By Warren Matthews
This Article was originally published in the March 17, 2004 and April 14, 2004 issues of XTEND-YOUR-LIFE. Subscription details are available at ... http://www.InstantEnergyBoost.com.

Over the next two issues, starting this week I am going to tell you how you can...

* Improve the quality of your life.
* Increase your energy levels.
* Protect yourself against viruses, flu's and colds.
* Reduce the likelihood of getting cancer.
* Reduce the possibility of a heart attack or stroke!
* Slow down your aging.

There are three positive steps that you must take to achieve these things. One is to examine your lifestyle, another is your diet and the third is to implement a professional supplementation regime. I won't address lifestyle and diet at the moment as I have already touched on this in our special
report on weight loss. I would suggest you read it even if you are not overweight. You can get it for free from the special reports page on our website.

What I will do is examine the issue of supplementation! This is a much more important subject than most people realize. If you do not supplement, then you can almost guarantee that your body
is deficient in certain nutrients. The only people who are exempt from this statement are those who may be living in an area with pure air, grow their own organic vegetables and fruit in good quality soil uncontaminated by pesticides and herbicides, raise their own livestock on grass, get plenty of
sleep and are free from stress! (Not many people around in this position)

You can get all your nutrients from fruit and vegetables ... nonsense!

OK, I know that some 'authorities' say that you can get all your essential nutrients from 5 or 6 servings a day of fruit and vegetables. This is nonsense, because this is not possible for most people even if they do eat that many servings. The so called 'fresh' foods that you buy at the supermarket today only
contain a fraction of the nutrients they once did. This is due to mass production farming practices, storage protocols, picking before being ripe and so on. Read the newsletter I wrote back on
the 21st August 2001. The facts will shock you! You can find it by going to the newsletter page on the website and looking under the archives.

You may ask yourself, why do the 'authorities' suggest that you can get all the nutrients that you need from the food that you eat if this is not true? I certainly ask myself this question! I keep coming back to the same answer... many of the 'sources' from where some of these 'authorities' draw their information have a vested interest in the 'health care business' which is a misnomer for the 'sick' business!

Did you know that there are more people employed in the cancer industry than those who actually have cancer? Pretty sad, given that the greatest majority of cancer is avoidable!

Why are there more sick people today?

If these 'authorities' assertions were correct then how come there are more sick people in the 'civilized' world today than there was a 100 years ago? Oh, you may answer, this is because
people live longer! True... and false... because they don't live much longer even though the statistics say so. But, these statistics are a gross distortion. They are distorted because they are based on averages and the average life expectancy many decades ago was artificially low due to high infant mortality rates that don't apply any more. I devoted an issue on this subject back on the 2nd April last year. Have a look at it and you will see what I mean.

Just reflect on this for a moment! Ask you parents or your grandparents what age their parents, grandparents and great grandparents died? You may be surprised that they lived longer
than what you may have thought, and they did so without the help of pharmaceutical drugs, without hospitals and suffered less from 'elderly' diseases such as Alzheimer's that are so common
today. This is because they were not subject to the environmental hazards that we are all faced with today and further, their food was wholesome and didn't come out of a packet full of empty calories.

Because of modern living we have no choice, whether we like it or not but to supplement if we seriously wish to avoid the diseases that are rampant in our community and are projected to
get a lot worse. Therefore, if you are like the majority of people and consider supplementation as a desirable but low priority I sincerely believe that you should reconsider your priorities.

The reason why most people do not supplement is either they don't believe in it (in which case they are deluding themselves) or, they have more 'important' things on which to spend their money. But... are they saving money when they apply money which they could allocate to their supplementation program to perhaps a bigger house mortgage or a new car? Ironically no, because if you ignore your biggest asset... YOU... and your subsequent earning ability is affected through ill health then what you
would have spent in quality supplementation pales in insignificance. Quality supplementation is the cheapest self insurance program you can implement.

Hopefully, I have made my point on the principles behind supplementation.

What works?

Now, we come to the next stage in which we face the question, "If I buy supplements how do I know that they are any good?"

This is a valid question given that there is so much hype in the market place, many 'fly by nighters' in for a quick buck particularly on the internet, outlandish claims for this and that supplement and so on. Because it tends to be a fairly complicated science there is no easy answer to this. It becomes
even more complicated when you read about issues such as bio-availability of different products and so on. For example, tablets which pass through you intact and clog up the sewers!

With regard to the last point some MLM (multi level marketing) companies in particular have capitalized on this through a distortion of the facts. This is usually in support of a liquid supplement in which they claim 98% bio-availability... which I will come back to in a moment.

So, is it true that tablets will sometimes pass through the system with no absorption at all? Absolutely! BUT... this statement only applies to poor quality tablets that are mass produced, use cheap excipients and binders, and are hard compressed. These type of tablets are very common in
supermarkets and they do nothing for you, and ironically at the end of the day are the most expensive tablets that you can buy!

But, good quality tablets do not pass through the body intact. Imagine if you went to the drug store and bought an OTC and it went through your body without breaking down! This doesn't happen, because they are designed to break down in a controlled and predictable manner.

However, the standards that apply to the pharmaceutical tablets are not enforced on the dietary supplement industry... at least not in the US... not yet! This is why there is so many substandard supplements on the market which tend to 'taint' supplements in general.

Bio-availability...

Before I get too far ahead of the liquid supplement issue let me address it. The marketers of liquid supplements play on the premise that being a liquid that their products are 98% bio-available. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? But, it's wrong! Wrong, because most nutrients are absorbed into the blood stream via the lining of the small intestine. The nutrients have to go through the stomach first before they can be absorbed into the blood stream. As soon as you swallow a liquid supplement and it
'hits' your stomach it is immediately attacked by your stomach acids and enzymes. Those nutrients that survive pass through to the duodenum which is the upper part of the small intestine and
begin to be absorbed through the lining into the blood stream.

This is OK for some nutrients but devastating for others. This is why the liquid supplements are so limited because many of the nutrients that they contain are damaged by up to 80% when they
arrive in the stomach. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve a 98% absorption rate! The same principle applies to good quality tablets and capsules. The active ingredients that they contain
all meet the same fate... unless the ingredients are actually designed to be released in the stomach... which some are.

So, how do you overcome this problem and get the active ingredients into your blood stream? Not easily, but it is possible! The pharmaceutical industry has been doing it foryears! This is how they do it.

Enteric coating!

Firstly they develop a tablet that will disintegrate at a certain pH within a specific time. This is based on the pH level found in the upper intestine. (Note: although the stomach is highly acidic, the upper intestine is slightly alkaline). Next they coat that tablet with a special acid resistant enteric
coating that can withstand the stomach acid for the period of time that it takes to pass through the stomach. The tablet transit time and the average pH of the intestine have all been clearly established.

When a person swallows the tablet, it passes through the stomach unscathed, and within 10 - 20 minutes of entering the duodenum the enteric coating disintegrates releasing the active ingredients which dissolve within 30 - 60 minutes before it passes through the upper intestine. Each batch manufactured is required to be tested using specialized equipment that simulates the fluids in the stomach and intestine!

OK, you say, then why don't supplements all have this delivery system? Two reasons:

1. The equipment is very specialized and expensive and requires advanced technology.

2. Not all ingredients in dietary supplements are destroyed by stomach acids which mean some simple formulations are OK in capsule or ordinary tablet form. These are usually quite basic products.

I hope that this has given you a better understanding of the importance of the 'delivery' of active ingredients. The correct delivery system can have an impact of more than five fold on the
efficacy of a supplement. But... there is much more to just the delivery system when it comes to producing a quality supplement. I will tell you more in PART 2 of this newsletter.

Finally (for today), I am going to let you know that we made the decision about 8 months ago to invest in this advanced delivery technology and we now have it successfully commissioned and operating and have just released our third generation Total Balance using this technology. (We follow all the same testing protocols as required for the pharmaceutical industry.) BUT... not only have we employed this delivery system which is a first for this type of supplement, but we have also increased the active ingredients in our Total Balance Unisex by 55%, and 40% in our Men's and Women's Plus... and the good news is with only a minimal increase in price.

Whereas the second generation product was at the 'cutting' edge of the supplement industry, the new generation pushes it way over the top and puts it in a class all on its own! It even prompts the body to create its own CoQ10 equivalent to a level more than a 100mg CoQ10 tablet! Also the metabolic pathways that the active ingredients follow can now be better controlled.

The feedback that we are now getting from our pre release testing already gives me deep satisfaction that the time and effort in putting this technology in place was worth it. My family, staff and I are all feeling the difference!

The three additional key issues are:

* The formulation itself.
* The selection of ingredients.
* The manufacturing procedures and in particular the blending process.

How important is the formulation?

A lot more than most people realize! This is because it is not just a matter of selecting a range of ingredients that have been established to do certain things within your body, but having the knowledge of what happens when you combine them. This means that you need to know the various metabolic paths that these ingredients take and how that path can be affected when combined with other ingredients.

Not only that, but you need to know what happens when the combination of ingredients react with natural chemicals within your body. This can lead to the creation of new substances. Some
of these new substances are desirable such as the CoQ10 that the ingredients in our Total Balance produce! On the other hand, some reactions are not desirable and can cancel each other out.

A common example of a negative interaction is the combining of the popular herbs Maca and Muria Puma. A quick search on the internet will bring up dozens of supplements with these two
ingredients. However, what the manufacturers and suppliers of these products don't seem to know, or choose to ignore is that because the alkaloid content of these two herbs are not compatible they cancel each other out when combined!

But, consumers continue to buy these products and manufacturers continue to produce them simply because they have read that these herbs are good, so they assume that using both of them
make the product twice as good. A reasonable assumption... but, totally wrong!

In contrast, studies have established that the correct combination of active ingredients can increase the efficacy of the individual components by as much as fifteen times.

So, I can't overemphasize the importance of a multi-nutrient supplement formula being designed by specialist bio-chemists who understand the metabolic pathways of active ingredients and the
interaction of them with each other and chemicals within the body. These skilled people are very 'thin on the ground'.

Before we release a new product Prof. Dr. A. Munem who heads our R & D, (and is one of the world's top bio-scientists), spends months examining the interactions of the active ingredients at molecular level to ensure that the correct metabolic pathways are achieved.

The selection of Ingredients...

Sounds simple... doesn't it? Select the ingredient that you want, buy it, and incorporate it in the formula and manufacture it! Oh... I wish it was that easy.

The problem is that apart from the simple vitamins and minerals the variation in the specifications of raw ingredients can be overwhelming. There are of course variances in the spec's of the vitamins and minerals but that is nothing compared to the specialized ingredients and herbals.

(Note: Even with simple minerals the selection of the correct form is crucial. For example, zinc citrate which is good for overall health in both males and females does little for the male prostate because it follows the wrong metabolic pathway...and yet many prostate formulas use this wrong form of zinc! Zinc is crucial for prostate health and the correct form must be used. This is why we use two forms of Zinc in Total Balance Men's Plus.)

To give you an idea of how wide some of the variances in ingredients can be, here are some examples:

Biotin - available from 3% potency to 99% potency! Same for B12, and Beta Carotene which is available in either the synthetic or natural form! The price variation can be as much as FIFTY times.

Policosanol. Most manufacturers use the raw ingredient that contains 20% active ingredient. We use the more potent version at 60% active. This ingredient can be sourced from sugar cane (which we use), rice bran or bee's wax. They all have slightly different properties with varying levels of efficacy and of course cost.

These same variations apply to many other ingredients such as Reservatrol, L-Carnosine and many others that we use. Even ingredients that sound the same have different properties. For example, L-Carnitine follows a different metabolic pathway to that of Acetyl L-Carnitine which is a popular 'anti-aging' supplement (which we use in TB), but it has only a fraction of the potency of L-Carnosine.

Herbal extracts give an even bigger range of choices because of the different extraction methods and percentage of actives. Sometimes the non 'active' component of the herbal extract is more important than the 'active' because it is needed to act as a 'carrier' for other substances within the formula.

Enzymes, are also another tricky area. If you compare the enzymes in our Total Balance Women's Plus and the Men's Plus you will notice they are different. This is because of the slightly different metabolic pathways between Men and Women that need to be addressed with different enzymes.

As you can see, the selection of ingredients is not as simple as it may seem at first sight. Our purchasing officer has to search the world for the correct specifications. Then they have to be
approved by Prof. Dr. A Munem before purchasing. Then when approved we have to establish that the manufacturer of the raw ingredient is GMP certified. Even then it doesn't end there because when the ingredients arrive in New Zealand we have to send samples to an independent laboratory to identify and confirm the certificate of analysis before we use them.

Why do so many supplements not contain what they claim?

You have probably read news reports from time to time which say that when such and such a supplement was tested that it only contained a fraction of the ingredients that it claimed on the
label, or, occasionally that it contained more. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that because there are no regulatory requirements in the USA where the majority of the world's supplements are manufactured there is a definite tendency for manufacturers to 'short change' when it comes to including all the ingredients claimed, particularly the expensive ones. This problem is exacerbated due to the intense competition amongst contract manufacturers who produce most of the supplements.

Often the distributor or marketer is blissfully unaware that they are shortchanging their customers... but not always so.

I recollect a few years ago visiting a manufacturer in Florida who was telling me that they missed out on a large contract with a major distributor. This was because they could not match the price of their competitor. The reason? They had to use three capsules instead of two which their competitor was using. This is because the formula would not physically fit into two. But, the customer did want to know the facts so they stayed with the original cheaper manufacturer.

The second reason is the blending process:

Think about this for a moment! A tablet in a formula may contain as little as 8 mcgs (micrograms) of a specific substance, say a trace element or B12. Now, that is not much. To get an idea of just how much, weigh out a gram of some substance (I would say sugar... but I am sure that if you have been reading these newsletters for some time that you wouldn't have any of this in the house... would you?), then divide that by one thousand times and you will have 1 milligram.

THEN, divide that into another 125 parts and you will then have 8 micrograms. This of course is impossible without laboratory equipment, but I present it this way so you have a better appreciation of just how small the potion of some ingredients in a tablet really are.

So, you will no doubt be asking is, "Is it possible to get the exact amount + or - a reasonable percentage into each tablet?" The answer is yes, but it is not possible using 'normal' blending procedures followed by the overwhelming majority of the supplement industry. You must use pharmaceutical methods of blending, protocols and validation.

This requires special blending equipment such as twin shell blenders or 3D blenders. It also requires multiple blending procedures!

Instead of tipping all the ingredients into one big blender which is the norm and which causes stratification of the ingredients, it is crucial, in order to get a uniform mix to segregate the ingredients into specific categories and mix them separately using gravity type blenders which avoids stratification. Then the low dose ingredients have to be remixed into a portion of the 'bulk' mix and in turn that mix, mixed into the total mix and so on.

Before we finalize a new product we develop a specific blending protocol for that particular product. This involves taking test samples at various stages in the blending and analyzing the mix
to ensure that all the active ingredients are present in each tablet in the required amounts. This is the same blending procedures that a pharmaceutical drug is required to follow.

Summary...

I hope that I have not bored you with all this detail but I think that it is important for you to understand these issues as it impacts on your health and of course your pocket if you are not getting what you think you are.

A final point to remember is that just because a product is manufactured in an FDA approved facility or, a pharmaceutical facility it does not mean that any of the above issues or procedures are being followed. All it means is that the facility meets hygiene requirements. There is no obligation on the
manufacturer (at this stage) to follow the procedures that I have just explained.

Because we are a specialty manufacturer with a small product range and, because our business is based on establishing life long customers we go far beyond the current legal requirements to ensure that all the above procedures are followed and we can rest easy knowing that our customers cannot get better efficacy or value for money anywhere.

Until next time,

Warren J. Matthews
http://www.InstantEnergyBoost.com.

Important notice: All material provided within the newsletter XTEND-YOUR-LIFE is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. No action should be taken solely on the contents of this publication. Consult your physician or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing or on any opinions expressed within this newsletter. The information provided in this newsletter is believed to be accurate based on the best judgment of the editor but the reader is responsible for consulting with their own health professional on any matters raised within.