http://www.thorne.com/purity_and_quality/commitment_to_purity.jsp said:
Thorne's Commitment to Purity
Practitioners have become accustomed to seeing the vague "We use only the purest ingredients" in the promotional materials of almost every dietary supplement company. Perhaps these companies truly believe that. Perhaps they don't know any better. Nevertheless, Thorne Research, for more than 25 years, has been the standard by which companies in the industry are judged for product purity. Practitioners rely on Thorne as the company they trust for their extremely allergic, chemically sensitive, and immune-compromised patients.
Purity Takes Extra Effort
For example, instead of purchasing prediluted vitamin D, as other companies do, Thorne performs its own dilution to avoid detrimental ingredients, such as the preservatives or lactose that are found in many commercially available dilutions. Why must vitamin D be diluted? Because in its pure form, it is too concentrated to safely blend into a vitamin product. Pure vitamin D is 40 MILLION International Units (IU) per gram. The RDA is 400 IU per day. To ensure proper mixing, it must be made into a dilute powder that flows and does not lose potency. So, unlike companies that use prediluted vitamin D with unacceptable excipients and preservatives, at Thorne, pure pharmaceutical vitamin D is first gently melted with pure mixed tocopherol vitamin E, and the resultant stable vitamin D is then blended with hypoallergenic magnesium citrate powder. The resulting powder is then run through a high-speed mill while liquid nitrogen is injected to eliminate heat and stickiness. The final powder is blended again in a large tumble blender and subsequently analyzed. Not only is the final product stable; it is also hypoallergenic and can be mixed homogeneously and at a safe level with other powders. Just as with vitamin D, Thorne utilizes similar processes for other raw materials, such as vitamin K, leaving it to other companies to purchase commercially available raw materials filled with unacceptable ingredients and preservatives.
Ingredients You Don't Want
Magnesium Stearate: Good for speed-hungry encapsulating machines. Not necessarily good for you. Manufacturing encapsulated dietary supplements isn't easy. Pure powdered ingredients are difficult to mix because they are either extremely dry, sticky with botanical oils, or attract unwanted moisture. So most manufacturers add magnesium stearate and other agents such as lactose and dextrose to make the powder flow quickly and easily through their high-volume machines. Problem is, these additives may compromise the bioavailability of the nutrients in the supplement, and might cause allergenic problems. At Thorne, we take a different approach.
Thorne will never utilize large fatty acid excipients in its manufacturing processes – ingredients such as magnesium stearate or stearic acid. These excipients are utilized as flowing agents to ensure that maximum productivity is obtained from capsuling and tableting machines. There are documented detrimental effects directly attributed to long chain fatty acids utilized as manufacturing flowing agents. Every qualified pharmaceutical compounder recognizes that large fatty acids, such as magnesium stearate, can interfere with product dissolution and influence absorption. Virtually all companies, because of the economic impact, ignore this data. As with most industries, the bottom line dictates the level of quality. The dietary supplement industry has one exception: Thorne Research, the company that does not compromise. Nevertheless, if a company cannot manufacture products without using detrimental excipients, they should not allude to being either "hypoallergenic" or "pure."
The Bottom Line?
Thorne is the only hypoallergenic dietary supplement manufacturer with the highest degree of purity that you – and your most severely allergic, chemically sensitive, and immune-compromised patients – can truly trust.
