Usana supplements - what do people think?

[yallolorry]

does anyone have any experience of using Usana products? I have a colleague at work who uses them and says they are the highest quality  but I am wary as she is also selling them and you can only buy them through their site or distributors, they don't sell through retailers. I'd be really interested to hear any opinions or experiences anyone may have. thanks very much.

yallolorry

[chosangvn]

Mua sắm online

[mlmbeware]

scamorama!

read the posts that are favorable to Usana.  all of the people who wrote them have only one post.  they search the internet for questions about Usana and then post wildly absurd claims about Usana.  

"Usana cures migraines!  Usana cured my high blood pressure!"  ABSURD!

Usana is part of the MLM disease that is spreading around the world. They are massively overpriced, low quality products.  Their products can't stand up in side-by-side comparisons with reputable vitamin co's at half the price.  

Usana is preying on unsuspecting individuals who get suckered into the idea of making money selling vitamins.  They all reference a self-produced/sponsored handbook on supplements.  Usana is the modern day snake-oil salesman.  Don't buy the hype and don't fell pressured by friends/family members to buy this stuff.

[freemanz]

Sue them if you can.  They are publicly traded, so any false claims you can sue them and earn big bucks.....guess why no one has done that? Because it is all true. Don't let your own bias or other people's bias rule you. Do your own investigations yourself.

The comparative guide to nutritional supplements is an independent book.  Otherwise all the over 1500 supplement companies that was evaluated would be suing the publisher for false claims.  Think about that before giving judgement.

[Paxiled]

I don't know why these ancient posts are showing up for me, but no, you can't sue someone for making false claims unless you were personally harmed by it and can prove it and can afford an attorney and have a claim large enough for an attorney to be able to afford to take the case.  None of these is likely, which is why scammers get away with scamming and always have.  Only the gov't, state or federal, can sue for false claims based on statute without having to prove personal harm.  My guess is, this company has been moved against by regulatory agencies many times, but the US has a bias in favor of greed and almost nobody suffers for it but small time criminals.  It is illegal to make any claim that any product lacking FDA approval cures anything, but FDA seldom enforces this because it wants the entire natural medicine industry to go away.  Because Congress won't let it ban the whole industry, it is hoping that if it only regulates occasionally, the populace will lose its belief in these products under the weight of the unfavorable propaganda published by organizations funded by the allopathic medicine industry.  But not all companies are created equal, and multi-level and direct marketing companies cannot be investigated by the public as they are secret organizations.  Since all the same conditions can be treated by purchasing products from known and respected companies, why bother to buy from these types of companies who are just copying products formulated by real herbalists and naturopaths?

[JillyBracken]

I have been using solgar enzymes daily for 6 months.  Very helpful with leaky gut symptoms, but am now trying usana as recommended by my nutritionist. They seem to be less strong in some items, but more on protein digestion. My  regime is higher protein than carbs, with no milk products.  
The reason I am posting this to you, is to recommend you try using 'My a fitness Pal' website to learn more about what is in your food.
It has helped me with my weight loss, and to balance daily meals too.  I choose what I would like to eat, input the foods, then adjust them to fit my goals before I eat them.  I feel so much better, excema has gone unless I cheat and eat wheat or milk.    So good to know that my meals are helping me.   Hope this info helps others too.

[alexeea]

I was having migraines every day. Every friggin' day! I wanted to shoot my brain out of my head. It was excruciating. A friend told me about Usana's vitamins and antioxidants. IT was expensive, but I bought a month's worth to try. Though I can't take them everyday, they are super potent, I take them every other day and I've had only one migraine this month. ONE! It's a miracle, REALLY. I've had migraines all of my adult life, I'm 35 and this was the answer I needed to save me from a horrible, tortured existence. I feel better, more energetic and can think clearer now too. Give it a try. No harm done if you don't feel much better.

[md230]

I have been using USANA vitamins for over year now and they have proven to be very beneficial to my body.  I do not do the shakes or drinks I only use the vitamins and they have proven to be very well made and designed to heal one's body.  I no longer have high blood pressure or anxiety.  So until you try the product please make no judgments.  Thank you

[yallolorry]

hi Paxiled,

Sorry I didn't respond to your post back in April, I was going through a difficult time trying to balance my health and work at the time so wasn't on the site as much, or totally on top of things. Thanks for your insights, from running a healthfood store, very interesting! I agree with you in general about multilevel selling.

Have you had any specific experience of this one in particular?

best wishes

YL

[yallolorry]

Hi MHM2M,

Thanks so much for picking up this post again after it's been quiet for so long. I'm  well aware of the origins of the RDA and don't use them as my guide to how much of differenct nutrients to take.

I'm glad the Usana supplements are working for you. I know my friend at work also likes them a lot.

I will investigate the PDR and Lyle MacWilliams Guide, thanks for the tips.

I find the £1m guarantee re. banned substances a bit offputting actually, it sounds really gimmicky and I'm confident the supplements I currently take don't contain any banned substances as they list their ingredients and are all reputable companies.

I did buy some digestive enzymes from Usana recently but when I compared the ingredients and nutritional values with my usual digestive enzyme product (Biocare) I wasn't impressed. the active ingredients were less in the Usana product and it also, bizarrely, contained sweeteners and colourings! So I haven't bought anything else from them but I am still very interested, mainly because my friend is so positive about them, but then she sells the products and may not have experience of other high quality supplements which may be as good or better and may be better value.

Do you sell the products as well as take them? I don't see it as a bad thing if you do, if you believe in the products and that's their business model that's totally cool with me. I'd be interested to know though what your relationship with them is, just to know.

Have you by any chance checked out the link posted earlier on this thread by M4YOU? http://seekingalpha.com/article/34625-is-usana-health-sciences-a-fraud I wonder if you have any specific comments on the content of that article?

I'm genuinely interested in canvassing information from different sources to help me make my mind up. Thank you so much for contributing to the discussion here I hope you'll engage some more.

best wishes

YL

[MyHealthMatters2Most]

I do have some comments regarding the USANA supplements.  I have been using them for over 4 years and would never take anything else!  They are one of the only vitamins companies to have their vitamins listed in the Physician Desk Reference (PDR), which means they follow pharmaceutical grade manufacturing practices.  Several independent studies have been conducted using these supplements.  

also, in regards to the reference about the amount of specific vitamins in each pill.  I would suggest that you do a study on the RDA's.  They came about during WWI -  the US government wanted to know the least amount of nutrients needed to be placed in the troops' rations in order to prevent diseases such as Rickets, Scurvy, etc.  

So, the RDA's are what was discovered to be the BARE MINIMUM of what was needed -- not the ideal amounts.  

I would recommend that you look at Lyle MacWilliam's Nutrisearch Guide to Nutritional Supplements.  He looked at over 1500 different multi-vitamins and rated the USANA essentials the "Best of the Best."

Also, professional athletes must be about what they put in their bodies due to drug testing.  USANA guarantees NOT to have any banned substances in their supplements -- offers a million dollar guarantee.... I have never heard of another company who backs their claims up like that!

USANA is publicly traded on the NASDAQ so records are available to the public.  Companies that are not publicly traded will not open their books for the world to see!

To sum it up... Choose whatever you want to take, but I trust my health to USANA Health Sciences!!!!

[Paxiled]

First, I agree with M4 that a lot of these formulas put too many products in them, many of which need to be taken at different times, i.e. some with meals, some not.  It's also hard to get the right dose.  On the other hand, herbalists always work with formulas, as herbs individually are not as strong or as balancing as when used synergistically, but the fomulas would be well designed to balance the substances, with the first ingredient being the main one and the one with the most herb, with succeeding herbs used in decreasing dosages for balance.  But you won't find a lot of herbs -- most formulas will have a certain number of herbs, and won't mix in vitamins and such, those would be separate.  As for the notion of direct marketing,  some of these companies are probably good, but here's my personal experience from managing health food stores for many years.  To get on the shelf of a good health food store (and I mean not GNC), the company has to go through someone like me.  We were pretty skeptical, especially of new products that had no long history of use.  We knew when studies were too small and not double blinded so as to be useless, and knew when all the studies were done by the company selling the product, which is true in most cases both with natural remedies and medication.  There was only one direct marketing company that had respect; all the rest were considered pyramid schemes, and when they tried to get me to be a seller (stores can sell this stuff by becoming a dealer), it was clear this was how they made their money, much more than selling the actual product.  And they're very secretive -- won't tell you where they get their product, selecting it themselves, testing it themselves or with an independent lab, or just buying on the open market.  My own practice is to avoid all multi-level companies, for what it's worth.

[yallolorry]

thanks, I now think I have maybe been guilty of putting the cart before the horse a bit in my research and learning process!

I have a healthy diet, pretty much, but I don't know things like "A 30 min full exposure to the sun at noon can give you more than 6,000UI of D" (impressive m4you!) or what quantities of the various vitamins I can get from different foods and now I'm thinking it would be more sensible for me to find out more about all of that so I can then see where there may be gaps and it could be worth supplementing.

I'm currently, on Patrick Holford's books advice, takng a big handful of vitamin pills every day and don't really have any idea if it's making any difference or not!

At least I get my supplements from a really well regarded nutrition centre here in London so I know I'm taking good quality products, I just don't feel I know enough yet to really understand how much of what makes sense for me to be taking. Good news is I'm not as poorly as I was so whether that's down to supplementation or my medication at least I seem to be going along a path towards improved health and greater knowledge, slowly.....

Well it's all a learning journey. I thank you for sharing your knowledge and taking the time to post. Its very much appreciated.

sending you a happy monday

yl

[M4Y0U]

My school of thought is don't take more than you need and always prefer vitamins/minerals from food are they are more bioavaible and human beings used this method since we were born and that's 150 000 years we share with a common ancestor. Supplements should be used as a tool. A lot of people are thinking the word supplements means replacement but it's only a tool. With an extremely healthy diet one should be able to avoid most supplements. The problem is that it's hard with today's processed food and pesticides bombarded agriculture. So buying wisely is always required and bio/organic food is always preferable.

It's all about knowing your needs related to your consumption/behavior. Like I said, I won't take vitamin D supplement if I went all day long at the sun. A 30 min full exposure to the sun at noon can give you more than 6,000UI of D and vitamin D have an extremely long half-life. So next day there I might skip a day then go with 1,000UI the next day. During the winter I take 2,000UI each day.

M4

[yallolorry]

hey, thanks for responding.

What an interesting article. my friend at work has been sayiing how their products have been proven to be more potent than rival products, she says she has some big independent study in a book that I've yet to see. But the stuff I've seen so far on the web (wikipedia is interesting on them) and what you've shared all seem to contradict that so I'm feeling less and less inclined to try them out.

I'm interested also that you are more in favour of taking individual nutrients rather than combined products.

I currently take a few combination supplements having read Patrick Holfords Optimum Nutrition Bible and gone through the process of identifying my "needs" according to the guidance he gives. I'm pretty new to all of this and feeling fairly bamboozled by all the conflicting advice that's out there. I thought what he says about nutrients being dependent on other nutrients to work made quite a bit of sense though, have you come across that school of thought? Any comments?

I am trying to really educate myself about all of this because I'm not very well at the moment and am hoping that along with traditional medicine I can give myself the best chance of being as well as I can, perhps, by supplementing wisely as well. But it's difficult to know what's best!

I will check out the Rainbow light and iHerb websites, but I live in central London so it's pretty easy for me to get to specialist shops and pick stuff up and I don't tend to buy online. Will see what they are selling though. Thank you so much for the tips.

yl

[M4Y0U]

I do not have any experience with Usana products but a short visit on the web told me what I needed to know.

The potency of their product and quality of the product itself may be something to be concerned about.

The claims they make on some ingredients are overestimated and testing might have proved that they are lower than that.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/34625-is-usana-health-sciences-a-fraud

Anyway, personally, I'm not a big fans of all-in-one bottle solutions. I prefer to manage my vitamins and minerals needs by myself by having high quality products for each vitamins and some minerals that i estimate essential.

B vitamins for example. I use a high potency complex but I only use them like each 3 days or so or when I'm lacking nutrition or after a rough week-end and parties where your vitamin levels drop significantly. Same with vitamin C, I won't take C unless i didn't drink my juices with fruits and eat fruits. Same goes with vitamin D. I use 1000UI each day that I've not been exposed to sun or used artificial UVB.

In other words, I prefer to have perfect control on my consumption. Things you can't achieve by taking an all-in-one solution.

Anyway this is up to me. If you are really looking for an all-in-one bottle solution you have Rainbow Light that make good products and iHerb is an excellent website with great prices to buy from. Just avoid pharmacies when looking for natural products. Local health food stores are not generally competitive with their prices but I think it's important to encourage them if they are not called GNC.

M4

The only thing I use daily as I feel I need it daily is Green+ Daily Detox in the morning and magnesium before going to bed.