Pharmacists Give NSP A

“White Glove” Inspection

Among the more than 800 attendees of NSP’s first annual New Manger Convention in 1993 were two pharmacists from Fort Wroth, Texas. Following their tour of Nature’s Sunshine’s manufacturing facility in Spanish Fork, Utah, they shared their observations with Sunshine Horizons, the distributors bi-monthly magazine.

Philip Orr, who just sold his pharmacy after 42 years of community service, had been told that Nature’s Sunshine manufactures its products by pharmaceutical standards of cleanliness, accuracy and scientific testing.

“I was quite impressed with the plant and quality control,” he said. “These things are very important to me. Nature’s Sunshine certainly measures up to other large pharmaceutical operations I have toured. In fact, I think NSP has a standard beyond the large commercial operations.”

We also spoke with Burl Daniel, also of Fort Worth. He has a network of five pharmacists throughout the country selling Nature’s Sunshine Products, especially the homeopathic line.

The minute Burl walked in the door of our manufacturing plant, he was impressed. Having toured several large drug company plants over the years, he decided that what he saw in Spanish Fork “far exceeded any of them. The employees are people-oriented as well as science-oriented. The cleanliness and organization of the whole operation was professionally done.” he said. “As far as I am concerned, it was top order.” --7-1993


NSP's Quality & Standards - by Dawn

I worked for Packaging Digest magazine during the late 60's to mid 70's, and was their designated "expert" on food, drug and cosmetics packaging. I toured the manufacturing facilities of every major pharmaceutical company in America. What I saw there was many steps above the putrid environment of the Chicago slaughterhouses, the disgusting Kitchens of Sara Lee or the rodent, roach and creepy-crawlier infested environs of the Campbell Soup Company. HOWEVER, even the drug manufacturing facilities were NOT CLEAN. In all those years of tours, I saw nothing to compare with the Nature's Sunshine manufacturing and testing facilities. NSP's are the ONLY CLEAN ones I have ever seen. When I toured the NSP facility in 1985, dozens of employees eagerly answered all the really tough questions I could think of, and I can think of a few. I came away thoroughly impressed, and I often use this personal knowledge in explaining NSP products.

Further, as a senior editor, I also attended every food and drug industry meeting held, including those devoted to labeling for nutritional content. Listening carefully, I concluded that eating anything canned or served from a steam table was tantamount to sweeping the floor and eating the dirt I collected. And I MEAN that. Such food contains virtually NO NUTRIENT CONTENT, because heat degrades the nutrients it might have contained. Canned food is 100% valueless at the end of 3 months unless it’s stored at 52 degrees F. When was the last time you were in a grocery store THAT cold?

The steam table food is dead by lunchtime. Industry studies illustrate that frozen foods, including vegetables, are thawed and refrozen on average of 5-1/2 times before you buy them, so they load them with chemical preservatives.

In the end, their "nutrient value" was decided to be that of fresh food, cooked at high temperature for a short time (HT/ST)! What a hoax! If you believe that, then you must also believe that these companies, who load their foods with preservatives, dyes, etc., also have PERFECT Quality Control. I, for one, do not because I know better. -- 12/7/01


ALL TABLETS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

You pop those vitamin tablets in your mouth, slash’em down with a swallow of water, and you’re set. Now you’ve got your daily requirement of vitamin X, or so you thought.

The truth of the matter is, perhaps you took the tablet, but you may not get the vitamin! The reason is, all tablets are not created equal. That is, some tablets dissolve when swallowed and some don’t. It’s one thing to press a vitamin formula powder into a solid tablet form for consumption; it’s quite another to have it dissolve enough to nourish the body.

Disintegration and dissolution are two critical considerations when making tables. In order for a vitamin tablet to effectively release its nutrients into the digestive system, it must readily dissolve in the stomach or soon after leaving the stomach. If a tablet is so hard that it remains largely undissolved, then it becomes nearly useless to the body, leaving almost none of its valuable nutrients behind.

On the other hand, a tablet must be sturdy enough to resist breaking and crumbling in the bottle with normal use. No one, expecting tablets, wants to get powder. The very act of shaking a tablet to two out of the bottle into your hand damages the remaining tablets. All the shaking it takes to get a bottleful of tablets out, over time, can turn the last few tablets to powder and crumbs if they are not hard.

Most companies, especially the over-the-counter variety, don’t give it a second thought. “Make it and sell it!” seems to be their motto. They don’t want the tablets they make to fall apart in the bottle because the customers would see it and complain, or worse yet they wouldn’t buy again. So they make their tablets hard enough to withstand the worst jostling. (We have found tablets on the market that fail to dissolve after a full 24 hours.) These manufacturers seem unconcerned that their rock-hard tablets go undissolved in your body, leaving you as vitamin poor as you were before you swallowed them. You don’t see it, so you are unaware that a problem exists.

But Nature’s Sunshine takes the time to look much more closely. By employing sophisticated test equipment that simulates the effects of digestion on a tablet, we are able to determine the solubility of any tablet. And we’ve found a happy medium between hard and soft. By adjusting the composition of the tablet and the pressure at which it is made, we can assure ourselves that our tablets are hard enough to withstand normal handling without significant damage, yet soft enough to dissolve fully in the body, at the appropriate point in the digestive process to fully benefit the body.

Who would have thought that so much consideration, testing and effort could go into making a little tablet? Nature’s Sunshine Products, that’s who.
 

Go to my personal NATURE'S SUNSHINE site for your Personal "Health Analysis".

You may also check on product information, ordering and become a member for FREE.

Contact: Karen Olerich, Herb Specialist and Natural Health Consultant

Phone: (719) 495-4930

E-mail: Karen