Many people have been asking me lately why I always choose Nature's Sunshine Products. This is not a simple explanation, but one that comes from years of experience, intense research on dozens of products and exposure to hundreds more.

I always look for a company that does complete testing, has in-house testing, and identifies specific testing procedures, not just a vague reference to testing claims. I do an online screen for the procedures and policies of the lab, and frankly most of them refer to testing but do not identify any real procedures.

Formulas that contain toxins such as titanium dioxide, artificial color or flavor, cottonseed oil, or color and a #, get thrown right out. Formulas that contain the toxic form of vitamin E (dl-alpha tocopherol) get thrown out. This eliminates a lot of brands!

Most Nutritionists, Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, etc., carry supplements not just to supplement our income, but also to provide non-toxic, professional quality formulas to our clients. I am not opposed to making a living helping people to heal, but I am opposed to providing toxic therapies for obscene amounts of money that kill people. In Natural Health the worst that can happen is that you don't get better, the therapies we employ do not kill.

I like the idea that a person may have their own wholesale account, without having to qualify as a professional, and thereby be empowered for their own healing with Nature's Sunshine Products. It's the 'give a man a fish and he eats for a day' vs. the 'teach a man to fish and he has food every day' mentality. With Nature's Sunshine Products there is a volume bonus for the sponsor which not a huge amount of money, definitely less than the retail profit, so some practitioners steer away from this type of marketing.

Some therapists create their own formulas out of their freshly gardened herbs. I do this for my family and friends, but never in a clinical setting. When I am helping someone past a health crisis, I have to know what was grown or placed in the soil a hundred years ago that might have leached into the herbs. I have to be certain that bottle 'A' has the same active ingredient(s) as bottle 'C', and that an herb grown in a drought year has the same active ingredient and healing potential as that same herb grown in a good year.

I don't have a 21 million dollar facility to test for this, but Nature's Sunshine Products does. They have a 35+-year reputation as the first herb encapsulator and are the industry leader in quality assurance. Please do not take my word for this; go to my web page, then to shop, then to NSP life.

Go to 'company', then 'product quality', then 'quality assurance', and then 'take an online tour'.

Slide 4 on the tour identifies 10 different tests, including Organoleptic testing, Microscopic Evaluation, Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), Fourrier Transformation Infrared Spectrometry (FTIS), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Radiation/Gamma testing (for possible radiation exposure at growing site), and UV-Vis (for active ingredient).

Slides 5, 6, and 7 identify even more testing, including Gas Chromatography (GC), (for methyl mercury, pesticides, etc) Inductively Coupled Plasma Emissions Spectrometry (for arsenic, lead, cadmium and aluminum) and Bactometer for bacterial exposure (E. coli and such) .

All told, every Nature's Sunshine Product endures 588 tests before it may carry their label and possibly enter your bloodstream. No one else can even come close to that, so rest assured that when you take Nature's Sunshine Products you are doing the very best for your body, and when you recommend them you will 'First do no harm.' :)