin-Mineral Supplement for Dogs contained 1.4 mcg of lead per tablet.

What you need to know is that even these tests represent only a snapshot in time. Quality of Chinese ingredients can vary widely from batch to batch.  One batch of product can be negative for lead, the next batch can be contaminated. Without independent testing of each and every batch there is no way to know. Price competition means that discount and certain brand-name nutritional supplements have to take the word of Chinese vendors for the quality of their products. Trust your health to this process at your own risk!
Pharmaceutical grade supplements may be somewhat more expensive, but there is a reason why. An independent laboratory, no matter where it comes from, rigorously tests each and every batch of every ingredient. In addition, each batch of finished problem is also tested to insure quality. All this testing is expensive, but absolutely necessary for any supplement you take to support your health.