For the most part, New Chapter, a foodform vitamin company, makes very high quality supplements. The major advantage of New Chapter supplement formulas is their lower dosages and some quality herbals in base. They have a great sounding marketing story, especially about herbs from their Costa Rica farm and the resulting support for the local culture.
UPDATE 11-2016 Both New Chapter and MegaFood have recently changed labels to accurately reflect what is really in their multiples. Some synthetics added and cultured in growing yeast. With an honest label, both are now excellent rated multiples. The following is copied from their website:
"Do you know what your supplements are made of?
New Chapter supplements are whole food. Easily recognized and absorbed. New Chapter vitamin, mineral and herbal supplements are a whole-food complex – something your body easily recognizes and absorbs. Sourced from nature’s bounty of organic fruits, vegetables, herbs and superfoods and cultured in probiotics to deliver the full spectrum of Nature’s benefits.
This is a very big deal.
Because the whole truth about most of the conventional vitamins, minerals and supplements on the shelves is that they are synthetic chemical isolates. Our bodies understand and seek nourishment from whole food. Synthetic chemical isolated forms of nutrients lack the full spectrum of Nature’s benefits and, frankly, we prefer the real thing to a synthetic version of the real thing. Who wouldn’t?
Gentle on your stomach because they’re food
Because New Chapter’s vitamins, minerals and herbs are a whole-food complex, they’re gentle on your stomach. So gentle that you can even take them on an empty stomach. In fact, we don’t even consider them food supplements, They’re supplemental food." - end of copy
Beware: Taking these vitamins "on an empty stomach" is simply a marketing ploy. It would be very unwise to do so. The digestive system would not be fully stimulated and active to properly prepare and absorb vitamins without food triggers, especially the fat soluble vitamins. Smelling food and the chewing motion are part of digestive triggers.
ANALYSIS of New Chapter website info: Great sound bites. Let's look at one of the concepts mentioned here. About being like food and easily absorbed: First, while many vitamins in food enjoy good absorption, there are some vitamins that are not better absorbed in food than their supplement counterparts. At normal absorption levels, a Scientist discovered that over 2.5 mg. of synthetic vitamin B2 will turn urine yellow. But then food servings rarely contain levels over 2.5 mg. Using this method, New Chapter's "natural food source" vitamin B2 was tested to see if it would turn urine yellow. It is reported that New Chapter's multiple vitamins with vitamin B2 do not turn urine yellow, therefore they must be all natural. Some say the body is attempting to quickly eliminate the unnatural synthetic B2 and that is why it turns urine yellow.
Well, a simple test of taking double the dosage of a New Chapter multiple containing about 5.2 mg of vitamin B2, did turn urine yellow. True, not quite as bright a yellow as the same amount of synthetic. Thus, this means one of the following assumptions must be true; either New Chapter's vitamin B2 is not all natural, or that natural food vitamin B2 will turn urine yellow, or that New Chapter's multiple with just over 2.6 mg of B2 is absorbed at a lower percentage than the same amount of synthetic B2, which is why it does not turn urine yellow with just one serving. Turns out all of these statements are probably almost correct.
SYNTHETIC, NATURAL, or a Combination of the two for New Chapter VITAMINS
Now, does it come as a shock to you that New Chapter vitamins are not all natural, especially since they imply in their statement above that they prefer natural vitamins over synthetic. The second statement cannot be verified in this simple test since New Chapter's vitamin B2 is not all natural, it is largely if not all from synthetic added to growing yeast cells. New Chapter says the yeast cells "bio-transforms the synthetic into a more natural vitamin structured form. See foodform. Regarding the last assumption, since the B2 starts as synthetic, and at 2.6 mg does not turn urine yellow, New Chapter's B2 absorption must be less than the same amount of a typical synthetic B2, therefore New Chapter's tablet breakdown rate could be at fault. Since their research studies stress greater absorption than regular synthetic vitamins, there could be another scenario at play. It is known that some food vitamins are released slower than synthetic isolated supplement vitamins, maybe this is the case. But that would not fit with their better absorption promotional story. A true dilemma.
There is only one premise left that New Chapter can stand on: The yeast culturing process used does turn the synthetic B2 added to the growing yeast into a compound that is more like a natural food B2 vitamin, a structurally complex form. And, either or both, reduced absorption and or greater retention by the body play a role so the body needs greater amounts before it will turn urine yellow, which it did at just over 5 mg. At least as it did in this simple test. One of the following statements now needs to be verified: New Chapter's vitamin B2 form is absorbed at less than the synthetic rate, or that the body retains more of New Chapter's B2 than it does of the same amount of synthetic B2. New Chapter would like you to believe the latter and their research charts support this view. It is true that some synthetic vitamins are eliminated from the body faster than the same amount of natural vitamins in food. The body does recognize some synthetic vitamins as different and speed elimination, but others not as much.
New Chapter has obviously found a way to turn a synthetic vitamin B2 into a structured form that behaves more like a food vitamin than a synthetic vitamin. Why do they go to such lengths to downplay the fact that they start out feeding yeast cells synthetic vitamins if the preceding statement is indeed true? Wouldn't the "bio-transformation" accomplish the same food form effects and be acceptable for a sound marketing story?
UPDATE: New Chapter sold out to Proctor & Gamble. While there has been a lot of statements made in support by New Chapter and P&G spokespeople that the products would remain the same, the bottom line is that profits from your purchase of New Chapter products now go to support P&G. A company that is completely opposite of New Chapter's philosophy and commitment of harmonizing with Mother Earth. This is not a good fit and could result in future negatives. With the New Chapter purchase, P&G is trying to undo the damaged image it generated by selling products that pollute the earth and use animals for product testing. Plus, it is still involved and associated with major destructive companies, such as Monsanto developing GMO products.
COMPARISON: New Chapter vs Garden of Life vs MegaFood
In order of quality: New Chapter, MegaFood, and Garden of Life. Why? New Chapter has the best quality controls, Garden of Life not as much, or at least not from past analysis. It is possible for a company to improve quality. Garden of Life started out promoting products with many soil bacterial organisms, but today there is just one soil bacteria left. If these soil bacteria were such beneficial ingredients, why is there only one remaining? What happened to change their formulas and their story? Questionable quality controls and untested and not GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) soil bacterial ingredients. Did the new FDA reporting requirements for adverse effects play a role? MegaFood is a step above Garden of Life in quality but both use a marketing story that is FULL of HOT AIR.
UPDATE: Garden of Life currently, Feb 2016, has a recall in place for their RAW MEALS which showed salmonella contamination. Over 2 dozen people have so far taken ill in 20 States and a few required hospitalization. One ingredient in product was found to be contaminated with salmonella. ref
MAJOR ISSUES
Whole food-like vitamins may still prove additional values over isolated synthetic or natural vitamins, but there are two real issues. First, why do these companies feel the need to hide what is really in their products? The fact that the starting process feeds yeast with some synthetic vitamins is rarely mentioned. New Chapter quickly skims over it but does mention it, while MegaFood goes to language extremes to hide it with a very mis-leading label method. Garden of Life developed a whole new story, the CODE, to explain it without mentioning this fact. Why do you think this is the case? Vitamin store clerks are told that the vitamins are all natural from food and pass on that fallacy like it was factual to customers.
Second, since these companies do not tell you the form of the vitamin they add to the growing yeast, the real aspect of vitamin form on quality issues is difficult to determine. They would be within rights to use all synthetic forms since the label does not indicate starting form. It would save quite a lot of money as these products are very expensive to make. THEY DO add in some SYNTHETICS somewhere in the manufacturing process.
So, back to generalities, if a company or companies go to such lengths to mask some aspect of production, are they trying to hide something, some part of the story that may jeopardize the validity of their products? Like Brands that do not list a strain code for their Probiotic bacteria. The strain code is a mark of quality and science tested effectiveness. Why hide this fact if a Brand is using a quality source bacteria?
This has been going on for so long now that the impact if the truth went viral may draw ethical questions about the vitamin industry as a whole. Check out this article where Garden of Life now admits the truth to promote their new vitamin products, the Kind Organics.
TAKE AWAY
New Chapter products have some extra values from proper dosages and increased absorption, regardless of starting forms. A simple test could establish the comparison with isolated synthetic vitamins by measuring how each increases the blood levels of the coenzyme form of the vitamin in question. The coenzyme vitamin is the form used by the body to perform that vitamin's functions. The tests so far have shown that the increased absorption is really the beneficial aspect for most of the foodform nutrients.
Caution: Since most of these products use yeast in the production process, potential allergy reactions are a possibility. The Companies say the yeast is completely neutralized by an enzymatic process to dissolve the yeast cell membranes, but there may still be some allergic people that could react. When beginning to take these products, start small amounts for the first 5 days as that is the period when existing allergies would surface. Allergies can develop later from over exposure as well, although quite rare.
Two Issues New Chapter needs to clear up
- New Chapter promoted a CoQ10 product with a marketing concept that is partially flawed. They hired a Scientist to conduct tests to show their low dosage, 22 mg. CoQ10 product is equal in antioxidant activity to a larger amount of regular CoQ10, 100 mg. This test result appears to not be available on their website anymore. The test did not compare apples to apples but rather apples to apple leaves. The NC 22 mg CoQ10 comes with 800 mg of plant material. The test compared 100 mg of each CoQ10, thus the NC CoQ10 also came with now 4000 mg of plant material. Dropped into a test tube, this 4000 mg of plant material blocked the interchange of oxygen from getting to the test agent which of course reduced oxidation, showing their CoQ10 provided better protection, or antioxidant activity. In the plain CoQ10, the lack of any plant material allowed free range of oxygen to oxidize the agent, showing the plain CoQ10 was not very effective as an antioxidant.
- Now, CoQ10's antioxidant activity is really secondary to it's main function of electron transfer into the power plants of the cell to aide energy production. So, how does 22 mg compare with 100mg? Since NC 22 mg is absorbed about 3x better than plain CoQ10, one would have to take 3 times more of the plain to equal the same electron transfer activity of New Chapter's CoQ10. Therefore, 66 mg of plain coQ10 would equal 22mg of NC CoQ10 for this function.