Is anyone else using 1Step Liquid Vitamins/Minerals from High Performance Fitness? (http://www.highperformancefitness.com/nut_inf.html)

What is it?
It is a multivitamin / multimineral in a liquid form.

Why Liquid?
Supposed to absorb a lot better than solid multivitamins.

I've been taking it for a few months now and I like it. I would like it better if I could find a lab analysys to check that everything they claim is true.... but I like the idea so I'll give'em the benefit of the doubt.

When I used to take vitamins in pill form I had technicolor urine an hour or so after ingesting the pills. Sometimes I could even see sediment falling out to the bottom of the bowl. (ok... bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea)

On the 1Step liquid my pee doesn't change colors... I hope that means that there is some validity to the increased absorption claims.

The stuff is made here in Houston Texas and I found out about it when the company sent a representative to our local HEB grocery store to give out samples and literature.

Price is about $1.00/Day... Pricy for vitamins but I was flushing money down the toilet when I was peeing out my old vitamins.

I was wondering what the collective wisdom of the forums have to say about this product.

Please discuss.

First, your pee SHOULD change colors when you take a quality multivitamin. If it's not, you are simply not getting enough. Just because your pee changes colors doesn't mean you are "pissing away nutrients" as some like to claim. A lot of times, your body may use a certain nutrient and the colored urine is a byproduct of the metabolism for that nutrient. To date, there is ZERO scientific evidence supporting liquid multi-vitamins/minerals and actually quite a bit of evidence that shows many water-soluble nutrients (a lot of the vitamins) actually break down in liquid form (i.e. are not stable).

At any rate, if your product follows pharmaceutical grade general manufacturing practices and the USP guidelines for dissolution (and if they do this, they'll post that on the label) you should be fine. Otherwise, I'd seek another product that has the quality tested by a reputable third party (USP and GMP are both FDA and an independent organization respectively).

You can also check out consumer labs - they test multis and report whether or not what is on the label is actually in the product.

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy,

My other reason for posting was concern that because my pee wasn't changing colors that there were no vitamins/minerals in 1step.

I sent the manufacturer a few questions and I'll post the answers if they reply. If they can't provide a link to a 3rd party study then I will probably switch back to pills.

There is so much hokum and snake oil out there... I see advertisments making all kinds of claims and they usually all have the following fine print:
**The statements on this page have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to cure, treat or prevent disease.

Fantastic Claims - Standard Disclaimer = NOTHING

Very confusing.

I sent some questions in to the HPfitness guys:


Obscura: Does your product follow pharmaceutical grade general manufacturing practices and the USP guidelines for dissolution?

HPF: Yes, our product and company comply with all of the pharmaceutical grade general manufacturing practices as well as the USP and AOAC International guidelines for dissolution.

Obscura: Has your product been quality tested by a reputable third party? If so please provide a link to the study so that I can review it.

HPF: Yes, our product has been tested by the most reputable and largest third party in the business, there is not a link that I can forward to you regarding our third party testing, but we do have paperwork that I can fax to you upon your request.


I don't have access to a fax but I would be interested in seeing the report. I imagine that if the report were positive they would have posted it on their web site.

Anyone here care to loan me their fax number so you could brief us on this report?

They MUST put those disclaimers on vitamins - that is one requirement from the supplement industry. The FDA does not regulate supplements. Therefore, if the manfacturer wants to make a claim, that is a standard disclaimer to post. This absolves the FDA of liability. This does not mean the claims are wrong - but they should at least cite references so you can verify it themselves. For example, claims like this:

200 mcg of (organic) selenium per day may reduce risk of death from ALL causes by 50%

50mg of CoQ10 taken daily may reduce risk of cardiovasular disease by 80%

Are actually supported by various scientific studies (I may have gotten the doses wrong) so a supplement manufacturer can certainly post those, but they must then put the standard FDA disclaimer. They also cannot make any claims that it can cure a disease.

The supplement industry is actually at a very critical juncture.

(a) supplements cannot claim to cure disease
(b) if a supplement DOES cure a disease or condition, it becomes a medicine and suddenly must be regulated by the pharmaceutical industry, i.e. is no longer supported as a supplement
(c) obesity is considered a disease
(d) therefore, any supplement that can combat obesity technically must stop being a supplement immediately and becomes regulated through the pharmaceutical industry

So that makes supplements tough because if they claim to be effective but are not proven to be, then who knows if they really work. If they are proven to work with a specific condition, they must be yanked from the shelves. Notice that ephedra had some quality research related to fat loss, etc, and now where is it? Certainly not in the hands of supplement manufacturers.

As a vendor of pharmaceutical-grade vitamins and minerals myself, I am looking at the future and seriously wondering where the industry will go. My company, for example, is a $200 million company and I've seen others $500 million or even in the billions. One of the reasons our products are so popular is due to the tremendous, positive impact they've had on people's lives - of course these don't cure disease but I have witnessed people who suffer from fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, chronic arthritis, and other conditions find relief where traditional medications not only fell short of the mark but also created other side effects. The thing is, if there ever is a correlation made between vitamins and the management of a severe condition - be it fibromyalgia or otherwise - then the almost $1 trillion wellness industry will be in jeopardy of finding themselves absorbed into the exsiting medical industry (medical meaning treating a condition after it occurred, and wellness meaning taking action - i.e. training, nutrition, supplementation, etc. - to prevent a condition from occuring in the first place).

At any rate, as you can see, I am a huge fan of multis and if you can find a quality one, stick with it. Just be wary - I know some companies will make this claim, and it's bogus:

"We stabilize our vitamin with a propietary technique that evades third-party testing and analysis, but our own internal testing proves ..." etc. You want a third-party involved, otherwise the information is not worth the paper its printed on. That's not to say someone CAN'T have a propietary method, etc, but a reputable company would simply open that process to third parties. The most common argument is that people will "steal" the idea but the reality is that they could patent the idea and sub-license it to independent third-party testers and not only create peace of mind through objective disclosure, but create another income stream at the same time. If they are not disclosing, they are posing.

Jeremy

There was some legislation in the works to increase regulation in the diet and supplement industry a few months back, I kind of lost track of what actually happened to it.

It's funny, because at the time, I was working at GNC, and my manager was trying to tell me how bad regulation was, and how it would ruin GNC. GNC corporate was also trying to make us hand out petitions and what not to stop it. They would try and use scare tactics telling customers that if the industry were regulated, they would be able to get their vitamin C anymore and the like(utter bs).

The thing is, I'm actually in favor of supplement regulation. It's like, wow, so labels can't lie anymore? That's fantastic. Even if regulation cut the amount of supplements on the shelves by 80%, it would still be cool because then you'd know everything that you looked at actually worked.