I never wanted to be a vitamin salesman.

But here I am selling vitamins right here in my office every day. How did that happen?

Here’s my story:

It started when I was doing my internship here in Lower Lake, CA. under Dr Dennis Greenlee. He was dual licensed as a Chiropractor and an Acupuncturist. He prescribed and sold a lot of herbs and vitamins. Since we shared a lot of patients, I got to see the difference these supplements could make. 

It was a gradual process of learning step by step. I grew in knowledge with the help of many teachers.

I attended a Holistic seminar in 1991 where I was told that proteolytic enzymes were the greatest thing for inflammation since sliced bread. When I got back to the office the next day. I had a patient with bad back pain and lots of swelling. We had some on the shelf in the office, so I had the patient take it. The bottle said “Take one pill 3 times a day or as prescribed by your doctor.” SO I had this big guy take 3 pills a day. Which didn’t do much for him. So I thought, “Oh well. That doesn’t work.” Another seminar a few months later… the teacher said the same thing as before. So I tried it on another patient. Same. No help. So I called the vitamin company to find out why. I “happened” to get their research director on the phone. Thant’s when I learned how to properly dose enzymes. It took a lot more than 3 pills a day to make a difference. He told me of a friend of his who was a weightlifter. His friend herniated a disk lifting 3-4 weeks before a major competition. He took large doses of the enzymes, felt better, and competed in the competition placing in the top 5. (Please talk to your physician before taking doses like that. It may cause you harm.)

Why I don’t trust supermarket vitamins

I was once asked the question, “Which vitamin is more expensive, the $45 bottle that had pure, potent ingredients or the $15 bottle that had weak cheap ingredients that didn’t work?” So good quality vitamins cost more but they can actually supply the nutrients your body needs to function right. With cheap vitamins you just don’t know.

In 1994, I took a year long, once a month certification course in Diagnosis and Internal Disorders. The course itself opened my eyes to the whole world of how the body’s systems all work together and how the right nutrients can make or break your health. While there I happened to meet a man, Don Huber, who taught me how the vitamin industry works. I am indebted to him. 

He and I flew together from L.A. to Sacramento after each month’s class. It was on those trips that he shared his story. During the great depression, he got his degree in chemistry. There were few jobs available then, so he took a job as a janitor in a vitamin company. He worked his way up to be the CEO. He later started his own vitamin company. 

He told me there were basically 3 levels of quality in vitamins:

Level 1- great quality supplements. Higher price.
             Pure, potent ingredients, inspected for contaminants before processing
             Pharmaceutical quality manufacturing processes & quality control
             3rd party assays/inspection of finished products

Level 2 – mediocre supplements, medium priced
             Good quality ingredients, not inspected for contaminants before processing
             Not pharmaceutical quality manufacturing processes& quality control
             No 3rd party inspection of finished products 

Level 3- poor or unknown quality supplements, low price
             Unknown quality of ingredients; could be OK but no way to tell
             Unknown standard of manufacturing processes & quality control
             No 3rd party assay of finished product

My new friend, Don Huber, before he retired, had a large production factory to produce vitamins. He said he was approached by Walmart to make vitamins for their house brand. They said he would make $.05 per bottle. He said he would have to double the size of his facility to meet the production demand. He said it would have been a good deal for him except Walmart had a habit of coming back later to squeeze more profit out of the manufacturer. He said they would often come back and demand to reduce it to $.04 per bottle. And then $.035 per bottle. His factory costs wouldn’t go down, so he said he would have been forced to get cheaper raw ingredients. Quality would go down and health benefits would too. 

Don said he always passed when Walmart or other big retail people came to him. But other vitamin companies didn’t. That’s why you can’t trust all vitamin companies.  

Jeff Katke the founder of one of the largest vitamin companies in the world, Metagenics, once told me that, “Our biggest asset is our quality reputation. If we lose that we lose our company.” He said they had many opportunities to compromise, but never did.

I had the opportunity years ago to go to Gig Harbor WA, to visit Metagenics’ manufacturing and research facility. I was impressed. All incoming shipments of raw ingredients were quarantined until they were tested in the lab. Then each tested lot was put into another part of the warehouse and stored until needed. Then they took it and made all the pills, etc. When it came off the assembly line one or two cases of each product would be held out for testing.

Apex Energetics

I got to know the people at Apex Energetics back in the late 1990’s when Dr Greenlee, my mentor, was teaching seminars for them. I assisted him in teaching the classes. That was when I spent time with the Apex folks. So, during the down times at the seminars, I asked them about a million questions about how they work, how they make them, where they get their ingredients, why they make the combinations they make.  They are another company that sticks to rigid manufacturing and testing procedures to make sure they are selling quality products.

Researching

I have spent literally thousands of hours researching vitamins and herbs and how they help the body heal and how they help balance our body systems. It is amazing how our body’s work. There are hundreds of vitamin companies out there. It takes some work to keep up with them and all the new formulas they make in response to all the new research.

Now a new way to get vitamins for our patients.

Today we have Designs For Health, a supplement manufacturer and dispensary. They allow me to prescribe and recommend a variety of Level 1 high quality vitamins and supplements. 

In the past, in order to get the best combinations of vitamins we would have to prescribe supplements from several different companies. This would require 1-3 separate transactions and delivery fees.

Now most of it is under one roof.

So, go online to sign up at Designs For Health using this link: Designs For Health Sign Up

That will give you access to all the supplements available in their online dispensary.