For many people, our pets are our friends, family members, children, and often play a major role in our physical and emotional well-being. Pets are companions that improve our lives in countless ways, and deserve to be treated with the same love and care as anyone else.

Our pets deserve more than an annual check-up — they deserve the best individualized nutritional support and care year round. For many cats and dogs, this means the support of Standard Process Veterinary Formulas.



The key to a pet's optimal health is a diet rich in a variety of high-quality, complex nutrients. These whole-food-based veterinary formulas contain ingredients that provide a broad spectrum of crucial nutrients to support multiple organs and systems in the body.

A variety of different health concerns and diseases are common in certain breeds of dogs. Cancer, diabetes, kennel cough, arthritis, dental diseases, skin infections, parasites, UTIs, and soft tissue injuries (pulled muscles or joint sprains) are all common health issues that can be treated or prevented using Standard Process' line of pet supplements.

Purebred dogs in general are often more prone to having serious health problems than other dogs. Bulldogs often have heart and respiratory issues, dachshunds are more prone to musculoskeletal conditions due to their short legs, German shepherds and golden retrievers are often at risk of hip dysplasia, and so on.

Targeted immune, cardio, thyroid, renal, musculoskeletal, hepatic, enteric, and/or whole body support can have a huge impact on these diseases and health problems for your dog, and Standard Process has nutritional supplements to support the health of each of these areas.

Similarly, cats can be at risk of cancer, diabetes, feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), heartworm, respiratory infections, kidney disease, and liver disease, and our clients have seen great results treating these diseases with Standard Process feline supplements.



Standard Process' line of veterinary formulas was introduced in 2002, and has become a go-to source of nutritional supplementation for both veterinarians and pet owners. All of Standard Process' supplements, including its veterinary formulas, are made of high-quality, whole-food ingredients that are as close as possible to how they are found in nature.

Dogs are omnivores, so the canine formulas contain a wider variety of ingredients that combine animal tissues and botanical materials in one formulation. Cats in comparison are obligate carnivores, so the feline formulas contain fewer ingredients and focus on animal tissues. These ingredient combinations provide both targeted and whole-body support.

Each pet's unique needs are an evolving function of breed, age, activity level, and health status. It can sometimes be difficult to know the best way to care for your pets, especially since they aren't able to tell you when something's wrong.

▶︎ If you'd like more support with improving your pet's health, consider setting up a pet health consultation with Kristina.

▶︎ For a full list of Standard Process Veterinary Formulas, click here.

Labels: cats, dogs, nutrition, pet health, supplements

It is well-known that many consumers turn to online retail behemoth Amazon for cheaper alternatives on many types of products that they traditionally would have bought at local brick-and-mortar stores. In addition to lower prices and enticing shipping deals, the simple convenience of items being delivered to one's doorstep is often a driving factor in a consumer deciding to shop from Amazon.

Perhaps understandably, but very unfortunately, this ever-increasing inclination to visit Amazon for much of one's shopping needs extends to nutritional supplements, which have become a riskier arena for consumers. Numerous investigations by consumer advocacy groups over the years have revealed that unauthorized third-party resellers on Amazon have been able to sell counterfeit versions of many top-selling supplements. We should not be surprised that counterfeiters are able to profit by exploiting Amazon's trust factor to sell fake products (supplements and so much more) to unsuspecting Amazon customers, because the reality is that it's very difficult for Amazon to adequately police the tens of thousands of third-party sellers who sell products through the site. Some counterfeiters are of course caught and shut down, but many others continue to operate through stealth and deceptive strategies. In chameleon-like fashion, many counterfeiters exploit Amazon's e-commerce infrastructure by shifting from one seller name to another. If one seller account gets shut down, a counterfeiter may have several other accounts to fall back on, often maintaining overall visibility on Amazon through these shifting accounts. Typically at least some of a counterfeiter's Amazon accounts may be created as "throwaway" accounts to ensure that the deception survives over the longer term.

Counterfeit supplements typically include inert fillers rather than the active ingredients that appear on the label. In many cases, products not containing what the label indicates can obviously present dangers to consumers, who may be unknowingly ingesting substances that they are allergic to, or could seriously harm them in other ways. Not all ingredient substitutions by counterfeiters are inert!

Counterfeiting has also been discovered in nutritional product lines for pets. Nutramax Laboratories, a pet supplement specialist, states that "the counterfeit products we have examined to date were essentially made of a starchy filler compound that is often used in pills, capsules, and other ingestible products... Pets are not receiving any of the needed health benefits of authentic Nutramax products. For these reasons, we are treating these counterfeit products as a threat to pets' safety and well-being."

The wellness protocols I have developed and present on the Optimal Health Network website, and recommend through my personal health consultations with clients, include a wide array of quality supplements for both humans and their pets. We take extensive measures to assess the reputation and safety standards of our supplement vendors, and all nutritional supplements sold through our website are guaranteed authentic and accurate as labeled.

One of our long-time vendors, Ortho Molecular, partners exclusively with health care providers and has been working diligently in recent years to get illegal online sellers of its products off of Amazon and other retail sites. It is a battle that Ortho Molecular fights every day as part of its dedication to ensuring and nurturing the safest channel for bringing its products to consumers: via formal dialogue between health practitioners and their patients, within a context of an individualized health assessment and the dispensing of products via an established practitioner/vendor relationship.

OHN strongly believes in doctor/patient interaction as a basis for implementing health and wellness protocols and always encourages its customers to make product purchases based on consultation with a family doctor or other medical professional. Furthermore, as a certified colon hydrotherapist and nutritional consultant, I welcome one-on-one health consultations with my clients via a secure online intake form and appointment booking system. Through these consultations and follow-up dispensing of products via phone purchase or OHN's website, I strive to ensure that my clients are receiving the appropriate individual support they need, and with clinically proven products that are accurate as labeled. While clients can sometimes find cheaper prices for my prescribed products on Amazon, this is potentially a dangerous gamble given the many documented instances of product counterfeiting by third-party resellers. Buyer beware!

Labels: Amazon, counterfeit, fake, fillers, health consultations, nutrition, Ortho Molecular, supplements

by Kristina Amelong

Labels: AA, depression, diet, niacin, nutrition, vitamin B3, vitamin supplements

by Stephanie Carnes
OHN Contributor

It is oppressive the way in which all people are systematically hurt by the belief structures and behaviors of their society. People are forced into decisions that cause their bodies to express disease. We are lied to and made to believe that things that are harmful to health are actually good for us. Why? Because our culture is fixated on profits. In his book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About, Kevin Trudeau explains why the United States government, the major food companies, and the drug companies systematically promote ideas that may cause people harm.

Our current societal structure prioritizes profit above health. Health is created or destroyed by the way we set up our lives. If we eat well, we tend to be healthier. If we rest deeply and daily, we tend to be healthier. If we are close to other people, we tend to be healthier. If we exercise and spend time outdoors, we tend to be healthier. If we have a rich spiritual life, we tend to be healthier. If we nourish our emotional selves, we tend to be healthier. When all of these activities are combined, most people are going to express health genetically and not disease. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t able to pull all of those elements together.

Profitability Before Health

For example, most people don’t eat foods that support their optimal health. Most of us don’t even know what it means to eat well. Foods and all other ingestible products are produced to have long shelf lives, be conveniently transported, and to be produced with the lowest overhead and the highest profitability. Very few producers of foods, supplements, pharmaceuticals, and other bodily products place health above profitability. Most foods are available primarily for the purpose of the suppliers to make a profit and not for their high nutrient content. Diet ought never be based primarily on the needs of the economy and the way in which the economy encourages people to eat. For example, one in four people in the developed world eat at McDonald’s every day.

Limited Access to Quality Food

What are the nutritional resources that our body needs in order to be optimally healthy? What is optimal nutrition? Is it possible to practice an optimal diet within a culture that values food for profit over food for health?

The average person has very little incentive or education that would lead them to seek out and to choose optimally nutritious food. Most people have limited opportunities and motivation to choose the best possible nutrition for their body. However, access to fresh, healthy food is increasing across the board. All it takes is a little extra effort to find sources of produce, meat, and dairy that don't contain the pesticides, hormones, and additional processing.

Where Can I Find Healthy Foods?

A first step to locate economical sources of natural food might be to network in your region. Collect phone numbers and mailing, email, and Web addresses of everyone you can find who is interested in local agriculture.

Although many large supermarkets have added organic foods to their shelves, the selection is often limited. Large chain stores ought to be the last place you shop. Here’s why:

1. Concentration on Retailing Destroys Communities: Large chains do not source locally because they need suppliers who can supply identical products to all their stores.
2. Large Chains Destroy Small Businesses: Retail profits do not go to a local area but to shareholders who have no interest in local communities. By contrast, the money you spend locally circulates dollars in your community and generates jobs.
3. Multinational Trade Means Greater Food Transport: Supermarkets prefer to do business with major players—even if they are around the globe. This means that the food will be transported long distances, contributing to excessive use of fuel and resultant global warming.

Try to find a local food cooperative or farmers market in your area to locate sources of healthy foods. Food cooperatives are membership-based buying organizations that distribute natural food products to consumers. Most co-ops were founded during the 1960s and 1970s to offer natural foods that most supermarkets would not sell.

By understanding how environmental and political factors influence our lives and our cultures, and by healing those scars of oppression, we will be more fully able to eradicate degenerative disease and be optimally healthy.

SOURCE: Ten Days to Optimal Health (Amelong 2006)

Labels: access to quality food, farmers market, food cooperatives, industrialized food system, nutrition