The Supplement Industry is the Wild Wild West

Actually, I honestly think I’d rather be out in the wild wild west than navigate the supplement industry sometimes.

There’s so much confusion surrounding supplements. Articles and websites will make wild claims in regards to some compounds or supplements, and even if the specific compound within the supplement is good for what it says it is, what brand do you buy?

Since the supplement industry is largely unregulated, many brands are either tainted with toxic heavy metals or similar, or don’t even contain whats on the label.

A recent report looked at several “memory” supplements, and many of them contained none of the active ingredients on the label.

This simple 3-step process ensures quality supplements.

• Step 1 is to make sure the compound does what it says.
• Step 2 is to vet certain quality brands of the supplement.
• Step 3 is to find a good place to purchase.

Read on.

Step 1: Validate the Compound within The Supplement

What I mean by this exactly is that alot of times, the compound within the supplement doesn’t actually have very much evidence to support what the front of the bottle or an internet article says it does.

For example “Raspberry Ketones help Fat Loss!” Well, if you actually scrutinize the scientific evidence for this…There’s not much there.

I personally use 2 different resources for this. Examine and Natural Medicines.

Examine is my preferred source, as its a free resource, and contains all the information you’d ever need to check and see if a supplement is efficacious, so you may not even need to visit Natural Medicines. Natural Medicines is a lowcost, monthly subscription service.

To effectively use Examine, here are a few steps:

• Navigate to Examine.com
• This pulls up the search box on the front page – search for a specific supplement. Ex. “Curcumin”
• Click on the supplement page
• On the supplement page, it has miscellaneous information to begin, then “How to Take” which details dosing according to scientific studies.
• What I really pay attention to is the Human Effect Matrix near the lower portion of the page, which looks like this:

It details a certain use (outcome), how efficacious it is (magnitude of effect), the consistency according to scientific studies, and notes.

This is the perfect way to see if the compound in question actually has scientific evidence to back it’s claims.

Step 2: Check Purity and Quality of Brands

Once you see that the supplement that you’re looking for actually works for the use you want it for, the next step is to find a brand that is actually good quality. This requires looking for third-party lab testing of supplements, and the main resource I use for this is www.labdoor.com.

To use labdoor effectively:

• Navigate to labdoor.com
• Look for “Rankings” in the top menu
• Choose the supplement genre you’d like to check
• Navigate to the “quality” tab if it doesn’t put you there on default.
• Choose one of the A rated supplement brands

It details a certain use (outcome), how efficacious it is (magnitude of effect), the consistency according to scientific studies, and notes.

This is the perfect way to see if the compound in question actually has scientific evidence to back it’s claims.

Step 3: Find a Good Vendor

Here is a list of vendors and some perks that come with each.

Note: I am not affiliated with any of these companies, so I do not get any sort of commission. These are just the companies I tend to use.

Amazon

• If a prime member, free and fast shipping is a great perk. No rewards programs, however. There are also a ton of non-reputable brands floating around Amazon; even those with a large amount of good reviews. Paying for Amazon reviews is definitely a thing.

Vitacost

• Good email subscribe promotion (20% off) and rewards programs. Free shipping.

iHerb

• One-dollar shipping, rewards program, and always running a promo.

VitaminShoppe

• Commonly runs promos, has local stores as well, good rewards
  program.

And that’s that. You’ve determined the supplement works, determined a quality brand, and found a place to purchase! You can now rest easy knowing that your hard earned dollars were spent wisely.

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