Research & Technical Articles Everything You Wanted to Know About Nutritionals, but... Couldn't Read the Labels When it comes to evaluating nutritional products by their labels, the old adage, "You can't believe everything you read," seems to hold particularly true. It is hard to sort out fact from fiction when it comes to some of the inflated claims made on product labels. It is even more difficult to understand how to compare one product to another based on listed ingredient amounts. It seems as if every manufacturer of nutritional supplements has its own way of expressing the potency of the products. Take enzymes for example. Some companies indicate enzyme potency in milligrams. While this may look impressive on the label, it is actually meaningless. Enzyme effectiveness depends on activity, not on weight. Other companies choose to express enzyme activity in an obscure system of units which originated in a foreign country. Some enzyme products keep you completely in the dark and don't list the potencies at all. The system for determining enzyme potency used by the American food industry is derived from the Food Chemical Codex (FCC) and is accepted as the standard by the FDA. The activity of enzymes such as protease, lipase, amylase, etc. can be expressed in units which are well-defined by the FCC (in English). Anyone who cares to do so may look up the protocol for assay in the FCC reference book. If all enzyme activity were expressed in FCC units, comparisons could easily be made. Vital Produx has chosen to use the FCC system to measure and report the enzyme activity in all of its products, giving you the best, most easily understood information. The enzyme activity of all Vital Produx formulations is measured and reported using FCC units. FCC Units Used by Vital Produx Protease HUT (Hemoglobin Unit - Tyrosine basis) Amylase DU (Alpha-amylase Dextrinizing Units) Lipase LU (Lipase Unit) Cellulase CU (Cellulase Unit) Sucrase IAu (Invertase Activity Unit) Lactase LacU (Lactase Unit) Maltase Dpº (degree Diastatic Power) > Everything You Wanted to Know... continued Home | Product Line | Endorsements | FAQs | Research | Order Products VITAL PRODUX™ 44 Mine Rd. Suite 2, PMB 209 Stafford, Virginia  22554  USA 540-286-2400 – FAX: 540-752-4765 E-mail: info@VitalProdux.com Copyright © 1996-2003, VTI, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Text, graphics, and HTML code are protected by US and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied, reprinted, published, translated, hosted, or otherwise distributed by any means without explicit permission. Vital Produx™ is a trademark of VTI, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.