Advance Physician Formulas company information and products, address and shipping

Advance Physician Formulas is a nutraceutical company with headquarters in Irvine, California, and customer care centers in several locations including Nebraska, Iowa, and California. The aim of Advance Physician Formulas is to provide formulas of the highest quality and effectiveness. Their scientific research team is highly specialized to review the latest research on various supplements and herbs. They carry high quality products from several respected supplement manufacturers, including Source Naturals, Natrol, Now Foods, Club Natural, and others, and by respected doctors and herbalists including world renowned medical doctor and best selling author Ray-Sahelian, M.D., who formulated several products listed below for the Advance Physician Formulas label. Dr. Sahelian is one of the most respected doctors in the world when it comes to nutritional knowledge and he maintains a highly praised and widely visited web site on nutrition and natural supplements. Dr. Sahelian writes a biweekly newsletter for Advance Physician Formulas and they consult with him ruegarding the latest nutritional and herbal research. These Advance Physician Formulas products are available on their website.

Independent review article about our company:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/325142/product_reviews_physician_formulas.html?cat=68

Physician formulated products
Advance Physician Formulas was founded in 2004 with the intent of providing effective supplements and honest information to consumers. The company promotes these popular herbal combination products formulated by a well-respected physician, Dr. Ray Sahelian, M.D.:

Diet-Rx by Advance Physician Formulas is a natural appetite suppressant with hoodia, green tea extract, garcinia, and two dozen herbal extracts and nutrients.
Eyesight Rx has lutein, ginkgo, taurine, carrot powder, carnosine, acetylcysteine, bilberry extract, goji berry, and a number of other nutrients and herbs to improve day and night vision along with color perception.
Good-Night-Rx for better sleep
Joint Power Rx provides glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, CMO and several other nutrients and herbal extracts to support healthy joints in those who are middle aged and older.
Mind Power Rx by Advance Physician Formulas for better concentration and focus
MultiVit Rx improves energy and wellbeing while providing a good balance of the daily requirement of vitamins, minerals, and key nutrients necessary for optimal metabolism.
Passion Rx by Advance Physician Formulas to improve low libido and enhance sexual pleasure
Prostate Power Rx is formulated to provide several herbs and nutrients that are believed to support overall prostate health.

Individual supplements
5-HTP 5 HTP 5HTP - 50 mg - 5HTP is the precursor to serotonin and has a role to play in mood, sleep, emotional balance, and appetite control.
Acai supplement- 500 mg - Acai is a berry from the Amazon forest with a high antioxidant value.
Acetyl l Carnitine brain enhancing supplement information and proper dosage information.
Alpha Lipoic Acid - R -- 50 mg is a good dose to take a few times a week.
Ashwagandha 500 mg is an herb used for relaxation and wellbeing.
Beta-Sitosterol complex 350 mg
Catuaba - 500 mg
Choline - 500 mg
CMO - 400 mg
CoQ10 - 50 mg is a good dose to take a few times a week.
CoQ10 - 100 mg
Curcumin and Turmeric - 500 mg
DMAE - 350 mg
Fish-Oils - providing the important omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.
Graviola - 500 mg
Horny-Goat-Weed - 400 mg
Kava 300 mg
LJ100 Tongkat Ali extract - 25 mg
Maca - 500 mg
Mangosteen - 500 mg
Mucuna-Pruriens - 200 mg of 15% L dopa
Muira Puama - 500 mg
Saw Palmetto extract - 320 mg
Serrapeptase - 20,000 units, serrapeptase is a proteolytic enzyme that was originally made in Japan.
Tongkat-Ali - 200 mg is a potent aphrodisiac from Malaysia.
Tribulus - 400 mg

Availability in stores
I am curious to know if there are any retail establishments (brick and mortar) that carry your line of products (drugstores / health food stores / nutrition stores), as opposed to having to order them directly from you / through your website?
    There are some health food stores that carry our products, but as a general rule we have decided to focus on the internet and have direct access to the consumer.

Questions and emails
Q. I was considering buying some health food supplements at Advance Physician Formulas, and I have a question. I learned that one should look for the term “pharmaceutical grade” when one buys such products. However, I did not find it in the descriptions of the products I was interested in at Advance Physician Formulas. Does it mean that their quality does not meet the standard of pharmaceutical grade? It might be naive, and I am sorry for bothering you with such a question.
   A. The term pharmaceutical grade only applies to a select few supplements such as the amino acid tryptophan and a few others. There is no such pharmaceutical grade terminology with herbs and most other supplements. Therefore, if you read on a website that their herbal products are pharmaceutical grade, you may question their honesty since herbs are not described in that manner.

Q. I have been very satisfied with the Physician Formula products particularly Eyesight Rx and MultiVit Rx. Keep up the good work. I tell my friends about how good the Advance Physician Formula service is, the phone reps are excellent.

Q. I noticed that Advance Physician Formulas products say certified on them. I wondered who certifies the strength and purity and lack of heavy metals in your products.
   A. The Advance Physician Formulas products are made by NHK Laboratories which is independent from us. This lab makes sure all ingredients and the manufacturing processes follow FDA guidelines.

Q. I think very highly, and so does my family, about Advance Physician Formulas products. I am about to try the mind power but my husband and son-in-law love 5HTP and I love the Joint Power Rx and Multi vitamin. My husband has ADHD and my son-in-law has bipolar and they both find 5 HTP fantastic for their brain.

Q. Are products on the Advance Physician Formulas website organic?
   A. Advance Physician Formulas has hundreds of products from dozen or more companies. Most of the herbs are not organic, and it is difficult to find a whole line of products that are organic. Most herbs supplied by the major raw material suppliers are not organic. However, unlike food, the amounts of herbs ingested are often less than 1 gram which is practically insignificant when compared to the kilograms of food eaten.

Q. Does Advance Physician Formulas have a distributor in Costa Rica?
   A. We ship to Costa Rica, but we don't have a distributor in Costa Rica.

Q. Dr. Ray Sahelian's supplements are stated as being 'high quality' but I notice other supplements are sold on Advance Physician Formulas web site, not just the "Rx" brand. One such example is 'Source Naturals.' There are others. Are all these other brands high quality.
   A. Advance Physician Formulas carries products from many companies. Dr. Sahelian has formulated about 40 products for us. Since the web site sells more than 300 products, not all of them are formulated by Dr. Sahelian. Source Naturals is a respectable company.

Q. I know that vitamins supplements that are USP verified which contain the USP symbol have been tested to make sure that they disintegrate in the body and the label is true and accurate. How would I know if Advance Physician Formulas vitamins supplements are? What does a certificate of analysis display? Are your vitamins supplements distilled? Are the harmful ingredients (pesticides) removed?
   A. Advance Physician Formulas supplements are manufactured by a GMP certified facility called NHK labs in Santa Fe Springs, CA and this facility is evaluated every few months to pass industry standards. Furthermore, Dr. Sahelian, a product developer at Advance Physician Formulas, reviews the certificates of analysis to make sure the ingredients are of high standards. Some ingredients are HPLC tested. USP is an independent organization and charges a fee for testing. USP is not a governmental organization and companies do not have to have a USP label on their product.

Q. I want to export Advance Physician Formulas products overseas such as Passion Rx. I will send your stuff to some importer in India or Maldives. That importer will sell to the end user. Can you sell to me in large quantities?
   A. Yes, we can sell at wholesale in large quantities. If you can ship the product overseas, then the stores can put the product on the shelf and the consumer can buy it. We can sell you the products at wholesale prices. If you buy in large quantities higher discounts can be given.

Q. I have enjoyed the Advance Physician Formulas website and the products it offers. I appreciate that your facility meets FDA guidelines for GMP, however I have a few questions you may address for me regarding this issue. Do you have an independent testing lab that certifies the quality and quantity of the ingredients in your products? Are the ingredients for your products procured internationally or are most of them from North America?
   A. The actual manufacturing of the bottles is not done by us but by separate and independent companies. We contract with several different companies to make our products and they are located in California and Arizona. Most of the raw ingredients that are purchased are independently tested by HPLC. We use hundreds of different herbs and some of them only grow in South America, Asia, or other continents so it is not possible to have every ingredient come from the USA since not all herbs are grown in this country. We try as much as possible to obtain ingredients that are made in the USA.

Q. Are Advance Physician Formulas products available in Switzerland and Europe ?
   A. We are not aware of stores in Switzerland or rest of Europe that carry our supplements, but these supplements are shipped every day to customers in Europe.

Q. I am a customer rep for Advance Physician Formulas. I am one of many who take phone orders. The feedback I get is that both Passion Rx and Passion Rx with Yohimbe are successful to me. Getting lots of reorders and wonderful compliments on their effectiveness.

Q. Are Advance Physician Formulas products, or its ingredients tested on animals?
   A. We have not done any testing of our formulas or ingredients on animals.

Q. Is Club Natural website part of Advance Physician Formulas?
   A. No, they are an independent company that sell some of the products sold on our website.

Interview by a nutrition magazine in June 2008 regarding Dr. Sahelian and Advance Physician Formulas
Q. When did Dr. Sahelian start Advance Physician Formulas and why?
   A. Ray Sahelian M.D. started Advance Physician Formulas in 2004 with a partner that had two decades of experience within the natural foods industry. A year later he sold his shares and is now an independent contractor in charge of research and development, formulating new products, and writing a popular newsletter called Supplement Research Update. The company was started in order to provide effective formulas based on the decades of experience and knowledge gathered by Dr. Sahelian through his background in nutrition, his medical knowledge, experience with tens of thousands of patients, vitamin and herbal research, and his personal use of nutritional supplements.

Q. How many products do you now sell?
   A. Advance Physician Formulas has about 40 different products with its brand.

Q. What are your best-selling products?
   A. Passion Rx sexual enhancer, Diet Rx appetite suppressant, Mind Power Rx brain booster, Eyesight Rx vision enhancer, Prostate Power Rx for healthy prostate maintenance, MultiVit Rx energy enhancing multivitamin, and Joint Power Rx for joint health.

Q. What are your newest products?
   A. Diet Rx is the newest formula that works as an appetite suppressant without caffeine, guarana, citrus aurantium or other stimulants. We are extremely pleased with feedback from users who find that they eat half as much and have more natural energy than usual without the side effects of increased heart rate or increased body temperature. Within a few months Diet Rx became our second most popular formula.

Q. What sets the Advance Physician Formulas products apart from other supplement brands?
   A. Many companies, like ours, use high quality raw materials and have reliable products. The major difference with Advance Physician Formulas is that Dr. Sahelian personally takes every formula himself and has feedback from patients along with a group of volunteers who help us test these products to determine their effectiveness and report to us potential side effects. For instance, Dr. Sahelian has taken every herb individually in the sexual enhancing product Passion Rx and each time we make a new batch he takes it himself to see how well it works. Another major difference between our formulas and other companies is that Dr. Sahelian make improvements, sometimes major, sometimes minor, on a regular basis to keep enhancing the effectiveness of the formulas while minimizing the side effects. On our website we are honest in mentioning the benefits and adverse effects of the products that are sold. We do not sell products that we don't think are effective, such as human growth hormone products.

Q. How do you market your products and drive traffic to the Advance Physician Formulas Web site? Do you do any DRTV or radio advertising? Any print advertising?
   A. At this time we focus mostly on internet advertising and word of mouth. There is no TV or radio advertising.

Q. What percentage of your sales occur via the Web site? What percentage occur via phone?
   A. The vast majority of the sales are through the internet, the percentage varies each month.

Q. Do you sell Dr. Sahelian’s branded supplements in other channels? Retail? Physician?
   A. There are many health food stores and doctors offices that carry the products formulated by Ray Sahelian, M.D., but no attempt has been made to approach large retailers or pharmacy chains.

Q. What are the advantages of having these products formulated by a physician?
   A. Consumers trust the information provided by a medical doctor, particularly if the doctor has a nutrition science degree, is a bestselling author, and is honest in presenting both the benefits and shortcomings of supplements.

Q. What are the advantages of selling direct to the consumer via the Web and telephone?
   A. Many consumers do not have close access to a vitamin store that carries our effective formulas, and it is convenient to order online.

Q. You also sell other supplement brands on your Web site. What percentage of your sales do these other brands make up?
   A. The majority of the supplements sold on our website are the ones formulated by Dr. Sahelian since we focus our advertising on these effective and unique products. The actual percentages vary over time.