GHS Natural Health Blog

Nature’s Sunshine Products (NSP) has stuck to what they know best for over 35 years and has built a brand based on quality, purity and integrity – it’s these principles that NSP are most proud of, that stand this natural health supplement company apart from the rest.

In the beginning

As a boy, Gene Hughes would often come home from school and smell the pungent aroma even before he stepped into the house. He knew immediately his mother was making another one of her garlic sandwiches. “Taking herbs ran in my family”, he says and later as an adult, he found when a nagging stomach condition just wouldn’t go away, that a teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper eased his discomfort. The only problem was swallowing a spoonful of Cayenne Pepper was not an easy task. So when his wife suggested the idea of putting the powder into easy-to-swallow gelatine capsules, a revolutionary idea was born! In 1972 a small family business, Nature’s Sunshine Products was formed. As a pioneer in the natural health supplement industry, NSP were keen to help others to a healthier happier life and this became the cornerstone on which the business was based.

From those time-honoured kitchen table beginnings, NSP has grown and today is an international company at the forefront of the natural health industry. NSP today employs cutting edge technology to create high quality, pure and efficacious products.

Quality is mandatory

NSP strongly believes that uncompromising quality is not an option – it’s an obligation. It’s not a vague goal – it’s standard operating procedure.

Quality begins in the fields, where only the finest herbs and raw materials are selected. The company’s global sourcing of raw materials ensures that the highest quality ingredients are selected from many countries.

After herbs are harvested they are shipped to the NSP manufacturing faculty where they are subject to a series of in depth quality control tests to ensure purity, potency and cleanliness. All incoming raw materials are thoroughly tested before they are released for use in NSP supplements and those materials that don’t meet the stringent quality levels are rejected and not used.

Because quality is so important, NSP continually test raw materials and products throughout the entire production process. In all, NSP use more than 150 tests and procedures to ensure the quality of the raw materials and the finished products, which includes not only encapsulated herbs but also herbal combination formulas, vitamins, liquids, other natural supplements and skin care products. Before being released products are tested once again to ensure that each batch meets the label claim for potency and additional retention stability testing ensures all products continue to meet the label claims until the expiry date of the product.

Manufacturing

The US corporate head office has recently expanded its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility which of course meets or exceeds the current Australian government regulations and pharmaceutical quality standards. The 250,000+ square-foot facility includes a climate-controlled warehouse and cutting-edge laboratory equipment. High-quality products are manufactured here for distribution all over the world.

Being able to develop and manufacture their own product is one of NSPs greatest assets. This gives complete control over selecting ingredients, establishing efficacious products and creating stringent manufacturing specifications. Each finished product must meet exacting criteria to ensure quality and consistency.

Research and development

NSP has set up joint collaboration projects with leading research institutes around the world to create innovative new products. For instance NSP teamed with researchers from Ohio State University to study certain constituents of liquorice root and stolons and found that three compounds in particular possessed powerful antioxidant properties.

Vice President of NSP Health Sciences, Dr William Keller says “at Nature’s Sunshine we believe that original, basic science research is vitally important. Data from our research establishes the identity of ingredient actives and provides a correlation of these actives with the health benefit of our products.”

In Australia, herbal medicines are referred to as complementary medicines and are regulated as therapeutic goods by the Therapeutic Goods Administration or TGA. As such they must be manufactured according to pharmaceutical standards of good manufacturing practice (GMP) and be listed or registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). (Further information: tga.gov.au/cm/ cmreg-aust.htm) From its humble beginnings to a major force in international health, NSP remains committed to the principles on which it was founded and believes that by providing the finest quality herbs and nutritional supplements to the world that individuals will take responsibility for their health to look and feel their best.

Whole plant part versus standardised extracts

NSPs signature product is its encapsulated herbs. The only manufacturing process that the encapsulated herb part is subjected to is powdering and insertion into a capsule – there is no need for unnecessary binders or fillers. NSP uses the most effective part of the herb in its supplements, for example Nature’s Sunshine Echinacea is from the root, traditionally the most effective part. The benefits of taking the whole plant part often outweigh those of the isolated components, given the complex chemical interplay of the whole plant part.

However, standardised herbal extracts do guarantee the potency of the active ingredient which can allow for a more accurate dose. There are instances where the evidence supporting a particular herb for a specific indication is based on a particular daily dose and therefore a concentrated herbal extract may be called for. NSP offers a range of standardised extracts for those herbs that require this type of approach.