Thorne's 40th Birthday! Innovation Since 1984

Dr. Robert Rountree:

This is The Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet, supplements, and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Roundtree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne, and Functional Medicine Doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

--

Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Thorne Podcast. This is something of a special episode for us. Thorne is celebrating 40 years in operation this month. That's 40 years of putting science over sales to bring its customers the most trusted nutritional supplements in the world. And to celebrate this milestone this week, instead of talking about a specific health concern, we're going to pull back the curtain to talk a bit about Thorne's history and give you the inside scoop of how it evolved over the years. Joining me this week to help with this discussion is Dr. Kathi Head, a naturopathic doctor and the executive director of medical media at Thorne. And I should also add, a longtime friend. Kathi has worn many different hats at Thorne over the years, and I can't think of anyone better to help us explore this topic. How are you doing today, Kathi?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, hi, Bob. Good to talk to you again, haven't talked to you in a while. And glad to be here. I first became aware of Thorne, I guess you'd have to travel back in time to the late ’80s, early ’90s. When I was in naturopathic school, Thorne wasn't really a thing yet. But I started hearing about it, and I was attracted to it because Thorne had interesting ingredients in products, like some unusual flavonoids and things like that that I couldn't get anywhere else for my patients. At that time, I was practicing naturopathic medicine in San Diego. I was a teacher at the acupuncture school down there, and I used to use the literature that they put out because it was all really science-based and the handouts looked official and that sort of thing. At the time, I was on the board of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and so was the original editor-in-chief of Alternative Medicine Review, which was the journal that Thorne published starting in 1996. It was a peer-reviewed Medline index journal.

He walked in one day to a board meeting we were having in Seattle and plopped some of those journals down on the table, and I was just in love immediately. Eventually in 1997, I moved from San Diego to Sandpoint, Idaho, to work at Thorne. And a couple years after that, I became the editor-in-chief of that journal.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And I would say some of your articles, they're still in my library, and I still reference them today. And then that's 25 years later.

Dr. Kathi Head:

I know. Sometimes I wish we could go back and update a lot of that stuff or start doing something similar to that. Again, it was a lot of work, so I'm not saying we should do exactly that again, but-

Dr. Robert Rountree:

But it was fun.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah, it was fun. And we had the print-out version, so it was like these really pretty covers that matched the Thorne labels.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And again, other supplement companies, they weren't doing that right.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Right. And we gave it away free to all of our customers. At that time all of our customers were practitioners, because that was our niche. We hadn't branched out into selling to consumers yet.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Can you say a few things about the founder of Thorne? What was his intention in starting the company?

Dr. Kathi Head:

So Al and Kelly Czap started the company in 1984. They had been working for another supplement company – I believe Al had, anyway. Kelly's father was a naturopath and MD and, I think, a chiropractor, too, in Canada. So she had been working with him a lot. I don't know if she was also working with a supplement company or not. But Al, his background was in biochemistry. And he saw things being done in the supplement industry that he didn't particularly care for, things that he thought were potentially interfering with absorption, things that were potentially allergenic, and he thought he could do a better job. So he started the company. He called it Thorne Research. Thorne was intended to be a “thorn” in the side of the industry, so that's how it got its name, although they added the E on the end of Thorne. So that was it. And their first product was vitamin C, I believe. Yeah. It was just the pure ascorbic acid, which was… They launched in 1984. They originally were in Seattle. They launched the product in June, and they broke even in November of that year.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And the reason it was the “thorn” in the side of the industry is because there were a lot of things going on behind the scenes that people didn't know about, that Al felt like he should actually make public.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Right. One of the biggest thorns, I guess in his side was the use of magnesium stearate or other fatty acids, long-chain fatty acids similar to that. They're used to make the product run better. You can run product through the machines about three times faster than without it. So it's a flowing agent. You can tell oftentimes if a product doesn't have it in, it's hard to separate, pull the capsules apart. It's much easier to pull capsules apart if it's got something like that in it. So those fatty acids can delay the absorption. So you could use something like that if you were trying to delay the absorption.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

The magnesium stearate is soap, isn't it? An ingredient in soap? It's not so much that it's toxic as that it might interfere with absorption.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Right. There isn't anything toxic about it specifically.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

What I remember from those days, because I was a fairly early user of Thorne products.

Dr. Kathi Head:

I remember you came to visit.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Yeah, I actually came to Sandpoint to look around the factory and –

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah, I got introduced to you as Al was showing you around, I think.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Those were the days. So I got interested in it because I had not realized until Al Czap pointed this out, but the companies could use fillers in their products without putting it on the label, like lactose.

Dr. Kathi Head:

If you don't put the material in yourself, it doesn't have to be on the label. For instance, if you get vitamin D from a raw material provider and it has lactose in it, which a lot of vitamin D, at least at that time, did. You don't have to put lactose on the label, which is unfortunate because there are people who have problems with lactose.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Yeah. And Al's whole intent was to point out that people were taking supplements that they shouldn't react to and saying, "I have a problem with this. I took vitamin D from what seemed to be a reputable company, and it ripped my gut." And Al said, "Oh, there's a reason for that."

Dr. Kathi Head:

Another thing that is often diluted with lactose are digestive enzymes, like pancreatin. So people are taking that because they're having digestive issues. So you sure don't want a hidden allergen that can cause digestive issues like lactose to be in the product.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And this still goes on today, right? There's still...

Dr. Kathi Head:

Oh, yeah.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Oh yeah. So again, as you said, if the company puts it in, they have to put it on the label, but they can get around that by just buying from somebody else. And so would you say, if you look at all the vitamin D products on the market, would you say there's a significant percentage that don't declare these kinds of things on the label, whether it's lactose or something else?

Dr. Kathi Head:

It's hard to tell because they don't put it on the label. What I do notice a lot is companies are still using stearates, magnesium stearate and that sort of thing a lot. Or tablets. When Thorne started, most of the dietary supplements were tablets. Their whole tagline was “Thorne Research: Specialists in pure encapsulation.”

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And what's the advantage of using capsules over tablets?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, tablets require a lot of other ingredients to compress them, and typically they do anyway. And they often have a lacquer finish on the outside. They just don't dissolve as well in the stomach. You'd be more likely to wind up with a tablet as the end result of your daily digestive efforts than you would a capsule. The capsules start basically, you've noticed maybe if you accidentally got a capsule wet when you were starting to take it's already starting to get gooey and fall apart in your hands. So the capsules are better absorbed.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

So sometimes you might see a capsule that basically passes through the GI tract unchanged?

Dr. Kathi Head:

You would probably see it, more likely to see a tablet-

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Oh, did I say capsule?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Than a capsule that way.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Oh gosh, yeah. So that was a total slip on my part, but I meant, yeah. I've never had anybody complain that they saw a capsule in the toilet. But I have definitely heard people say that they saw tablets in the toilet. But it's true. These things can pass through completely unchanged, because if somebody has poor digestion, then they're just not breaking apart. Which brings me to the point of, are Thorne supplements only for sensitive people, or have we found out anything over the years that maybe they're more canaries out there, more sensitive people than we realized? Can you speak to that? Because initially Al was saying, "Hey, these are products for people that just can't tolerate, not just lactose, but other things. So these are super pure."

Dr. Kathi Head:

The most sensitive people, yes. That was sort of Thorne's niche initially. No, I mean, anybody's going to benefit from getting the most out of their supplement. If more of it's absorbed, it's obviously going to be helpful for anybody, whether they have allergies. I think that the “most sensitive” part, had to do with the fact that there weren't hidden allergens in the products. But as far as the absorption factor, anybody can benefit from that. And Thorne has continued to look for ways to improve absorption over the years. They've partnered with a company called Indena in Italy that has worked on helping to improve absorption of particularly botanical extracts and flavonoids. Some of these things like curcumin and quercetin are very poorly absorbed. And this company has developed the phytosome technology, which is binding the botanical with a phospholipid like phosphatidylcholine. And these are important ingredients in cell membranes. So by having it attached to a friend of the cell membrane, basically, it helps to usher the material across the cell membrane for absorption. So that's been one of the highlights of Thorne's continued effort to improve bioavailability of supplements.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

So that represented a big change in Thorne's evolution, which is again, going from having relatively straightforward supplements for highly sensitive individuals to getting into that bigger issue of, well, how do we enhance availability? And the partnership with this Italian company, Indena, was a big part of that.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Right. And continues to be. We have now, gosh, I don't remember how many different phytosome.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Maybe a dozen, I don't know. Like curcumin, quercetin, berberine, milk thistle, green tea, grape seed.

Dr. Kathi Head:

And now we have CoQ10.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Oh, that's right.

Dr. Kathi Head:

And in some products, we don't have it as a standalone at the moment, but our CoQ10 that we have is a specialized crystal-free form, it's just not a phytosome.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

One thing I really appreciate about Indena is that it's research based, is that they don't just say, "Hey, we think this will work." They actually go out and study it in humans, not just in animals. They study it in humans, and then they publish it in a reputable medical journal.

Dr. Kathi Head:

I love that about Indena, because there's nothing worse than having to try to justify an ingredient that you don't really have good research for. And we typically will reject that if we're looking at an ingredient but there's no good research, we try not to go there. Yeah, Indena has been a lifesaver for me because I spend a lot of time writing up the research, either for practitioners with summaries of the research that supports ingredients in different products or more friendly bite-sized way for the consumer. But it's so nice to have studies you can hang your hat on.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

So that maybe brings me to an important question. The company used to be called Thorne Research. Why drop the name research from the name? What was the significance of that?

Dr. Kathi Head:

I don't know.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

I suspect it just was a way to reach out to the public and go, "Hey, this isn't an esoteric company that's only doing esoteric research."

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah, no, I think I was going to say that, I would guess that that was why, because it doesn't sound as consumer friendly, I guess, to have the word research on there.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Not so tech-y.

Dr. Kathi Head:

And maybe it doesn't even sound like we're a supplement company. Maybe it sounds like we're a research organization or something. Which I think it does to some people because I get emails now and then from people in different parts of the world wanting to send me their resume and saying that they want to come and do research in the lab. I just got one yesterday like that.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

But Thorne does sponsor research. I think that's an important thing to put out.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Oh, yeah. And we partner with Mayo Clinic on some research, and we've partnered with all different universities and so forth. So that's one thing that Thorne holds as an important aspect of the company.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

So again, Thorne's gone from being this research-oriented line of products for highly sensitive individuals to looking at the bigger issue of "how do we make these supplements more available to everyone,” and “how do we make supplements that are more bioavailable.” So again, it's a bigger picture. So Thorne became a big picture company.

Dr. Kathi Head:

And they've branched into some interesting home testing measures. There's an interesting Gut Health Test that has a lot of interesting research behind it that we offer, as well as some other home tests.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And when did Thorne start focusing on sports? Because that's become a huge part of the business I've noticed. Just watching it evolve. I remember whenever the start a few years back, there was a little discussion about some sports team sponsors, and then all of a sudden, it seems like Thorne is everywhere in the sports world.

Dr. Kathi Head:

It was around, I think, 2015. 2016 was when we started seeking NSF Certified for Sport® status.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And what is that?

Dr. Kathi Head:

That's an organization that certifies products as not having any kind of ingredient that might show up on a drug test for an athlete, that kind of thing. They actually test for close to 300 different ingredients now, from contaminants that could be health threatening to things that could, like steroids, and things that could interfere with a drug test.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

It's interesting because that whole notion of “no hidden ingredients,” that really is a natural extension or progression of what Thorne's always been about. So this was a natural progression for the company, wasn't it?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah. One thing we haven't talked, we've talked about it sort of tangentially, but it's the whole focus on quality. And I didn't really understand that before I came to work at Thorne. Like when you're practicing, you're just looking for the ingredients you want for your patient, and you don't really understand that much about the industry or what goes on. So it was pretty eye-opening when I first started working at Thorne and realized that there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than you know about.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

I was able to go down and meet with the International Olympic Committee a number of years ago, I think when Thorne was first being vetted by the Olympic teams. This lawyer that I talked to with WADA said, "I can walk you into a health food store and point my finger at some of the most well-known brands in the store, and I can guarantee you there's going to be hidden contaminants in there. And the last thing that an athlete who is going to be in the Olympics, the last thing they ever want to have happen is for them to go take something off the shelf and say, ‘Well, I'm going to take a little vitamin C.’ And have it contain an undisclosed ingredient that shows up in their urine and their career is ruined."

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah, it's sad but true. In fact, they're so strict, the NSF certification program that, we used to sell DHEA, which converts to testosterone, and not only were we not able to have a DHEA product certified, but we can't even make it in the building. We can't even have it in the building. We can't even bring it into the building if somebody else made it for us to be tested because at some point, we'd have to bring it into the building. So we had to stop selling that product.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Basically it's basically a hormone?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah. It converts to testosterone, which of course, you're not able to supplement with extra testosterone if you're a pro athlete.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Again, I think the Olympic committees, they really vetted Thorne for years before they became convinced that these were safe products to recommend to athletes. And so there's a number of non-governing bodies that have thrown in their lot with Thorne because they trust Thorne's products so much. That's a big deal.

Dr. Kathi Head:

And there are a lot of just individual pro athletes that have partnered with Thorne as well.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Terrific. So we'll be right back to answer some questions from our listeners, but first, we're going to take a short break.

--

At Thorne, innovation never stops. That's why we created our line of eco-friendly supplement discs. From gut-healthy prebiotics and soothing sleep support to sugar-free, fuss-free nutrients for kids, Thorne's supplement discs deliver comprehensive nutritional support, plus so much more. Ultra-slim, portable, and quick-dissolving, each Thorne supplement disc is packaged using 100-percent plastic-free materials and uses less energy to produce and ship to your door than traditional bottle supplement beverages. Just drop one disc in their reusable bottle or glass of water for easy on-the-go nutritional support wherever life might take you. It's all part of Thorne's mission to create a healthier world. Discover Thorne's complete line of supplement discs today at Thorne.com. That's T-H-O-R-N-E dot com.

--

And we're back. So now it's time to answer some questions from the community. Our first question this week comes from a listener who asks, "40 years is older than I am" – I think he or she is talking about our 40-year anniversary – "How am I just now hearing about you?" And I think “you” is Thorne. "This company's been around for 40 years, why is the word just now getting out?" So Kathi, do you have a comment on that?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Sure. Well, at first, for one thing, the company focused just on selling to practitioners. So there was really no advertising outside of going to holistically integrative medicine, alternative medicine conferences, and particularly the naturopathic community. That's where Thorne's first home was, within that community. Then just as time has gone on, I think we have become better known, especially as we've been reaching out to consumers more. I'm sure there's still a large group of people out there who have no idea, some of whom would not be interested because they don't care about supplements, but we certainly don't have the name recognition that some of the more well-known consumer brands have.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

But it's getting there. The marketing team has done a great job in the last couple of years of moving beyond that whole notion that Thorne is the best kept secret out there, that maybe people should know what's going on.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Yeah, we've had ads in Times Square on those big signs. We've had things on jumbotrons at athletic events. There's quite a bit of buzz on social media about Thorne. So I think we are getting out there.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Word's getting out. The next question asks, "Did Thorne always have a "No List," or is that something that evolved over time?" So can you talk about what this person is asking? What's the "No List," and how has that changed?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, the no list is a list of a lot of ingredients that we would never put in our products. So it can be things that can interfere with absorption, it can be artificial sweeteners, artificial colorings.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Lactose, gluten, things like that?

Dr. Kathi Head:

And allergens. Hidden allergens I should say. We do sell whey protein, which is an allergen to some people, but it's not hidden. You know what you're getting. And we have not always had an official “No List.” We've had an unofficial "No List" since day one. It's been codified for maybe the last 15 years or so.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

If you are going to buy an ingredient, you're vetting an ingredient, do you test for things on that "No List," or do you just ask them the ingredient supplier if they can meet the standard? How is that handled?

Dr. Kathi Head:

It depends. For instance, people who are putting together our flavorings and so forth have our "No List," and they know what they can't put in them. And there's some things that you can test for and other things that you can't. Like we send all our products out for gluten testing. For one thing, just even the tiniest little bit of gluten or gliadin can be problematic for somebody who has celiac disease. So that's one thing that we do send out all of our finished products for testing.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

And does sometimes there's an ingredient supplier say, "Our ingredient doesn't have this," and then you find it anyway.

Dr. Kathi Head:

I could imagine that could happen.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Has anything ever been dropped from that “No List,” or do you just add things? So the “No List” getting bigger?

Dr. Kathi Head:

The no list has gotten somewhat bigger. For instance, this last year, some research on erythritol came out, which is a sweetener that prior to that we had looked at and thought about adding it to some ingredients because there were some products, because it looked like a pretty safe sweetener. But then some research this last year found that it did have some… There were issues and I'm forgetting exactly what they were right now. So we added erythritol to our “No List.” The one thing I can think of that we've dropped from our no list, and it was conditional, was tablets. Because we did introduce one tablet several years ago in the form of beta-alanine. And the reason we decided to do it, and it did take quite a bit of thought and strategizing and making sure that none of the ingredients in our “No List” were in the product and was that it needed to have a certain time release aspect to it because beta-alanine can cause a lot of side effects, tingling, and itching and so forth.

And that particular exact formula and tablet form had been the subject of most of the research was out there. So we did make an exception for that particular tablet. We are not likely to dive headfirst into more tablets.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

But this one, as you said, had been extensively vetted and passed all the criteria of purity and absorption and all that. I got to say, I've been taking that beta-alanine, and this is attestation that I love that product. I definitely feel more energy on it. And I'm not a big tablet person. Most of my supplements are capsules, and I don't have any issues with that one. Thorne has a reputation for quality control, I would say very stringent quality control for testing and retesting and retesting. Has that been the case from day one? And what exactly are we talking about when we say there's a lot of testing or quality control? What does that mean exactly?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, basically, all the ingredients that come into Thorne are quarantined first before they can be tested. That means they're kept separate from other ingredients in case there's some contaminant in them or something like that. So the raw materials are tested. Then when they're mixed into a formula, they're tested, the finished product is tested, and then we do – and this is one thing that has been added in the last decade or so to Thorne's testing and that’s stability testing, which we were one of the first companies that I know of to really get into that in a big way, and that's testing, first, when a new product comes out, we'll do what's called accelerated stability, because you don't want to wait around for two years when you have a new product to see how stable it is to put your expiration date on. So we do accelerated, which means you're exposing it to all kinds of hardships, high heat, cold, all sorts of things, moisture. And then after that, the products go through regular stability testing. So that's something that's evolved.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

I've got to say, I went to Summerville, South Carolina, where the manufacturing facility is. I went there a few months ago just because I wanted to see it, and I was just astonished at the amount of testing equipment, the quality of the testing equipment, and I would invite anybody who has a question about that to make those arrangements and go see for yourself, because it’s mind-boggling how much of an investment, how many tens of thousands of dollars have been invested in these machines that check the ingredients and look for contaminants, and, as you said, monitor stability.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Even just things like confirming the identity of an ingredient.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Big deal.

Dr. Kathi Head:

But yeah, and that has evolved a lot, too, over the years, as you can imagine. Initially things had to be sent out a lot because we didn't have all the equipment. We had a lab, and we were able to test for some things, but not to the extent that we can now.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

I think actually Thorne could probably have a side business as an analytic lab. They have got so much equipment, they could probably do that on their own.

Dr. Kathi Head:

Probably could. Yeah, probably could.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

So that segues into the next question, which is, in your experience, what are some of the biggest challenges Thorne has faced as a company?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, because of our concern about quality, getting ingredients that pass our quality control standards can be difficult. As I said, we quarantine the ingredients, and we have to reject a lot of ingredients because they're either contaminated, they might be contaminated with heavy metals, they might have microbial contamination. They might not be, like, if it's a botanical, maybe it's not even the species that we ordered. There are lots of reasons why we wind up having to reject raw materials. And in some cases, we've had to discontinue products because we weren't able to get that particular raw material, like a botanical. Like valerian, for example, all the batches we kept getting in several years ago were contaminated with benzo[a]pyrene . And so we had to discontinue a product called Sedaplus that valerian was a key ingredient in. Often, we'll try to reformulate a product, but if we feel like the formula really, really depends on a particular ingredient, sometimes we've had to discontinue.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

I hate to say this, but I have talked to suppliers who were frustrated because Thorne wouldn't buy their ingredient because they found some contaminant. And the suppliers have told me point blank, "Well, everyone else in your industry buys it, and I don't understand why Thorne won't buy it."

Dr. Kathi Head:

[Laughs] I think that must have happened with psyllium, because I still kept seeing psyllium out there, too, and we kept getting batches that either had microbial contamination or heavy metals. We used to have clay in our –

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Yeah, the GI formula.

Dr. Kathi Head:

– in one of our fiber products, and that was really hard to get clean versions of, too. So yeah.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

All right, folks, that's all the time we have this week. Dr. Kathi Head, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If our listeners want to follow more of what you're up to now that Alternative Medicine Review is not in print. How do they follow what you're doing, what you're writing, etc.?

Dr. Kathi Head:

Well, not that I’m the sole author, by any means, of these blogs, but we do have a blog at Thorne.com called Take 5 Daily, and you can click at the top of the page, you can click on Take 5 and see not only what I've been writing, but what several of our other doctors and other writers have to say. So that's one way, probably the best way at this point. And I appreciate you having me on.

Dr. Robert Rountree:

Yeah. Well, once again, happy birthday, Thorne. And as always, to you listeners out there, thank you for tuning in and listening.

--

Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @ThorneHealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news videos and stories on Thorne's Take 5 Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.