Vitamin Potency Comparison

Vitamin Potency comparison...

When doing any kind of vitamin supplement comparisons, it's important to take a lot more into account than just how much ingredients product X has over product Y.

We will cover here what we believe to be the most important factors a consumer should consider when doing vitamin supplement comparisons.

Vitamin Potency Comparison

Let's illustrate just how important this point is.

Consider this quote...

"Many supplement Companies mislead you about the potency of their ingredients. The amount of ingredient stated on a label does not reflect the amount of active ingredient. The active ingredient is what provides the benefit. Here's an example:

Beta Carotene is a form of Vitamin A and can vary incredibly in potency. It can be synthetic or natural. The active ingredient present may just be a few percent or up to 98% of the weight.

In other words if you have a supplement that contains 5mgs of Beta Carotene it might have active ingredient of 0.15mgs (at 3% active). Or, it may have active ingredient of 4.9mgs (at 98% active). In other words the 98% active product is over 30 times more potent than the 3% one (even though they both have exactly 5mg present).

And the cost difference? Synthetic Beta Carotene (3% active) costs around $60 per kilo, whereas natural pure pharmaceutical grade (98% active) costs around US$2,400 per kilo (98% active)." [End Quote]

Talk about the importance of doing vitamin potency comparison!

That quote came from the website of Xtend-Life Natural Products. We here at Nutritional Supplement Info personally use their flagship Total Balance product. They have some great information about the importance of potency.

You can read more about potency at their website

Manufacturing

When choosing supplements or vitamins of any kind, you should not only look at a vitamin potency comparison, but also make sure your product is being manufactured at pharmaceutical GMP compliant facilities.

This will ensure your product is being produced under the most stringent conditions.

Why is this important?

Well, most of the dietary and vitamin supplement industry is currently self-regulated. This unfortunately means that many manufacturers are making subpar products. But don't just take our word for it.

Both private and government agencies have shown that many products -- even large brand name ones -- do not contain the ingredients stated on the product label, or worse, harbor toxic contaminants!

The FDA recognizes the industry wide scope of this problem, which you can read more about here if you wish.

In short, another crucial issue when making vitamin supplement comparisons should be: is this product made at a GMP compliant facility?

Delivery System

Have you ever heard the line that "90% of your vitamins are going down the toilet?" Well, the reason for this is because of poor delivery systems.

Many people aren't aware of this, but a lot of nutrients, especially some of the really beneficial ones much more powerful that just vitamins, can be partially or instantly destroyed by your stomach acids before your body can even utilize the nutrients.

The key is to make sure your product is using a delivery system called "enteric coating."

Enteric coating is used to allow supplements to bypass the stomach acids. When the tablet reaches the intestines, it will dissolve and then go to work in the bloodstream.

Enteric coating requires sophisticated technology, which is an added expense that many vitamin and supplement manufacturers don't want to incur.

Bottomline: when it comes to vitamin supplement comparisons, choose enteric coated products.

Because, in the end, it won't matter how well your supplement squares off in a vitamin potency comparison if it has a lousy delivery system.

Many supplements are made with cheap binders (the stuff that holds the tablet together). These cheap binders make the supplement pass right through your system unutilized.

Read more about Total Balance and Enteric Coating here.

Other Nutrients in Vitamin Supplement Comparisons

Although you may only be interested in vitamins, the fact of the matter is that there are many nutrients available in supplements that have a great many benefits for optimal health, and many of these are much more powerful than ordinary vitamins.

Therefore, we feel that to only look at vitamin potency comparison is too narrow.

For example, certain nutrients like Alpha Lipoic Acid, Resveratrol, and Turmeric are very potent antixoidants. Alpha lipopic acid, to use just one example, is literally hundreds of times more potent than vitamin C as an antioxidant and even many times more powerful than Vitamin E.

Featured Product

We here at Nutritional Supplement Info, being passionate about health, went way beyond just vitamin potency comparison when it came to choosing a supplement for our own personal use. We looked at all the factors above and more.

After extensive research, we discovered one called Total Balance manufactured by Xtend Life Natural Products, based in New Zealand.

New Zealand has regulatory manufacturing requirements for dietary supplements far more stringent than what exists in the US.

Their product Total Balance not only contains a broad spectrum of vitamins and minerals, but most of the powerful speciality nutrients we were looking for, all in one product.

In fact, on the Xtend-Life website, they state that their product is not a traditional multi-vitamin by any means:

"Total Balance is not a traditional multi supplement. Although we use a broad spectrum of vitamins and minerals they are used primarily as 'carriers' for the molecules of much more potent nutrients that are in the formula."

People who are serious about their health and want more than just basic vitamin supplement comparisons may wish to have a look at Total Balance.

We here at Nutritional Supplement Info have personally been using Total Balance for over 2 years now with excellent results.