As you probably know, the nutritional supplement industry is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

While I’m not generally a proponent of increased government regulation, as a supplier of high-quality nutraceuticals it is disturbing when I see supplement companies making product claims and statements on their product labels and Amazon listings that my experience tells me are either outright false or at the very least misleading.

What’s a Consumer to Do?

So how do YOU the consumer separate the fact from the fiction?

You examine the Supplement Facts Panel

Just the FACTS Ma’am

While a truly unscrupulous company might falsify a Supplement Facts panel, in my experience most won’t, so the Supplement Facts panel is the area of a supplement label you should look for answers regarding ingredients and their concentrations.

Let’s take a look at our revolutionary Turmeric Curcumin Fusion Supplement Facts panel together so you can learn how to better tell fact from fiction.

1. Serving Size: Make sure that you are comparing apples to apples here. Here you can see that we are recommending a serving size of 2 capsules that delivers 1,310 mg of active ingredients. This means that each capsule has 655mg of active.

2. Daily Value: The amount of each active ingredient in milligrams (mg) should be clearly spelled out. The only acceptable reason for actives not clearly being specified is if the product is truly unique and disclosing the actives would reveal a trade secret.

You should approach any product with great suspicion that claims “Proprietary Blend” and then proceeds to list a couple of ingredients common to virtually all other similar products while failing to spell out the exact concentrations. This is a tactic that unscrupulous manufacturers use in order to skimp on the expensive and more active components you think you are buying.

While technically legal, it is consciously misleading and calls into question the potency of the product and the character of the company.

Take the Supplement “Facts” shown above. At a glance this product appears to deliver a whopping 750mg of 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} Curcumin Extract. However, upon closer inspection we see that it is in fact a “Proprietary Blend” of turmeric (available in your grocery store’s spice aisle!) and 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} Curcumin Extract.

Since all the research on the positive benefits of Turmeric Curcumin shows that it is the very expensive 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} curcumin root extract that delivers the benefit, how much of the 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} root extract is actually in this product?

The answer is that the manufacturer knows but is not telling you! And why wouldn’t the manufacturer want you to know?

Because there is far less 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} Curcumin Extract than what you first thought when you saw that big 750mg number! What you are likely getting is a whole lot of cheap turmeric spice and just a pinch of 95{ea8fd99aa3a28d4615c945c15b1d7e84e77363c68a27b4964cae94780797ecad} Extract.

This, of course, is a great deal for the manufacturer because he is charging a handsome price and a poor deal for you because you are not getting what you think you are buying.

Knowledge is Power

Hopefully this blog post has helped you better understand how to read a Supplement Facts panel to that you can make a more informed decision the next time you are trying to compare supplements.