Why buy from us?

Why buy from AFM, and not an online retailer like Amazon? The reasons are numerous. We have summarized them here in a table for your convenience. If you would like to learn a bit more detail, continue reading below.

	Amazon	AFM
Product regulation	Rarely require certificates of authenticity, and third party sellers aren’t regulated at all	All products are hand selected by our providers from reputable vendors that we have verified. Our providers tour the manufacturing facilities of many vendors to ensure stringent quality standards are met
Counterfeits	Products may be improper copies of legitimate supplements - lack of proper ingredients, products that may be expired, diluted, etc.	We only sell products that we receive directly from our trusted vendors
Storage	Products usually stored in large warehouses that lack temperature or humidity control, leads to product degradation	All products are stored in our temperature and humidity controlled office spaces
Contamination	Products may contain unhealthy fillers, undisclosed ingredients, allergens, heavy metals, microbial contaminants, and even prescription drugs	All products are properly sealed, and have never been opened or tampered with
Ingredients	Products with little to no therapeutic ingredient are far more common than products that meet their claims	All products are verified to contain only what is listed on the label, and in the indicated amounts

 

We always recommend that patients and customers order their supplements from us. Many large online marketplaces or retailers are fraught with issues that raise serious questions regarding the quality and safety of the products they sell. In order to better understand the benefits you receive by ordering from us, it is helpful to first look at issues you may face by ordering elsewhere. In the points below we largely address Amazon and eBay, but these issues are prevalent in general. Such issues include: 

1) Lack of regulation - Amazon/eBay are in the business of sales and order fulfillment, not healthcare. They rarely require certificates of authenticity to list and sell products. Third party sellers aren't regulated at all!

2) Counterfeit products - Unethical companies may mimic successful supplements by producing items that lack the essential ingredients, or contain useless or even harmful fillers. They may also buy genuine products that have expired, then re-list them with the expiration date changed or removed. They may dilute genuine product with counterfeit/fillers. This can lead to supplements with inadequate effectiveness and serious safety concerns.

3) Lack of environmental control in storage - Warehouses are usually not temperature or humidity regulated. Their supplements are exposed to this environment, causing them to lose potency/effectiveness in a way that can be hard to predict.

4) Contamination - Products can contain unhealthy fillers, undisclosed ingredients, allergens, heavy metals, microbial contamination, and even prescription medications.

5) Lack of ingredients - There are many examples of supplements with little to no therapeutic ingredient, or subtherapeutic levels at best. Studies and investigations have been done regarding the supplement market on Amazon, and these have repeatedly found that products having no or minimal amounts of their purported active ingredients are actually far more common than ones that meet their claims.

How are we different?

Every product we carry has been hand selected by our Functional Medicine providers. We obtain all products directly from the manufacturers, so we only sell brands and products that meet our stringent quality standards. We have toured and inspected many of the manufacturing facilities of the vendors we offer, which allows us to sell them with confidence. As we receive products directly from these trusted vendors, we can verify that your supplements are properly sealed, and have never been opened or tampered with. All of our products are stored in our temperature and humidity regulated office spaces, so we avoid product degradation issues that arise with storage in a large warehouse. We know that our products contain the ingredients listed on the label, and in the proper amounts. Perhaps equally importantly, we know they do not contain anything that is not listed.

In order for you to benefit from nutritional supplementation, and in order for us to gauge our patients' responses to these supplements, it is vital that we both know exactly what you are putting in your body. We make every effort to provide products that you can trust. By ordering with us, not only do you get peace of mind that you are using products that are safe and effective, but you also help support our practice and providers. This allows us to keep prices lower for patients in our clinic, maintain our high standard of care, reach more people who can benefit from that care, and help grow the emerging field of Functional Medicine.