025 David Block - Optimal Health & Wellness: How to Become a Smarter Consumer in the Nutritional Supplement Space

Episode Summary

David Block is the Founder and CEO of Previnex, a nutritional supplement company that is committed to using science, clinically-tested ingredients and going above and beyond the testing and production standards required in the industry. Today, Whitney and David talk about the nutritional supplement industry, what ingredients to look for and to avoid when purchasing vitamins and supplements, and where you can get the highest quality products. David speaks to the distribution channel in the vitamin supplement space, his passion for optimal health and wellness, and what inspired him to launch Previnex.

Episode Sponsor

Runner Click Pro – https://pro.runnerclick.com/

Key Takeaways

01:02 – Whitney Heins introduces today’s guest, David Block, who speaks to his background in endurance athletics and how he became an expert in all things nutritional supplements

13:02 – The Previnex origin story

17:09 – Why there are loose regulations in the supplements industry

25:16 – Best practices on what ingredients to look for when shopping for nutritional supplements

32:26 – Finding other high-quality products (outside of Prenivex)

40:28 – Should you buy supplements through Amazon?

43:48 – David provides his thoughts on gummy vitamins

47:31 – Whitney thanks David for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can learn more about Previnex

Tweetable Quotes

“I just became an expert in all things nutritional supplements. And I was just bothered by a lot of what I saw which got me kinda crazy enough to start a company in the space.” (09:55) (David)

“When you dive deep into the industry, unfortunately, you realize pretty quickly that it’s a very predatory industry. Unless a consumer has a background in nutritional science, they honestly have a zero percent chance of understanding what ingredients can benefit them, or what products can benefit them, because it’s super nuanced.” (11:31) (David)

“The vision was never, ‘Let’s be everything to everyone.’ The vision was more, ‘Let’s go into categories where we know we can make the best joint supplement, or immune supplement, or whatever it is, and have the clinical data to back it up.’” (16:04) (David)

“If they get to X million dollars in sales, they’ll just pay that two, three, four million dollar fine. And that’s just a business decision. I could tell you so many stories, which I’m a little hesitant to do because I don’t want to rip other companies, but this is actually like a business strategy in the industry. They go back to the predatory line of company profits and revenue matter more than consumer health, which is nuts. You can build a nice business by serving your customers really well with products of excellence.” (18:33) (David)

“Vitamin C is a good tell for me. Ascorbic acid is like the lower quality, least expensive form of Vitamin C. It can be harsher on your stomach. So mineral ascorbates have always been my preferred form of Vitamin C. It’s five to six times more expensive per kilo at the raw material level, but it’s less harsh on the stomach. The data shows your cells readily intake mineral ascorbates and get more out of it than just ascorbic acid.” (29:20) (David)

“I’ll also look at the ‘other ingredients’ for protein or meal replacement powders, because that’s where a lot gets hidden. I don’t want to see any gums because you can do it without gums. I don’t want to see any sugar alcohols because those spike a glycemic response in insulin production, which you do not want over time. I don’t want to see artificial anything. I don’t want to see artificial sweeteners. It’s just a tell-tale sign that a company is not doing it well. And so gums, sugar alcohols, preservatives, artificial anything would be things where I would say to avoid those products.” (31:46) (David)

“Children’s gummies drive me nuts, because I think they just have too much sugar or they don’t have enough [vitamin minerals] because it would taste so bad that they wouldn’t be able to sell it.” (46:57) (David)