6 replies to this topic

[jzeete]

Some of us are spending good amounts of money on supplements, yet we don't truly know what brands are good and which ones to avoid.

 

According to http://well.blogs.ny...ajor-retailers/ : "The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels."

 

I believe the solution would be to crowdsource the costs of testing at an independent DNA barcoding testing lab. I am willing to contribute $100. According to what other potential contributors want, the results could be kept confidential or shared with everybody. Maybe even some costs could be recovered through a subscription website containing the results. There are other communities where it might be possible to find more contributors. I am not too knowledgeable about the testing process or its costs, but I think this is a discussion we need to have, or we'll be throwing away money indefinitely. (Note: reposted on reddit).

[pamojja]

 

..the solution would be to crowdsource the costs of testing at an independent DNA barcoding testing lab

 

The problem is that you won't find much DNA of the originally herb after an extraction process - and therefore would be a big waste of money with foreseeable results.

 

 

Do the supplements we take contain what we paid for?

 

I, for one, wouldn't want to see the DNA of genetically modified corn - from which is made from - in my pure ascorbic acid powder, .

Edited by pamojja, 25 June 2016 - 03:43 PM.

[MrSpud]

There are tons of more accurate test methods and procedures in use than DNA testing, especially when most products don't contain crude herbs that would contain DNA. Also, if you used DNA testing it wouldn't tell you anything about the quality of the product. Like if you wanted Ginkgo Leaf extract standardized to flavone glycosides and terpene lactones, you would use things like HPLC testing or other modern analytical testing rather than DNA testing. If someone used Ginkgo tree wood powder or roots it would pass the DNA test because crude plant materials contain DHA, but a well made extract from the leaves that contained the actives you were wanting would fail DNA testing because there isn't DNA in a well made extract.

[joelcairo]

Troubling, even bizarre, results from that evaluation of supplements. Even the Harvard expert quoted said he found it hard to accept the test results. Possibly it could be explained by them targeting el-cheapo supplement brands at Walgreens, Walmart and Target. The GNC supplements appear to have passed OK but contained some trace amounts of substances not mentioned on the label. A concern if you have potentially anaphylactic allergies but not for me.

Edited by joelcairo, 25 June 2016 - 07:11 PM.

[MrSpud]

Seriously though, for those interested, the USP for Dietary Supplements has dozens of specific monographs on many of the vitamins and herbal extracts that are found in the types of stores the Attorney General was targeting that can be used to truly determine the quality of the type of supplements they were targeting. Here's a link to show the USP Dietary Supplements info that is readily available.
http://www.usp.org/s...ents-compendium
There are several labs all over the country qualified to do proper validated testing. To go with an inappropriate testing protocol like DNA testing on products not likely to contain significant DNA when proper testing methods are so readily available is like trying to convict witches by drowning them. If they live they are witches and are burned, if they die they were innocent. In other words, it's just designed to be sure everything will fail and make a bunch of sensational headlines. The finding of DNA of other things not on the label isn't too surprising when you realize that there are incidental additives and processing aids that don't have to be declared in all food, drug and supplement products. Here's a link that describes why these ingredients don't get declared on labels http://www.foodsafet...y/#.V28eV5BHarU

A better targeted approach to go after truly adulterated products would be to go after the products that are known adulteration problems. Like if someone followed the testing protocols published in the Botanical Adulterants Program where groups have already done the preliminary legwork to figure out how to expose truly adulterated products. Here's a link to info on that initiative http://cms.herbalgra...erantsBulletins

The Botanical Adulterants Program is where work has been done to figure out how sleazy manufacturers figure out ways to get inferior or counterfeit ingredients to pass tests. Like using red dye #2 mixed with charcoal to make fake bilberry extract. The fake mixture passes the UV spectrophotometer test for authentic bilberry. Real bilberry extract goes for around $400-600 so people started doing stuff like this. The real bilberry extract is standardized to 25% anthocyanidins and the old test was to measure this by UV test. The program developed HPLC test methods that can tell if the old red dye #2 charcoal blend is being used and can also make sure the individual anthocyanidins present are the correct ones in actual bilberry and not anthocyanidins from other sources like peanut skins or Chinese blueberries. The anthocyanidins from those other sources don't have the same properties as the ones in real bilberry extract. This kind of approach, if used to screen products, would have been a better use of the resources than what the Attorney General did, but it wouldn't have made the dramatic sensational headlines that attacking the entire lines of products at big stores did.

Edited by MrSpud, 26 June 2016 - 12:17 AM.

[niner]

Troubling, even bizarre, results from that evaluation of supplements. Even the Harvard expert quoted said he found it hard to accept the test results. Possibly it could be explained by them targeting el-cheapo supplement brands at Walgreens, Walmart and Target. The GNC supplements appear to have passed OK but contained some trace amounts of substances not mentioned on the label. A concern if you have potentially anaphylactic allergies but not for me.

 

The part of this that's really  troubling is the use of an analytical method that was complete bullshit, guaranteed to give the wrong answer, and neither the Attorney General of NY nor the media were able (or willing) to find an analytical chemist who could have explained this to them. 

[AlephNull]

https://labdoor.com/ is a startup that is dedicated to testing supplements to see if they contain what's on the label.

They then rank them by purity and cost. The basic service is free, but they also offer a subscription that gives you much more granular access to their data.

If you supplement, especially with some of the more common stuff like fish oil, labdoor is a great resource.

As for the DNA testing done by the New York AG, it's largely garbage for the aforementioned reasons.

Edited by AlephNull, 27 June 2016 - 04:52 PM.