Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the Master Formula created?

Millions of people have seen the headlines and have read the research showing that high potency supplementation has the potential to dramatically affect your health, your energy and how young you look and feel. These are self-educated, health-minded individuals who are interested in taking not just a few "fad" nutrients but in taking significant doses of the safest and most effective research-proven nutrients. Unfortunately, until recently, you had to go to a health food store with a long list of different things to buy, often 15, 20 or 30 bottles' worth, before you could come close to complete coverage for all your health concerns! And, even then, you could never be assured you were taking "balanced" doses or getting too much of one thing and not enough of another – or that the product even did what it claimed! The Master Formula was designed for those millions of people who want one super supplement - an easy-to-use, balanced formula that covers every significant health issue. With the Master Formula, there's no need to go out and buy extras or separates of anything unless you have a very specific health issue you're trying to address.

Do I need to take the Master Formula?

You don't really "need" to take the Master Formula, just like you don't need to wear a seat belt when driving. You can be a great driver and, if you're lucky, make it through life without a single scrape. But we all know it has been clearly shown that wearing a seat belt significantly reduces the chances that an accident will cause you harm. Taking the Master Formula is like a "seat belt" for your health: you might very well live to a ripe old age without using the Master Formula, but taking the 51 research-proven nutrients in this elite formula can help support your body's many different organs and cell systems to perform their wide range of life-supporting tasks, including energy production, waste removal, immune response, athletic performance, weight management, blood sugar regulation, and even mood. Who wouldn't want to take advantage of these safe, natural, scientifically-tested nutrients? And the Damage Control line beats the hassle and expense of buying 20 or 30 different bottles of single supplements in the hopes of achieving similar benefits.

Who are the best candidates for this "super formula"?

Just about everyone.

For teenage athletes who are under the many stresses of puberty, school, sports, peer and parental pressures, the Master Formula can provide the full range of nutrient support unavailable from a normal diet.
Men and women in their 30s, 40s and 50s can use the formula to improve the quality of their lives by supporting the body's natural processes, whether it's increasing energy, boosting immunity, maintaining bone density and lean muscle tissue, recovering from exercise or just dealing with the many complicated stresses of mid-life.

Finally, seniors can use the Master Formula to supplement important nutrients that their bodies may no longer be able to manufacture in appreciable amounts or which they have difficulty absorbing from a normal diet.

Sounds like a "one-formula fits all" product. How can that be?

Every biological process taking place in you is also taking place to a lesser or greater extent in every human being at every age! Athletes who put themselves under great training stresses are simply taking to an extreme the same metabolic processes that occur in us all every single day. Oxidative damage has the same negative effect on cells, whether you're a 20-year-old runner burning fats at a higher-than-normal rate or a 60-year-old who breaths polluted air all day but has lost some of the ability to naturally neutralize that damage. Destructive adrenal stress hormones are produced in a 25-year-old weight lifter the same way they are in a 45-year-old who is "stressed out" about still making it up the corporate ladder, or in a 75-year-old who is worried about medical bills.

Similarly, we all share concerns about keeping our immune system in top shape, having adequate energy, making sure our liver is clearing toxins, that our bones are maintaining their density and that we're keeping our sharp mental focus. The nutrients that are shown to support each of these systems work the same way for almost everybody. Our philosophy is simple: cover as many bases nutritionally as you can throughout your life and there's a good chance you'll enjoy better health and more energy for longer.

What about other products offering different men's and women's formulas?

It is true that at certain times, men and women have slightly different nutritional requirements. And, when it comes to specific health concerns, it may be appropriate to take gender-specific herbs or phyto-nutrients, such as when an herbalist might suggest saw palmetto, or dong quai. But as far as a comprehensive, full-spectrum anti-aging and health formula, our needs are very similar. Male and Female formulas are often just a marketing ploy to justify two different products or two different price points. The usual difference is that the women's formula contains more calcium or the men's more Vitamin E. But men need calcium, and women need lots of Vitamin E. Why deprive either of the full amount necessary to achieve wide spectrum high-potency health benefits?

Is there anyone who should NOT take the Master Formula?

Our team of researchers designed the Master Formula to be taken by just about everyone, every day, at every age. Each of the ingredients was selected on the basis of its documented research-proven efficacy. Of course, we always recommend that you share any health decision with your family physician (if for no other reason than to make him or her aware of an exceptional new product). Pregnant women or people with a known medical condition, in particular, should always check with their doctors first. As for taking the Master Formula with other medications, the wide range of new medicines coming to market almost daily suggests that you check with a doctor if you are taking them. Some children under the age of 14 might choose to take a packet a day instead of two.

Why are there 12 capsules? Can't you just fit it all into one pill?

To match the Master Formula by buying each of these ingredients as a separate supplement in a health food store would cost about $450 and result in your taking at least 45 capsules and tablets each day!

Many of those formulas and separate ingredients contain binders, lubricants and "fillers" - safe substances that take up space in a capsule. For example, you can buy 10 mg/day of Lycopene for about $20 for a 30-day supply of capsules. But 10 mg leaves an awful lot of empty space even in a small 250 mg capsule, which could cause the capsule to crush. So, in the case of Lycopene, the manufacturer must add about 240 mg (or 24 times as much!) useless filler - usually rice bran or similar powder - to make the capsule appear full, even though you are only getting 10 mg of what you actually purchase. Multiply this times the number of different separate supplements needed to match the Master Formula and you'd have about 16 extra grams per day of just fillers! Because we use no fillers, we consider ourselves lucky that we are able to pack all these wonderful nutrients into "only" 12 capsules which each hold about 880 mg of the formula.

If I take the Master Formula, do I need to take anything else?

The Master Formula was designed to eliminate the need to take other micronutrient supplements or formulas. As long as your macronutrition is under control (fats, protein and carbohydrates in the real food you eat), the Master Formula will cover all the general health, anti-aging, immune-supporting, cognition-enhancing, micronutrient bases. Unless you have a very specific health issue you are trying to address, there's no need to take anything else. Having said that, there are instances where specific herbal or phytonutrient "remedies" might be suggested as an added form of support, such as taking glucosamine or boswellin for arthritis pain, saw palmetto for prostate swelling, etc. but again these are usually where a specific health issue needs to be addressed.

Why are there none of the so-called anti-aging hormones like DHEA, Pregnenolone, HGH or Melatonin in The Master Formula?

We designed this formula to be, first and foremost, something that everyone can take every day for a lifetime if they wish.

Certainly, there has been a good amount written about the possibilities of "HRT" or Hormone Replacement Therapy involving those hormones listed above. And recent headlines and studies indicate that, on balance, hormone therapies may create far more health damage (such as cancer and blood clots) than health benefits. That's why we are very hesitant to include nutrients or substances (especially hormones) that may interfere with your body's normal production of hormones when not everyone needs them. If you are not low in DHEA or Melatonin, we believe you should not be supplementing with these hormones on a daily basis. In certain circumstances, in short cycles and under a doctor's watchful eye, these types of supplements can have a benefit, but not as a general matter of routine.

Our philosophy is that you must support your body's own natural ability to produce hormones - by providing key vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and enzyme building blocks and by preventing cell damage. Do so and your body will take care of you quite well!

As for HGH (human growth hormone), which is being touted as a fountain of youth, be very suspect of any company that claims it is providing you with HGH, since real HGH is a strictly-controlled substance and very dangerous if taken without a physician's total supervision. Over-the-counter homeopathic HGH is a ridiculous abuse of the FDA loophole which allows homeopathic remedies to make virtually any claims - because homeopathic remedies are so weak, they can't possibly do any harm (let alone do much good). If your doctor decides you need such a supplement, consider it, but until then, the Master Formula provides a wide variety of nutrients that can help support the body's own natural production of HGH and other natural anti-aging hormones.

Why can't I buy the Master Formula in stores?

The Damage Control Master Formula is available only through Primal Nutrition at a consumer-direct wholesale price. We cut out the middle-man.

As you might imagine, it is extremely expensive to manufacture this product, given the 51 top nutrients, each of which, purchased separately, would cost hundreds of dollars. Supplement manufacturers usually sell through established retail channels where each step along the way someone gets a mark-up (manufacturer, packager, distributor and, finally, retailer). They don't dare produce formulas as comprehensive as this because they'd have to charge several hundred dollars to pay everyone in the mark-up chain. So they try to sell you 10 or 15 different bottles in the stores at $29.95 or $39.95 each. We've purposely chosen to avoid distribution mark-ups in regular stores in order to sell at a wholesale price directly to the consumer and pass along the substantial savings to you. By simplifying the process, you save and Primal Nutrition can put more money where it should go – into research, ingredients and testing. The price you pay is the wholesale price that a store would have to pay. But then, they'd have to mark it up to $250 or $275 to make their profit, which wouldn't appeal to the consumer (you). So we stick to direct.

The Master Formula is, among other things, an "anti-stress" formula. What's the big deal about stress?

Cortisol is secreted by the adrenals in response to stress - all forms of stress. It is, without a doubt, the body's most destructive hormone. Doctors have long associated high levels of cortisol with muscle tissue breakdown, increased fat deposition, immune suppression, decreased recovery from exercise, and reduced calcium uptake by bones.

Many scientists believe that one of our ancestors' adaptations to surviving in the wild involved the development of special chemical and hormonal pathways to deal with extremely stressful life-or-death situations (such as a wild animal chasing you, severe starvation, or aggressive infection). Cortisol, secreted by the adrenal glands, was one of those adaptations. In the classic fight-or-flight scenario, the adrenal glands, stimulated by the hypothalamus in response to the brain's recognition of a stress, secrete adrenaline and cortisol as a means of putting us into survival "turbo-overdrive". The short-term effect is to stop all growth processes and divert all available resources to the immediate survival situation. While adrenaline takes care of the first 20 seconds or so (that's the hair on the back of your neck standing up), cortisol does the work for the next few hours. Unfortunately, it does so by tearing down muscle tissue and sending key amino acids to the liver, where they can be converted to glucose to be used as fuel by other muscles and the brain. This process also decreases the uptake of calcium by bones (why build bones for tomorrow when you can use the calcium now to help transport emergency fuel across cell membranes?), and shuts down the immune system (why waste resources trying to identify a germ that might kill you in ten years when you may not live another ten minutes?).

Cortisol also encourages the body to spare what fat it has and to store even more fat. All this makes sense when you're trying to survive life on the plains of Africa - provided you don't have to dip into this emergency adrenal response too often. After all, it takes the body a while to rebuild that muscle tissue, to reengineer those bones and to rev up that immune system once the stress has gone. Unfortunately, our brains don't tell our adrenals which stresses are life threatening and which are only imagined. As a result, we modern "thinking" humans probably secrete more cortisol in a month than our ancestors secreted in a lifetime, whether its worrying about the job, the mortgage, traffic, long lines, the noisy neighbors, or the kids. Many people, myself included, now believe that excessive stress and chronically-high levels of cortisol are responsible for much of the osteoporosis, obesity (through increased fat deposition and loss of muscle), heart disease and even cancer (because our immune systems are so regularly depressed) that we see throughout the world now. A few years ago, researchers also began to notice that athletes produce unusually high amounts of cortisol after hard (stressful) workouts and that their immune systems are often severely compromised for days afterwards as a result. So now, even so-called "good" stresses can become bad if not controlled.