These brands join Thorne and other professional grade brands available at iHerb. The retailer serves nearly 12 million global customers across 180 countries.
“We’re seeing consumers increasingly turn to high-quality, professional-grade supplements at the recommendation of their healthcare practitioner,” said Lindsey Wiefels, senior vice president of merchandising at iHerb, in a press release. “We’re proud to meet the demands of the market with these highly respected brands.”
Professional-grade or practitioner-grade dietary supplements are a distinct channel in the supplements marketplace. The products are characterized as high-quality and typically formulated with higher dosages of active ingredients, based on clinical research and scientifically-backed ingredients. They are generally recommended by physicians, naturopaths and other healthcare practitioners.
A spokesperson explained that when healthcare practitioners typically recommends a professional-grade brand to their patients, they often direct them to the brand’s website for direct purchase. This process generally does not involve pre-approval or a formal referral beyond the initial recommendation.
“iHerb operates on a similar principle, with the added benefit of offering a wider selection of leading professional-grade brands in one convenient location,” the spokesperson said. “This makes these high-quality supplements more accessible to a global base of consumers who have already received a recommendation from their healthcare professional to incorporate specific vitamins or minerals into their daily health regimen. We essentially streamline the access to these recommended products.”
Rewards program for healthcare practitioners
Referrals from healthcare professionals using a Rewards Link or Rewards Code will unlock discounts for patients of 5% or more at checkout, according to iHerb. Practitioners themselves can earn Rewards Credit by sharing their iHerb Rewards Link via email, social media, blog post or personalized storefront page on iHerb.
“As one of the leading authorities on natural medicine, I’ve seen the benefit of professional-grade supplements among patients given the consistent quality, potency and safety of these products,” Dr. Michael Murray, chief scientific advisor for iHerb, shared in the release. “Professional brands often come with clinical studies supporting their use, which is strong evidence on the effectiveness of their natural products.”
Next-generation probiotics
The company also announced an expansion of its digestive health and probiotics portfolio with the addition of new products from Pendulum and Codeage that contain Akkermansia muciniphila, a gram-negative, anaerobic bacterium that colonizes the gut during the first year of life. The bug reportedly accounts for about 3% of the human gut microbiota.
Akkermansia is known to produce nutrients that feed intestinal cells responsible for producing the intestinal mucus layer, which helps to maintain healthy intestinal barrier function and controls gut permeability and low-grade inflammation in the gut.
Korean scientists reported in 2021 that A. muciniphila may secrete a protein that stimulates a “modest increase of circulating GLP-1 just after an oral glucose challenge.”