SAFE AND PROVEN
SAFE: Every ingredient included in any formulation must be safe for the general population to at the specific dosage for the length of time for which the supplement is designed. Each micronutrient must have been studied thoroughly enough to understand its biochemical, metabolic, and physiological actions. Each must have been evaluated in long term clinical trials to indicate that it does not cause hazardous side effects. Such clinical trials should have involved sufficient numbers of people for adequate periods of time, and have been repeated by a sufficient number of independent groups of investigators. This safety is necessary both to protect the customer, and to guarantee the credibility of Nutrition Investigator. For example, vitamin C and E have been clearly established in numerous trials of thousands of people over decades to cause no hazardous side effects. By comparison, while beta-carotene showed considerable promise in short term studies with limited numbers of people, large scale, long term trials have demonstrated that there may be hazards associated with beta-carotene in supplement form. It remains unclear whether supplementation with beta-carotene above levels obtained in the diet is helpful or hazardous over the long term, and thus it is not included in Nutrition Investigator formulations.
PROVEN: The second principle for inclusion of any micronutrient is that it must be proven to have the potential to improve your health in the form and at the dosage which the micronutrient is provided. As with safety, there must be both an adequate understanding of the metabolic and physiologic mechanisms by which such benefit is plausible, and sufficient epidemiologic and prospective studies to make the economic and practical investment to take the nutrient worthwhile. Note that the value of the micronutrient must be proven to have the potential to improve your health. Among professionals in the medical and scientific community, controversy continues about whether vitamin C has long-term health benefits at megadoses. However, the evidence of the potential benefit is sufficiently great, while the evidence that dosages of 500 mg twice a day are safe, that vitamin C is included in Nutrition Investigator formulations. Likewise, while health claims abound for a host of micronutrients and herbs, ranging from copper to dong quai, there is insufficient evidence that these substances are proven to be of benefit to the general population when taken in supplement form.
