How can one know which brand of herbal supplements is best and most credible?

I spend alot of money buying alot of herbal and nutritional supplements, but lately I’ve been wondering how one can know which supplements truly contain the ingredients that they claim in the amounts that they claim, and whether they are manufactured with quality standards, etc. Since they aren’t regulated, how can one know for sure. Are there any brands that are frequently tested by independent labs, and how does one know that the supplement company is not just paying off the lab to give it a passing score? I’m obsessing over this but don’t know how to find credible information about it. Can anyone help? Thank you.

Good question, because these products are essentially unregulated.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-savvy.html

Sometimes they are contaminated. Here’s a list of supplement warnings and recalls from the FDA:

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-warn.html

This site claims to review supplements, but you need to suscribe. The NIH has a review of the site, but doesn’t mention the accuracy of the testing.

http://www.consumerlab.com/

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=521528

Consumer Reports sometimes evaluates supplements, but I think this site also requires a subscription:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health-fitness/drug-supplement-index.htm

I’d be interested to know about other third-party testing.

Posted in Supplements |

Posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:08 am and is filed under Supplements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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2 Responses to “How can one know which brand of herbal supplements is best and most credible?”

  1. David O says:
    August 28, 2009 at 7:57 am

    I would check into the company. They have to be credible. In addition, how many people do you know taking the products who have experienced the kinds of results you are looking for? There are a lot of questions you need answer to, but maybe you need someone you can talk to about this and build a relationship and belief in a product line with real life stories and maybe visit the company as well. Keep searching the company you are looking for is out there.
    References :

  2. b's mama says:
    August 28, 2009 at 8:24 am

    For safety, quality ingredients, RESEARCHED and well absorbed, you MUST go with pharmaceutical grade vitamins/supplements. These are the only products on the market that are truly researched and can be trusted. They are not sold at ANY retail outlet, including Whole Foods, GNC, or drugstores. You’ll need to go to physicians to buy them, chiropractors are usually your best bet for these. Doesn’t mean you need to get treated by the chiropractor (although I recommend that too!) but most sell pharm-grade vitamins/herbs in their waiting room.

    2 brands that I know are wonderful:
    Xymogen
    Metagenics
    References :
    My hubby (the Dr.!)