The True Standard of Quality_ Dr. Myron Wentz' 2011 USANA Convention Address.flv

In the past I've seen a lot of attempts to duplicate what USANA has done, and it's true just about all of them have crashed and burned for one reason or another. As to the reasons behind our success, I've always been convinced that USANA had a significant advantage from the beginning, and it was because of our products, the science behind those products, and their level of quality, the way they are designed, the way they are made, everything about them. There's no other aspect of the company that I am more involved with and no other aspect of USANA that I take more pride in than where our products come from. Speaking of product quality, I thought you might be interested in knowing that some of our competitors have decided the way to make nutritional products is to take a list of ingredients -- in some cases basically what's on the label of USANA products -- and find a contract manufacturer who will agree to give them back a copycat product. How can you imitate the years of research I've had with cell culture and cellular nutrition? What imitators see as a list of ingredients, I know to be one of the most important achievements of my life's work. Optimal nutritional supplementation is not something you can just throw together. It is not like making something out of Tinker Toys or an Erector Set. It requires decades of study and experience, achieving a thorough grasp of life processes at the cellular level, because that is where health and disease begin and end. The products I set out to develop two decades ago were not the result of a list of ingredients that I got out of a book. They were born from years of experience observing the effects of individual nutrients on the health and longevity of the cells in my cultures. My assays became the gold standard in the diagnostics industry because I grew healthier cells than others did. I nutrient my cells -- and yes, I coined that word 'nutrient'. The appropriate word should be 'nurtured', but to me 'nutrient' has greater meaning. I nutrient my cells better than my colleagues, which allowed me to produce superior and nondefective, complete viral antigens. Every virus has a target cell that it prefers, and since I produced assays for every human virus of diagnostic importance, I grew many different kinds of human cells. To do that, I needed to provide these cells with ideal growing conditions, and I especially needed to provide them with nutrition containing the right ingredients in the right form and in the correct balance. I knew that certain elements interacted with each other and therefore needed to be in precise balance. In the body, it's so important for cell function that nutrients be in proper balance. When I selected the life elements and other nutrients to be incorporated in the formulation of the Essentials, I had spent years working with them, exploring their metabolic role and how they affected the cells of the body. For example, USANA has long been known as the antioxidant company because early on I recognized that oxidative stress is the key disease process underlying the onset and progression of most chronic degenerative diseases, from heart disease to cancer to diabetes to Alzheimer's disease to Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and many others. I made it our goal from day one to develop and provide the most complete and potent antioxidant formulation possible, and we have done that and continued to do that, I assure you. There's much more to creating life-changing products than simply choosing ingredients from a list. I am committed today as I was then to creating products that will assist in reducing cellular degeneration and potentiating cell function. Then just as today, I cared about the young woman about to become a mother. She has no choice but to supply critical nutrients to her unborn child before she even provides her own cells with what they need to be healthy. I thought about this 17-year-old boy running up and down school bleachers, totally exhausting himself trying to build thigh muscles that will carry him to success on the football field. He certainly wants the highest quality of nutrition he can get. I thought about the bright young lady in medical school whose brain cells are making thousands of new connections each day as she spends long hours working and studying, and the construction worker performing hard physical labor. He needs antioxidant protection from free radicals being produced in his own muscles, as well as molecular building blocks to repair damage from oxidative stress. For all these people, their future depends on the quality of nutrition they are feeding the cells of their bodies. USANA's goal -- my goal -- is to provide every essential nutrient that the cells need to build every structure, and for those structures to be able to have the building blocks to produce every molecule needed for life: enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, as well as dietary antioxidants to protect itself from oxidative damage. It is knowledge of the science of cellular nutrition at this level that makes the difference -- the USANA difference. If it were as easy as picking items off of a label, then USANA wouldn't need to maintain a staff of PhDs in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and nutrition to ensure that USANA has the best products that exist today. We implement the exacting standards of the pharmaceutical industry, including GMP manufacturing protocols, extensive testing of raw materials at several stages in the manufacturing process, and otherwise go to great lengths to guarantee that our quality control is exactly that. The natural ingredients that go into our supplements are not chosen based on cost. Instead, they are carefully selected based on purity, potency, and efficacy proven in clinical testing. We have a high-quality manufacturing facility in which to make the products. We have our own facility so that we can totally control every aspect of development and manufacturing right through to packaging and shipping. At USANA, we do all that -- we do all of that. We don't just say that we do. There are a myriad of good -- no, they are critical reasons for going to this level of attention and detail. These reasons can be summed up, I believe, by pointing out that our products are used by real people like those I spoke of a minute ago -- and all of you who depend on them to provide the health benefits that we say they supply. When you buy USANA products, you are placing your trust in USANA -- trust that we have done our best to give you the best nutrition possible. It is our responsibility to ensure that trust is well placed, so you can be confident in recommending them to others. I personally stand behind all USANA products, and my seal of approval is on every single label that comes off the packaging line. This is the way things have always been done at USANA and the way they continue to be done today. My commitment to you is that USANA will continue to make a difference in the world by setting new standards of excellence -- standards that our competitors have no choice but to try to meet, but more importantly, standards that help to make life better for thousands, for hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The whole purpose of USANA -- my purpose -- is to take what I have learned about life at the cellular level and share it with the world, and each one of you, to help you achieve your full potential for a healthy and happy life. May you love life and live it to its fullest in happiness and health. Thank you.