Policosanol & The Dirty Dozen of Nasty Supplements / The Shaklee Difference
The article, Dangerous Supplements, May 2004 Consumer Reports, indicates there are The Dirty Dozen or 12 ingredients that should not be in supplements. They are: Aristolochic Acid, Androstenedione, Comfrey, Ephedra, MaHaung, Kola Nut, Bissy Nut, Lobelia, Organ or Glandular Extracts, Pennyroyal, Skullcap, and Yohimbe. Shaklee has never used any of these ingredients and has never been sited for safety issues. Shaklee doesn’t take advantage of hot fads and ignores high demand for substances that don’t make good health sense. Some other examples: Policosanol is derived from sugar cane. A study showed that taking this ingredient over a period of eight weeks dropped the levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood stream. Many companies sell this product based on this old study. Shaklee will not use this ingredient because they took the same study and increased the test time from eight weeks to twelve weeks. The results were the same for eight weeks but then, the LDL levels started to increase week after week up to week number twelve. By the twelfth week the LDL levels were the same as the first week. Apparently the body adjusted to the policosanol after the eighth week and then increased the amount of cholesterol it was producing. Shaklee didn’t see the benefit of offering policosanol to the public. Melatonin and kava are a couple of other popular ingredients that Shaklee has scientific reasons NOT to use or sell. Kava is hard on the liver and ingesting the hormone melatonin can scramble up your own hormones after extended use. (Your body slows its own production of melatonin) Another point: standardized extracts are supposed to be exactly the same. Shaklee strives to have the highest standards. Here is what happened with banaba. Banaba is one of the good ingredients and an important ingredient in a Shaklee product that regulates glucose. When Shaklee tested other vendors’ products levels of banaba potency, the results varied considerably. Shaklee delivers the optimal level consistently and uses the best materials available. 
The United States is the biggest producer and seller of DDT. It is sold to 3rd world countries and it can come back to us via the produce we buy from those countries. Echinacea is an incredible herb that helps stimulate the immune system. Shaklee constantly checks the materials that come in and rejects the materials if they are not up to the highest standards. Shaklee discovered a batch of Echinacea with DDT and the batch was quickly rejected. In 1998, one of Shaklee’s biggest seller contained panex ginseng. Ginseng is a herb that increases vitality for people. Because of the 1998 flooding in Asia, a fungicide, quintozene was added to the ginseng harvest. Quintozene is carcinogen and banned from the US. Shaklee discovered that this fungicide was present its ginseng shipment. After searching the world for Ginseng free of quintozene, and to no avail, the Shaklee company refused to sell it's popular product for one and a half years! Many other companies continued to sell this product. Either they sold it knowingly or they didn't test for it and didn't know. Here is CNN's article regarding the 1998
Quintozene contamination of ginseng.
Organic farmers in the United States are doing a good job, but we need to know that they are not required to test for heavy metals or for pesticides. Heavy metals can get absorbed in the leaves if the farms are close to roadways (leaded gas), for example. The roots can also absorb metals and pesticides from the water. The farmers can’t control what is in the air or water. Who knows what is going on with the produce coming in from China. Shaklee goes beyond Organic as they test all their raw materials to make sure they are free of 380 contaminates. 83,000 quality control tests are done annually! My personal experience and Shaklee's Alfalfa. In the mid 1970's my mother was busy building her Shaklee business and her most popular product was the alfalfa supplement. For a period of a year or so, Shaklee refused to produce the alfalfa supplements because the raw material they found was not up to par. They chose not to produce alfalfa supplements rather then sell a low quality product. This glitch didn't hurt my mother's business though, as she kept busy supplying the many other great Shaklee products. Shaklee uses the purest material possible. See the product info sheets and label links!
The above statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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