Xtend-Life-Questionst
13th September 2005
Please click on the question of interest:
Comment: From Larry. (Subject: Less ingredients?)q1
I was just wondering with your new total balance formulation why some of the ingredients have lower amounts than in the previous formulation and some have I believe been removed.
Answer: From Nicolien.
The total amount of active ingredients has remained the same in the new generation of Total Balance or has been slightly increased. The ingredients which we removed have been replaced with more potent ingredients such as the reduced L-Glutathione. Some of the vitamins/minerals have been reduced very slightly to enable customers to take both TB and one of the Neuro-Natural range without overdosing. Nonetheless, the overall efficacy has still been further enhanced from the previous generation even with this small reduction in some of the ingredients...due to the action of other actives taking up the 'slack'.
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Question: From Alex. (Subject: Duplication of ingredients.)q2
Reading the newsletter item about the new Rejuvenator product prompted me to wonder about where your product strategy is heading?
I always understood that your 'value proposition' is that each of your products contains a large range of relatively low dosage ingredients working synergistically. The customer need only purchase one product to ensure range and mutual consistency of ingredients, rather than have to shop around for different products which he then has to mix and match himself (inevitably with a lot of hit and miss).
But recently you've introduced several specialized new products (Arthrit-eze, separate Neuro products, and now Rejuvenator) which rather dilutes the original value proposition? For instance, I myself take TB Men's Plus and Neuro Memory, though I have misgivings that there is much duplication between the ingredients. I would certainly be interested in an enhanced prostrate-focused supplement, but the new Rejuvenator has ingredients which at first sight largely overlap TB+ and Neuro.
Supposedly all these products are mutually compatible, but the reality is that you end up taking (and paying for!) a lot of duplication. Can we not simply have a (further) enhanced TB+ for Men, instead.
Answer: From Warren.
I understand the points that you are making.
Our philosophy has not changed. The foundation is still Total Balance plus Omega 3 with add on products for specific concerns.
There is indeed some overlap with some ingredients but they are primarily there as co-factors and they are the less expensive of the ingredients so the impact on cost is very low.
With regard to the new Male Rejuvenator the differences will become a lot clearer when you see the amount of the various ingredients. (We will publish details sometime this month). The key ones needed for the desired action of this product are either not present in Total Balance or it has been desirable to increase the amount of them to maximize specific results.
Unfortunately it is just not practical to incorporate all of these additional ingredients in TB. For example, three of the key ingredients in this new formula which are Damiana Extract, Epilobium Parviflorum Extracts, Tribulus Terrestris extract are not in TB at all and the other two key ingredients Quercitin and L-Arginine are only present in small quantities in TB which although sufficient for good general health, it would be desirable to have more in order to give a significant boost for male sexual health.
At the optimum daily dose these five ingredients alone make up the equivalent of 4 tablets which is why it is not practical to include them within Total Balance.
I can assure you Alex that we have factored in all the issues that you raised whilst undertaking the development of our new products in order to avoid unnecessary duplication and of course expense. However, some duplication is unavoidable as some customers may take some of these 'add on' products singly and a small amount of the other ingredients are important co-factors that ensure the main actives work effectively.
We also take into account that many customers are taking the full range of our products and that any duplication of ingredients is still within safe limits.
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Question: From Robbie. (Subject: Doubts published about vitamin efficacy.)q3
This is the address for "Medpage Today", it can be found at:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/PublicHealth/tb/1688
As far as I am concerned it is a disturbing article/opinion. Your comments would be gratefully appreciated.
Remaining a satisfied customer.
Answer: From Warren.
Quite honestly I wouldn't take too much notice of this as this report is similar to a number of other 'releases' about studies over the years.
Part of the problem is that these types of studies can be very misleading. To use a generic term 'multi-vitamins' can be so misleading as there are vast differences between different types of multi-vitamins. If for example, the studies were done using the normal supermarket type multi-vitamins then the results are exactly as expected... zero.
Many multi's are a complete waste of money and are little different to a placebo, and they are very damaging to the industry. The reason for this is the way they are manufactured and the types of vitamins that they use.
To clarify further... you can have many variations of almost all the vitamins and minerals. An example I quoted in a recent newsletter was Vitamin E. There is a wide variety of Vit E's with big differences in efficacy...and price! For example natural Vitamin E Succinate is significantly more expensive than the synthetic Vitamin E's used in most multi-vitamins. But...then it is important to realize that even the good form of natural Vit E will not do it's job properly unless it is combined with Tocotrienols which covers the full spectrum of Vitamin E's...but you will never find Tocotrienols in a supermarket multi-vitamin.
The same principle applies to minerals. For example, Calcium... Most multi's use Calcium Carbonate which is very low in bio-availability, compared to say Calcium Citrate. However, the Carbonate is more 'popular' because it is so much cheaper. And so, the story goes on and this is just dealing with the ingredients.
Then you look at the manufacturing procedures. Most of the common multi's are produced in vast quantities. They are 'stamped' out in high speed tableting machines...with hourly rates into the 100,000's of tablets (or even millions). To achieve these high speeds, the powders have to be able to flow very fast. This requires the addition of a large proportion of excipients. Depending upon the types used these may impact on the breakdown of the tablet in the body thus affecting bio-availability. To put this into perspective in our manufacturing we cannot exceed about 20,000 tablets an hour because we use minimal excipients and of the type that won't negatively affect bio-availability.
Another factor that can impact on the efficacy of a multi, is the blending process. Whereas we limit each blend of our products to 75 kilograms some of these other large volume manufacturers will blend a couple of tons at a time. Also, whereas our blending protocol will take up to 5 hours to complete, the large manufacturers will often only blend for 20 minutes per batch for much larger volumes.
This is only part of the story in producing a good supplement. If you would like to know more please have a look at the manufacturing processes which we employ. (Note: Natural Products (NZ) Ltd is owned by us and part of Xtend-Life) http://www.naturalproductsnz.com/quality.html.
On a final note, and related to an issue that I touched on in a recent newsletter is that vitamins (multi's) are largely misunderstood by the public (and by most manufacturers as well). Many are of the view that vitamins are the way to good health...but on their own they simply don't 'cut it' and they are quite weak. They are dependent upon a wide range of other co-factors and nutrients to do their magic.
So, in summary, multi-vitamins are like cars...They may be like an old Russian Lada or, they may be a Mercedes. However, unlike a car which will usually get you to where you are going, a poor multi will take you nowhere and thus is a waste of money. Unfortunately, these differences are not noted when results of negative studies are published. For these reports to be balanced they should reveal details of what products were being used in the study and what form of ingredients were used. To provide less than that puts a negative slant on what could be a positive result, if products of the right quality were used.
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