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Who is Ideal Health? |
Ideal Health is a privately owned company made up of seasoned business
professionals who have a personal passion for quality nutrition. The founders
(Todd Stanwood, Chief Executive Officer, Lou DeCaprio, President, and Scott
Stanwood, Vice President of Communications), and their partners have assembled
a carefully selected team of scientific and technical experts to fulfill a
vision of providing the best nutritional supplementation that science has to
offer.
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How long have they been in business? |
Ideal Health began official operations in March of 1997 and has quickly grown
to thousands of members in all 50 states.
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Who are their experts? |
The Ideal Health Scientific Advisory Board members include: Medical Doctors,
Registered Dietitians, Certified Clinical Nutritionists, Chiropractors,
Exercise Physiologists, and Ph.D.'s with specialties in Medical Sciences,
Biochemistry, and Nutritional Biochemistry. Collectively, the Board members
represent educational and/or professional affiliations with the finest
institutions in the country, including: Harvard Medical School, Boston
University, Brown University, Hahnemann Medical College, University of Florida
College of Medicine, University of Texas at Austin, Beth-Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston, and others.
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Who makes the supplements? Where do you get your
supplements? |
Ideal Health has access to premier formulary facilities that have been
supplying healthcare professionals with quality nutritional supplements for
over two decades. Our manufacturing facilities services healthcare
professionals in countries all over the world, including Western Europe,
Australia, and the Pacific Rim. Your Custom Essentials are not stock
supplements that have been "private-labeled." Our facilities produce your
Custom Essentials exclusively for Ideal Health, using your test results and the
formulas created by Dr. J. Alexander Bralley of MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory.
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How many and where are your research facilities
located? |
Ideal Health has access to research and production facilities on both coasts of
the United States as well as in Europe (the Netherlands) and in Shanghai,
China. The Asian and European facilities are vital for research and materials
acquisition for European, Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs.
The laboratory and research facilities of our testing laboratory, MetaMetrix
Clinical Laboratory, are located in Atlanta.
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How many chemists does your formulary employ? |
Our professional research staff can number up to 30 professionals including
Ph.D.'s with degrees in such disciplines as biochemistry, clinical nutrition,
pharmaceuticals, chemistry, and microbiology. Remember, this is the formulary
only, the manufacturer of our products. MetaMetrix Clinical Laboratory, the lab
that actually does the testing, also employs professional research personnel.
Their expert staff includes Ph.D.'s, registered nurses, and clinical
nutritionists who were all involved in researching, developing and documenting
the science behind the Ideal Health concept. (See Index under MetaMetrix for
more detail.)
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Are your supplements "cold-processed?" |
Yes. Our formulary uses a true cold-processing technique that preserves
nutrient potency. For capsules, this means that the product is processed at
temperatures not to exceed room temperature (72-77 degrees). This is one of the
reasons that healthcare professionals keep coming back to our formulary - their
products get results because the nutrients are intact.
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What other special manufacturing processes are
used? |
Another challenging task is insuring that the many separate ingredients that go
into a multivitamin/mineral product mix together evenly. Many manufacturers
just dump all the ingredients together and blend away. With multiple-capsule
daily doses, as is found in many comprehensive supplements, this can sometimes
result in (as one example) most of your zinc winding up in a few capsules and
very little in the others. This kind of uneven ingredient distribution does not
supply consistent nutrition and may promote accelerated nutrient/nutrient
interaction. Through years of in-house research, our manufacturer has developed
a "stepped" blending technique to insure uniform nutrient distribution for
complex formulations. In the case of Custom Essentials, this special process
involves up to 15 separate blending steps for each of our 48 permutations! With
your Custom Essentials, you can be absolutely sure that what it says on the
label is actually in each daily dose. That is security in supplementation.
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How many tests for quality, purity, potency, and
freshness are performed on the raw materialst? |
Depending on the material, approximately 4-5 tests are performed on raw
materials. Initially, raw biological materials are quarantined in a separate
facility until microbiological assays for yeasts, molds, E. Coli, Salmonella,
and bacteria are all negative. On average, about 30% of raw materials are
rejected routinely because they do not meet the required standards.
Then the materials are "ID'ed" or identified as being what they claim to be.
This identification is done through High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
and Inductively Coupled Plasma Emissions Spectrometry (ICP). These tests result
in a biological signature for the tested compound, which is then compared to
known biological signatures for the desired compound.
After manufacturing, the product is then tested to make sure that it meets the
USP standards for disintegration (how fast it breaks down in the stomach),
dissolution (how easily the components go into solution), and stability
(assurance of shelf life - see below for more detail on stability.)
Finished products are also tested for weight variance and (for tablets)
friability, or fragility. Capsules and tablets are analyzed with an automatic
weight variance machine, which automatically rejects any capsule or tablet that
is outside fill weight specifications. Not to leave everything to automation,
there is also a visual inspection by specially trained staff who use "inhaling
wands" to remove any capsule or product from the batch that does not pass
visual uniformity standards.
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Do you do microbial testing on all materials for
fungicide, pesticide, pollutants, heavy metals, bacteria and herbicides? |
As discussed above, all materials are tested for bacterial, fungal, and heavy
metal contamination. However, because of the hundreds of herbicides,
fungicides, and pesticides used in commercial growing today, there are no USP
standards set for detecting each of these myriad compounds. That is why our
manufacturing facilities use materials from organic growers who are certified
or who are in the process of becoming certified in order to make sure Ideal
Health's products are as pure as possible. FYI, there is a small evolving field
in USP standards for pesticides evaluation using gas chromatography. As this
technique is perfected, it should become part of the standard.
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Do you have environmental chambers to test product
quality across a full range of environmental extremes? |
Our manufacturing facilities maintain a "retained sample room" on all products
wherein product samples are retained under specific conditions of humidity and
temperature for 5-7 years. Customary industry product expiration dates are 2
years after manufacture. Samples are pulled from the sample room every 2-4
years and analyzed for potency. On the average, most of our products retain
label potency even after 3 years. Of course, since we blend Custom Essentials
in small batch orders, and we blend on a regular basis, you will always receive
a fresh batch. However, isn't it good to know that our manufacturing processes
insure a stable product that maintains potency?
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Do you use fluid granulation? |
NO! Fluid granulation is a cheaper process used by many manufacturers wherein
the material is mixed with water and then dried and evaporated. They do this to
improve the compression abilities of the final product. However, this process
often damages synergistic co-partners and decreases potency of ingredients. For
instance, fluid granulation of Ginkgo biloba can still result in a standardized
product of 24% ginkgosides. However, this process may significantly destroy the
synergistic compounds in Ginkgo that are not standardized. Our premier
manufacturing facilities are the last of a dying breed of manufacturers that
refuses to use fluid granulation.
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Are the indoor temperatures for storing raw
materials strictly enforced? |
Yes, in fact, they are constantly monitored and documented by in-house
technical staff. In addition, they are periodically reviewed and verified by
independent third parties.
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What solvents are used to clean your machines? |
At our manufacturing facilities, we use an FDA approved food compatible
cleanser for machine sanitization. The machines are rinsed, not just once, but
twice with pure water. After that, a final rinse is done using a mix of water
and pure grain alcohol. This provides a final sanitization and then quickly
evaporates off, leaving no moisture available for bacterial growth.
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Do you only consider peer-reviewed research in
your formulations? |
About 90% of our formulation information comes from peer-reviewed research
studies. However, because we are on the cutting edge of nutritional science, we
go a step further. We make formulation modifications based on real-life,
clinical experience and the feed back from physicians and other healthcare
practitioners who use functional medicine in their practices.
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Do you accept the certificate of analysis or do
you do spot-lot checking? |
Our formulary routinely does their own in-house analyses of raw materials and
products. In addition, a vendor audit system is in place whereby the
professional Ph.D. staff annually "screens" new and existing vendors to make
sure they qualify and continue to qualify for the stringent raw materials
standards. If they do not, they are dropped from the preferred vendor list.
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