Since its founding in 1984, Thorne has remained committed to providing cutting-edge clinical education for health-care professionals. 

This has taken many different forms that have evolved over the years as we balance our commitment to practitioners and consumers alike.

As time has gone by, we have moved from a practitioner-only company to one that also has a large general consumer customer base. In so doing, we have broadened our educational offerings to include consumer-friendly materials, too. 

Throughout my time at Thorne, no matter where we have been, we seem to always come back to our “North Star” values of quality, clinical validation, and education.

My journey to Thorne: From naturopathic practice to medical affairs

From Thorne’s founding, naturopathic doctors (NDs) have been at the heart of Thorne’s medical affairs department. And some of our first and longest-standing customers are NDs. 

In fact, naturopathic medicine is how I first discovered Thorne. I am an ND and first encountered Thorne products while practicing naturopathic medicine in San Diego.

As a practitioner who loves to teach, I especially loved Thorne’s science-backed information sheets, which I used as handouts when I taught nutrition at the local acupuncture college. That was the reputation Thorne had – research-backed products and heavily referenced information. 

I never imagined at the time I would one day work for Thorne – I thought I would stay in practice forever. That changed when I was serving on the board of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. A fellow board member, who worked for Thorne, walked into a board meeting in Seattle one day with the hot-off-the-press, first-ever edition of the Alternative Medicine Review, a peer-reviewed journal produced by Thorne.

I knew right then I wanted to be part of that project. Alternative Medicine Review would become the first peer-reviewed journal focused on alternative medicine to be indexed on MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine’s literature database. 

You might be surprised to know that a deep dive into the science was not general practice among supplement companies at the time – but it’s the cornerstone on which Thorne was built and a tradition that we proudly continue today – education first, for both practitioners and consumers.

Building an education-first approach

A year or so after seeing that first issue of Alternative Medicine Review, in 1997, I was hired by Thorne and moved to Sandpoint, Idaho – and eventually became editor-in-chief of the journal, which we published every two months.

Originally, the Alternative Medicine Review was one of our primary educational pieces at Thorne. Although we did not advertise or mention products by name, it was not unusual to find a review article that discussed ingredients in a new product Thorne just happened to be launching. And although we published articles written by medical practitioners and scientists around the world, these educational pieces showcasing the science behind new products were typically written by one of the NDs on our medical affairs team. 

At the time, Thorne had about 50 employees. It was a place where everybody knew your name. Four NDs, including myself, made up the medical team, and we pretty much did everything – product development, content creation, marketing, medical education – while also publishing a journal.  

Thorne had only one sales rep at the time, and early on we had a lot of in-person, face-to-face contact with our professional customers. We attended half a dozen or more professional conferences each month, raising awareness of our products, and most importantly the brand. I recall being on the road at least once every two or three weeks. We also put on local seminars for NDs and other practitioners in cities like Seattle and Los Angeles, and even internationally, in New Zealand and Australia.

Although we no longer produce the journal, our dedication to education lives on, and we provide well-referenced, science-backed information on products and their ingredients – particularly as we launch new ones.

Advancing from practitioner-led to consumer-centric education

Our core business is still fueled by health-care practitioners and their patients/clients. As a member of our medical affairs team, we are constantly thinking of ways to speak to several groups of key stakeholders: practitioners, consumers, influencers, partners, among others. We are tasked as a group to often translate very complex scientific language into more digestible content for the average consumer.

Talking about structure and function can tend to get a little technical – not such a bad thing if you’re writing for a science-savvy professional – but can be a conundrum if you’re trying to be consumer friendly. 

It's a challenge to straddle the two worlds. To stay compliant with FDA regulatory guidelines, the types of claims that can be made about what benefits a supplement can provide have to be what are called “structure/function” claims. We are allowed to say what the ingredient or product can do in your body – but not what condition the ingredient or product can benefit.

When Thorne started selling direct to consumers, we pivoted our strength in education for health-care professionals to fit consumer expectations. That’s one of the reasons we created Take 5 Daily.

Our Take 5 Daily blog is our biggest consumer-facing platform, delivering articles and podcast episodes from our team of doctors and other medical and scientific educators. Articles range from how specific ingredients and nutrients work in the body, to trending health topics, to behind-the-scenes looks at how Thorne formulates and manufactures its own supplements. Many times, article ideas are inspired by frequently asked questions – all designed to help both health professionals and wellness enthusiasts navigate the noise surrounding practical approaches to good health.

Around the same time Take 5 Daily was created, we began a relationship with Mayo Clinic for research and content collaboration. Since the beginning of our relationship with Mayo Clinic, I have collaborated with their doctors on wellness content for Take 5 Daily. Mayo Clinic authors provide five articles each quarter, and I work with them to ensure alignment with Thorne’s philosophy and marketing goals.  

In addition to long-form articles, we also help busy practitioners and savvy consumers stay up to date on the latest research with our Research Extracts – quick summaries of some of the latest published research on nutrients, botanicals, or lifestyle approaches to health. Once a month, we publish a curated collection of consumer-friendly “extracts” on Take 5 Daily. We also have a monthly practitioner-only version that is emailed to our professional customers.

Outside of Take 5 Daily, we provide product information in several other formats for consumers or for practitioners to use for patient education, including Wellness Guides that provide diet, lifestyle, and supplement recommendations for a range of issues including weight management, allergy/detox, fertility, and others.  

While written materials have always been a mainstay of our practitioner education, we also provide webinars for our professional customers.

Over my 28 years at Thorne, I’ve observed an incredible amount of growth and change, but one thing above all else has remained consistent: Thorne’s commitment to quality and education. In my opinion, when working at a health and wellness focused company, education isn’t just a soft requirement, it’s an obligation. When we stay focused on bringing the latest science to practitioners and consumers, it feels like the sky is the limit for Thorne’s future.