Balanced Immune Health

When you’re looking for a health supplement, especially one you have not taken before, what is important to you in making a choice? Many might start with wanting something that’s a reasonable price. Others are loyal to their retailer or online merchant. If they don’t sell it, I don’t really want it. Once you get past those particular decision factors, what’s important? Well, one might place some importance on the notion that the supplement ingredients actually work!

Of course, any supplement brand on the market will say they work–duh–but how do you really know? Take their word for it? Maybe, especially if the supplement brand is a reputable one that people have had success with in the past. But there’s more to it than that.

Supplements and their ingredients validate themselves by any variety of scientific testing. The testing falls into three main areas: 1) Quality.  Does the product last on the shelf? Is it consistently high quality with no degradation of active ingredient every time it’s purchased? 2) Safety. Is it absolutely non-toxic, void of any heavy metals or nasty chemicals that should not be there?  3) Efficacy.  Does the product do what is says it should do?

For most national brand products, that number 3 is the tricky one. Efficacy can be demonstrated in a variety of ways. But they are not all the same.  Applying a products to cells or microbes in a test tube is one method of scientific trial. Another method is simply asking a huge number to record a diary of their dietary intake, record their health experiences, then make some statistical inferences based on comparing the two columns.

The real gold standard for nutritional ingredient research is a “published, peer-reviewed, placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind clinical human intervention trial.” This means: 1) It was published in a professional journal. 2) That journal is peer-reviewed, meaning a panel of research experts in that field reviews and signs off on studies before they get accepted to be published. 3)  The study was placebo-controlled, meaning the research subjects taking the researched substance were compared to a similar group taking a fake sugar pill, to render the purest possible result. If people taking a sugar pill experienced the same results as those taking the real thing, there are questions of efficacy. 4) the sample was randomized, meaning the subjects were selected from a larger universe of potential subjects in a random, non-judgmental or non-subjective way, to ensure greater integrity in the results. 5)  The active substance and placebo were both administered through a double blind method, meaning no research participant knew if he or she were taking a placebo or the real thing, and no study investigator knew which subjects were taking what. Subjects and the dosages were all numerically coded, and only a custodian keeps the code sheets, usually locked in a secure safe. Investigators don’t see the code sheets and who took what until after the data have been gathered.  6) Human intervention means humans were used, and that they ingested something (something intervened in their body) so that any effect could be observed,  documented and statistically compared.

EpiCor, the immune balance supplement I take, has several “gold standard” human trials under its belt. Yessss!

Filed under EpiCor, Immune Balance, Immune System, Research, Supplements