May 28, 2009………..Are you one of the millions of Americans taking herbal supplements and have heard recent news about pesticides and heavy metals in them? How do you know if your brand is safe? Do you care?

Free yourself from the anxiety by looking for the NSF mark on your dietary supplement. The NSF International is an independent, not-for-profit public health organization that test and certifies that your brand is free from contaminants and unexpressed material.

Their certification program for nutritional supplements does the following:

• Verifies that what is listed on the label is actually in the bottle
• Tests the product to ensure they are free from unexpressed material and there are no unacceptable levels of contaminants.
• Inspects the facility to make sure that the manufacturing is following the Good Manufacturing Practices in the manufacturing and conducts audits of the facility.

The certification program is based on the American National Standard for nutritional supplements.

For users of nutritional supplements that want to become better educated about what they are putting in their bodies, the NSF International has a free Nutritional Supplement Fact Kit. The kit teaches the user how to understand the information on the label, how supplements are regulated, and includes how to understand the marketing claims. You can also view on their website, http://www.nsf.org/Certified/Dietary, a list of the products that NSF certifies.

The NSF International also certifies products through their “Free of” Athletic Banned Substances Certification program. This program tests products for more than 140 banned substances including stimulants, narcotics, diuretics, steroids, masking agents and beta blockers. The associations that use NSF’s Certified for Sport program are MLB, MLB Player’s Association, PGA, LPGA, CCES, NFL, and the NFL Players Association.