Buy well known supplements

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I was in this industry and we used to tell people be careful what you buy. Many of the products at your mainstream stores would not have what they claimed on the label. Major brands at those stores even. Nowadays you can get better brands through Amazon, vitamin online retailers etc. But the problem still becomes you get what you pay for. Meaning a lot of the really cheap stuff isn’t what it claims to be.

A lot of us take supplements, and you really don’t want to bother taking something that doesn’t actually contain what you think.

I have to commend NOW Brand. NOW has decided to randomly test products. Sure it’s in self interest. They have to compete against the cheap stuff. But it also helps the whole industry to get rid of the non legit products because they won’t work and customers lose faith when that happens. They have been testing various companies and letting the public know. They mostly test companies sold on Amazon because a lot of these companies only sell there and that is suspect in itself.

So here’s the latest round. Astaxanthin. 13 of 22 brands tested had less than 1 mg in them when the claims were they had anywhere from 10 to 24 mg.

The article is from Nutraceuticals World

"NOW purchased two bottles of each product from 22 brands (including its own) on both Amazon.com and Walmart.com. It was obvious even before testing that many brands were mislabeling potency claims on the front label panel vs. the side panel. Two tests were performed to assess the quality of each brand: HPTLC and HPLC. HPTLC (high-performance thin-layer chromatography), was used for identification of astaxanthin as coming from Haematococcus pluvialis algae. HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography) was used to quantify the amount of astaxanthin in tested products. NOW in-house labs tested astaxanthin by both techniques.

Externally, NOW sent one unopened bottle of each brand to Alkemist Labs to provide an independent report on the same products. HPTLC was performed by both NOW’s in-house lab and Alkemist Labs, an industry-leading botanical identification contract laboratory for identification of Astaxanthin.

According to NOW, brands were selected based on a number of qualifiers, such as being prominently featured on Amazon and Walmart’s online retail platforms and nowhere else. The company also tested lesser-known brands which have previously failed other testing rounds by NOW. For instance, aSquared brand failed seven different product tests and has the worst record for potencies tested among all brands. We Like Vitamins is another brand which failed six different tests, and each of this brand’s potencies were less than 33% of label claim.

About one third of brands tested were first-timers in NOW’s testing program. These included TerraVita, a brand which made a drastic label error by claiming that its dry capsules contained 450 mg of “astaxanthin algae.” Another product from We Like Vitamins had “Max Strength 10mg” but deceptively placed “10% potency yield” on the label of the product.

“NOW does this testing to publicly report which brandsare labeling accurately,” said Dan Richard, VP of global sales and marketing at NOW. “We welcome brands to communicate with NOW about these findings and openly share this information with all customers, industry trade groups, and FDA.”

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How many of these brands come from China? And how many generics come from China?

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I stumbled upon this NOW report not too long ago after purchasing a magnesium supplement for over a year and trying to do some of my own comparisons. It’s really difficult trying to assess these supplements and then trying to find ones that don’t have all the crap additives as well. I thin China is invasive in the supplement market, you can hardly buy pumpkin seeds to eat that are not from China.

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Since supplements are not regulated,it is always a gamble.Nancy;50

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Supplements are regulated, but as food and not the same as prescription drugs or even OTC drugs. Although they do have GMP in place. You wouldn’t want them to be prescription drugs or recognized as an OTC drug and pay 10 times the cost.

But prescription drugs and OTC drugs are also counterfeited and faked. So is some food. One that was the most surprising to me was an orange juice sold at major mass chains nationwide that turned out to be chemicals, not OJ. Who would have thought OJ was cheaper to fake? There are also companies that pop up and sell those items that don’t contain everything they say is in it. Juices sold at a major mass chain that had a fraction of what it was supposed to. Prescription drugs and the even easier to sell OTC drugs are constantly barraged with counterfeit drugs. It’s just that has been happening to them for a longer time and the companies have a lot more experience at watching out for and catching them. The FDA and FTC don’t even come close to catching a fraction of the misc entities that sell things online, frankly they don’t stand much of a chance, but they don’t seem to try real hard either. They have been more interested in putting more rules in place on the companies that are legit instead of catching the ones that aren’t.

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Many of us who have our blood sugar under control work on the next biggest killer: heart conditions brought about by high cholesterol and atherosclerosis. We have all heard that a Mediterranean diet does wonders to control these issues in the European population. One of the key ingredients is the use of extra virgin olive oil high in polyphenols in the diet. What is not exposed in this country is that extra virgin olive oil in the US is not regulated, and as long as there is a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil in the bottle, the balance of the bottle can be “junk oil” totally lacking the required health benefits. In Europe, however, extra virgin olive oil is a regulated certified product. Pure certified extra virgin olive oil from Europe can be found in the US, but not easily. You can find some on Amazon if you don’t have a source or try mine which I have been using for the past few years with great success.

Checkout the products at https://www.gypsyfarms.com/

These are certified and I highly recommend them, but if others on the forum have recommendations, please let us know as it is always good to have one or more reliable backup sources.

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@Marie20,
Have you seen the personalized or custom vitamin companies that take a sample of your DNA (I think it is a spit sample or something they use) and then give you a custom vitamin supply? Supposedly it is based on what you need. Do you think that is legit?

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Just a quick tip for determining if olive oil is real…put the bottle in the fridge, if it solidifies then it’s real extra virgin olive oil.

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Olive oil from Italy, one of the most commonly “falsified” oils. More imported olive oil is sold here than Italy actually grows or makes. But at least from what I understand it’s at least still olive oil, just not Italian olive oil.

@Eric2 Sorry, I don’t know! It was a fairly new idea that hadn’t caught on when I still had my store. I don’t think much has been covered about it in my trade magazines either.

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Content matters for heart health, not country of origin; however, just because certified Extra Virgin Olive Oil is only produced in Europe does not mean that all European olive oils are certified. They need to be certified for domestic sales but not for export. Furthermore, certified Extra Virgin olive oil can legally be blended with other oils in the US and still be marketed as Extra Virgin Olive oil. Those, which are the bulk of what is sold in the US, do not contain the polyphenols required for heart health.

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I had forgotten that there was a huge uproar about it might not even be pure olive oil. You actually want to make sure it’s extra virgin and cold pressed. The USDA does have a standard of labeled US olive oil has to be pure olive oil.

But any Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil can be a problem. But the US has to catch the mislabeling, just as the Eurpoean olive oil that’s not pure olive oil has to be “caught”. Extra Virgin Cold Pressed Olive OIl is a high demand and higher cost item, so it’s unfortunately worth it for “crooks” to falsify the product. You even try to buy a company you recognize and it doesn’t mean the product they bought is pure. You have to rely on the fact they checked.

It’s one reason I buy Bragg’s Olive Oil a lot. I know the company relies heavily on the quality of the few products they produce. (It uses Greek olives btw).

A voluntary guidance is in place, so it really doesn’t mean anything. But no matter what if something is labeled olive oil, it’s supposed to be olive oil only, but back to the fact they have to be caught. They are allowed to blend but only if it’s on the label. But again, they have to be caught.
[Olive_Oil_and_Olive-Pomace_Oil_Standard1.pdf|attachment](upload://h9pDKFxUQjWnkziKzhmbk92gx6J.pdf) (147.9 KB)

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Beribine problems with purity. It’s a commonly used product in the diabetic world.

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I know it’s hard sometimes to distinguish a good brand, especially when you see names come up over and over again for example on Amazon. But it’s important to stick with companies that are respected in the industry. Major supplement companies rely on their name staying respected and they make sure that what is on the label is really what is on the label, because they want to stay around for years to come.

One possible way to distinguish is to google who owns the company. You can easily either find the age of the company, and if it’s an American company and it’s history. Several companies own numerous companies, especially now as they combine to stay competitive. Hopefully you would recognize the company that owns them. So if you google who is Solaray company, you will get a history that comes up, same with Now vitamins etc.

It takes more work, and none of us like that, but the bad eggs have to be caught to be shut down and the FDA isn’t very fast/good at it.

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Marie—I can’t remember—Are we allowed to actually name a brand or does that open us up to legal issues? I take a lot of supplements and worked out which brand for myself simply by giving each one a test-run—which is usually a 2-3 month slot and making personal notes (unless it immediately makes me ill, of course!-LOL)…I’ve missed everybody!..Judith in Portland

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@Judith_in_Portland I don’t really know. What I usually say is what companies or product I liked, or what worked well, it has always seemed the safest route.

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I have never seen a problem where a member, especially a long-time member of this forum, gives a personal review of a product they have had luck with. We are all here to help each other. It is apparent when a new member writes a glowing review on a single product right after joining the forum. Those “advertorials” get flagged and taken down immediately as soon as a complaint is lodged, which usually only takes a matter of hours.

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Mentioning a product is not necessarily taboo, good honest recommendations are welcomed.

Regular members generally do not spam. Spammers usually only join to push a product, most are first time posters that join for the sole reason to spam us.

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@Marie20,
The alpha lipoic acid brand that I used to get is no longer available. Do you have a brand recommendation for that?

Thanks!

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My use of alpha lipoid acid is definitely personal anecdotal.
If I don’t take ALA for a week I get some sort of nerve misfiring in my lower legs. This may not be diabetes related, but psooibly because I was exposed over my working life to a lot of dangerous chemicals.

Several years ago the ALA I was using disappeared from the shelves. I resorted to Amazon and have been using Nutricost 600mg alpha lipoid acid capsules. My experience is that this product has calmed my leg nerves quite well.

One thing I learned is to take ALA right before eating. It can cause an acid burning sensation, requiring an an antacid like Tums. No problems when taken with food.

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