Dietary Supplements...Buyer Beware

The precautions of nutritional products have been a hot topic ever since the passing of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, or DSHEA, in 1994.

Under this new legislation supplements were no longer subject to strict evaluation, opening the floodgates for unscrupulous manufacturers pushing questionable products.

So what are the main concerns here?

Since they are no longer regulated like food items and pharmaceutical drugs, health supplement makers do not have to guarantee the ingredients of their products, nor do they have to demonstrate the safety or the effectiveness of them.

Pretty scary, huh? The new legislation pretty much allows for anyone to put out any product they want, and they don't have to prove that it works. The only requirement is that they cannot make outrageous claims on the product's label, or they can be subject to penalties.

Following are some of the many precautions of dietary supplements that you should be aware of:

1. Even though the label lists an ingredient, this does not mean the ingredient is necessarily in the product. In a recent study, a test of 54 ginseng products found that 25% of them did not even contain ginseng! Sounds ridiculous, but it is true. Another study was conducted on green tea products, with similar results.
   
   
2. If there is too much ingredient in a product, it could be dangerous to your health. Also, some ingredients to do not interact well together, and could cause adverse side effects.
   
   
3. Many dietary supplements contain harmful contaminants due to poor manufacturing and handling processes.

So as you can see, the DSHEA legislation, although meant to be helpful to consumers, leaves them vulnerable to potentially dangerous products.

So how do you find safe dietary supplements?

Being supplement takers ourselves, we have been researching the industry for years to find a nutritional product manufacturer with safe, high-quality products.

Several years ago we discovered Xtend-Life, a natural supplement company based in New Zealand.

What we liked about the company was that they provide a Certificate of Analysis (COA) for all of their ingredients, which guarantees their potency and safety.

They also adhere to strict GMP compliance, which are the highest manufacturing standards in the world, the same used by pharmaceutical companies.

Lastly, all of their products are scientifically formulated by a well-credentialed expert, making sure all of the ingredients are blended perfectly to ensure maximum health benefits.

If you are interested in taking safe, high quality natural supplements we believe that Xtend-Life offers the very best products on the market. They have a select few extensively researched nutritional products, not hundreds of products like some of the other health companies out there.

Due to the potential problems with supplements that we outline above, you really have to make sure you choose health products with safe, tested, quality ingredients that can offer the benefits they claim to.

As with all health products, please consult with your physician or other qualified medical professional before you begin supplementation.

more on our nutritional supplements page

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