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A trusted place where you can buy quality vitamins online

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nutritional supplements
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Vitamin supplements are among the most controversial goods on the market these days. Many people spend hundreds of dollars a month on various supplements they believe (or made to believe) are good for their health, even when they don’t notice much results, if any at all.

While vitamins can certainly help in certain cases, they just aren’t for anyone and everyone to take. Even if you are not consuming enough amounts of one or more essential nutrients, it’s unlikely that you’ll suffer from symptomatic deficiency, so supplementation will most likely just be a waste of money with no remarkable benefits.

You shouldn’t buy vitamins or any other dietary supplements based on the rave reviews you’ve read online, many of which may not even be real! There are several varying individual factors that can determine if a certain supplement will likely be beneficial for you or not, such as age, diet, lifestyle, health conditions, and other supplements and medications you’re taking. That’s why it’s strongly recommended that you seek professional medical advice before you purchase any supplement.

That’s just something that had to be clarified because there is a multi-billion dollar industry aggressively trying to convince everyone that they should be taking a bunch of supplements every day to boost their health and wellness.

So, assuming you know what you are doing, and you know which specific vitamins or whatever other supplements are the right ones for you, now where can you buy some quality vitamin supplements online?

PureFormulas

PureFormulas is an online health food store that carries a large selection of some of the most reputable supplement brands on the market. They’ve been in business since 2007 and they provide excellent customer service as well as fast shipping to the USA and some other countries.

Their website is well organized and easy to navigate, which makes shopping at their online store a smooth and pleasant experience. They offer free standard domestic shipping on most items. Some products that have a “PLUS 1” label only qualify for free shipping when combined with another product or when you order more than one item of the same product.

What makes PureFormulas one of the best places to buy vitamins and supplements online, besides their outstanding customer service, is their selection of high-quality brands including practitioner brands that aren’t so easy to find elsewhere.

Some examples of the premium practitioner brands they sell include: Thorne, Vital Nutrients, Klaire Labs, Kirkman, Integrative Therapeutics, Pure Encapsulations, and others. They also have more affordable brands that are of high quality, such as NOW, Jarrow Formulas, Nature’s Way, etc.

If you are looking for a one-stop shop for all your vitamins and supplements, then PureFormulas is one of the best choices to give a try. Unlike Amazon, this vendor is all dedicated to selling health products and they only sell authentic products that they source directly from their legit manufacturers. There are no third-party sellers, no counterfeits, and no fake product reviews.

Synthetic or whole-food vitamins?

Not many people are aware of the fact that most of the “natural” multivitamin supplements actually contain synthetic, lab-made vitamins. It’s not like manufacturers grind up fresh fruits and veggies and then extract the nutrients from them and put them in a pill. If that were the case, then a bottle of multivitamin would probably cost about $100! But you wouldn’t pay that much for some vitamin pills, would you?

Most consumers want to buy cheap vitamins, and in order to make cheap vitamins, manufacturers use synthetically made vitamins that are identical to their natural counterparts and have similar effects in the body. For example, folic acid is a synthetically produced form of folate (vitamin B9) which most companies use in their formulas.

On the other hand, there are some companies that claim to make “whole food” vitamins, however, while the label may suggest that they only source their ingredients from real food, that is often not entirely true and may even be a little deceptive.

For example, New Chapter and MegaFood are both marketed as whole food vitamins, but what they basically do is ferment the vitamins and/or minerals in growth media (yeast culture) and then they add in a blend of fruits and vegetables (minimal amounts) and call it a whole food. However, the listed vitamins themselves don’t all come from real food, and they still use synthetically made vitamins in their products, such as folic acid.

Whole food multivitamins and mineral supplements do have the advantage of offering a blend of natural fruits and vegetables that may help with the digestion and absorption of the main nutrients, but if you read the label, you’ll notice that those extra food blends usually come in negligible amounts that would barely have any effect. So it’s really more of a marketing thing; they just add trace amounts of some foods and herbs so they can call it a whole food supplement.

This is not to say that those aren’t better than plain, isolated vitamin pills, but they just may not be as nutritionally superior as their makers and marketers claim. Anyway, it is generally recommended to take a multivitamin with real food to maximize absorption and reduce the chance of experiencing side effects like nausea and upset stomach.

Premium practitioner brands

You may have heard about these practitioner supplement brands which are said to be superior in quality and purity to other regular brands. Well, basically, practitioner brands are those focused on marketing their products through healthcare practitioners. Many of their formulas are intended for professional use and they advise customers to talk to their doctor before using the products.

You’ve probably noticed some of these brands on display at your doctor’s office, and he/she may have recommended a certain brand for you. Of course, the doctor making the recommendation does get a commission for each sale, which is one of the main reasons why these brands are usually quite expensive.

One of the most popular examples of practitioner brands is Pure Encapsulations. Many doctors and consumers trust this company because they use pure ingredients and almost no fillers or additives in their supplements, unless extremely necessary. Their products are also hypoallergenic and lab-tested to make sure they are free from most allergens and impurities.

It is true that practitioner brands like Pure Encapsulations and Thorne use quality and lab-tested ingredients, and that their products are of high purity and effectiveness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that cheaper brands use low quality ingredients or don’t fully test their ingredients for purity and safety.

Affordable brands like NOW and Nature’s Way are also trustworthy and their supplements work just as good as any fancy premium brand! It is totally up to you if you want to spend your money on a high-end practitioner brand, but if you are just looking for some basic vitamins, you can save a lot of money by choosing a reputable non-practitioner brand that is more reasonably priced.

If you’re interested in checking out some of the best professional (doctor-trusted) supplement brands, PureFormulas has a nice selection of these.

Don’t buy vitamins you don’t need

Seriously, so many people waste their money on supplements without really understanding what they are useful for. They’ve just read a few online articles or reviews and think they stumbled upon a secret potion for beauty, energy or whatever health issue — well, that’s rarely the case.

Vitamins in particular should only be supplemented when there is a medical need to do so. This may include people with absorption problems not getting enough nutrients from their normal diet, those taking certain medications, those suffering from certain health conditions, pregnant women, and people on a restrictive diet.

If you are a healthy individual, then just stick with real food and load up on nutritious vegetables and fruits. There are so many healthy nutrients besides vitamins and minerals in real food, and those have their own health benefits and all work synergistically for optimal absorption and utilization of different nutrients. No multivitamin is ever going to be as good for your health as fresh, nutritious food.

Don’t be too obsessed with meeting the recommended daily intake of all vitamins. Your body doesn’t strictly function based on those numbers, and even if you aren’t consuming the recommended amounts every day, you aren’t likely to suffer from significant symptoms unless you have a severe chronic deficiency in one or more nutrients.

There is a lot of misinformation and misleading marketing going on in this industry, so do your homework, and consider consulting with a professional health expert in order to make safe and educated decisions.

Story by Breezy Brain

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