I came across an ad for a diabetes supplement the other day: let's dissect parts of the ad.
As with other ads of this type, many of which I have come across, it mentions how much you need to be careful of inferior products, and then generalizes that to make you think all other products are no good at best. This is not true. While there are inferior products, if you buy from reputable companies, you will get products that are of excellent quality. But these companies try to make you think that you have to buy from them by saying this, so they can offer you a product at an extremely inflated price.
The next thing they do is tell you the retail value is even higher, but they'll knock off a lot if you buy now. You may think, wow, what a deal. In this case their suggested price is $147 for a one month supply, but you can get it for $67 if you order now (hey, that's a savings of $80, wow), and if you order 4 bottles, the price of each bottle is only $49.95 (now you're really saving!!!!). Each bottle lasts one month.
About the ingredients: Curcumin, Berberine, Piperine. Plus the usual other ingredients. What about Piperine? Well, it sounds like Bioperine is actually the better form. I found this on the bioperine site, "BioPerine® is the only product sourced out of piperine to obtain a patented status for its ability to increase the bioavailability of nutritional compounds. Secondly, it is the only source from piperine to have undergone clinical studies in the U.S. to substantiate its safety and efficacy for nutritional use."
So perhaps their quality is not the absolute best.
As for the other ingredients - Swanson's Superior Herbs Curcumin Complex is standardized and contains Bioperine, and costs $17.99 for a two month supply. It contains 850mg Curcumin vs 400mg for the other brand, both standardized to 95% curcuminoids. Both have 5mg of either piperine (for their product) or bioperine (for Swanson). Now for berberine HCL - the other brand has 200mg. Swanson vitamins has 400mg berberine HCL for $9.99 for a two month supply.
Let's do a cost comparison: Their product - 4 month supply costs $49.95 per month. For the same active ingredients (at twice the strength) the cost is $27.98 for two months, or $13.99 per month.
BTW - I used the Swanson brand Curcumin with Bioperine. There are many other good brands out there, but I use this one.
One more example (much shorter) - There was a Beverly Hills doctor advertising a superfood blend. To put it together myself would have saved me 75% for the exact ingredients. I made some changes that I thought were better, added another couple, and still saved about 75%. He claimed that if you bought his ingredients separately it would cost you much more. Well, I guess if you searched for the most expensive places to buy from, maybe he would have been right.
I hope this helps you avoid these kinds of misleading ads. Whatever else you do, always do your research - whether it's on prices, how well something works, what supplements to take, what to eat, what drugs to avoid, or if you're buying stocks.
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