#11

I had been using Life Extension brand niacin and get about the same flush effect with Best Naturals - turning bright red and the rest of it. As to potential impurities, that concern is easily addressed by re-categorizing it. From now on I’ll just consider it a shady recreational drug.

#12

Thank you, it’s great to have an idea of what we use that can be worthless.
I think most of us who are in this group, are quite acutely aware of the real importance of good quality, great reminder to have. It’s easy to sometimes be tempted by price offering.

1 Like
#13

Of the widely available, well known companies Thorne is right at the top and Life Extension is also well regarded. Carlson Labs and Nordic Naturals are well regarded for fish oils/omega3. Renue by Science(specialize in liposomal encapsulation) and ProHealth are good for NMN. If you don’t mind buying from the big multinational corporations, NOW and Pure Encapsulations are reputable. Double wood, Jarrow and Sports Research are considered good. AOR (from Canada), Nutricost, Swanson and Viva Naturals (for fish oils) are all reliable. I would always look for a certificate of third party testing. I think that supplements sold by Costco are generally reliable but I’m not sure.

5 Likes
#14

I agree with the recommendations of most brands mentioned above. When I’m uncertain, I like to see if a brand has made the effort to obtain NSF certification (Certified Products and Systems | NSF). Alternatively, I will check for any other reputable third-party testing certification organizations, such as iapmo.org for water (https://www.iapmo.org/), that have searchable databases on their official sites. If a company mentions third-party certification but I am unable to independently confirm it on a certifier’s database, I consider them untrustworthy (who knows what else they may lie about?) and I will not purchase from them.

#15

I’m going to respectfully disagree with many on your list.

Bulk Supplements in particular does not test their supplements after receiving them from China. If you ask for a certificate of analysis, they will just send you a generic one from the lab they purchased from. I have received multiple supplements from them that smell like reagents in the past. I would strongly suggest avoiding them if possible and if cost is an issue, use a brand like Nutricost, which has good QC.

Doublewood has been caught previously underdosing their supplements per tests on reddit. I would steer clear of them too.

Horbaach does not provide COA’s when requested.

The suppplement brands that have a good track record, standardize extracts around bioactive compounds and provide COA’s when requested are:
Nootropics Depot
Life Extension
Pro Health
Jarrow
Nutricost
Thorne
NOW
Natures Way

7 Likes
#16

I had a bad experience with Nutricost:

Have you (@Rapa1) or anyone else been able to obtain from Nutricost a COA that speaks to the identity or purity (as opposed to whether there’s microbial or heavy metal contamination) of a product?

1 Like
#17

A couple years ago I got COA’s from them on creatine and vitamin K supplements. They did not list microbial content, but did have purity and heavy metals listed.

I haven’t requested any since.

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#18

Thank you for sharing your opinion. We all have different experiences with different vendors and sometimes a good vendor can mess up. That’s why I go to ConsumerLab for verification before I buy a supplement.

I have a subscription to ConsumerLab. They test hundreds of these supplements which is where I compiled the list from. According to ConsumerLab, BulkSupplements is just fine for many of the supplements they produce. Although to be fair there were 3 supplements of theirs that did not pass their tests.

For many of the supplements I buy, ConsumerLab rates BulkSupplements as a Top Pick (like for amino acids such as taurine.). I put together the list above after examining the reports on many different supplements and seeing which companies consistently passed with high marks.

Not everyone wants to pay for a subscription to ConsumerLab, so I pass on the information I glean from there to you here as a service to the community. ConsumerLab is the most trusted independent testing company I know, so I trust their results.

If there’s a specific supplement you’d like me to find the testing results for, just post it here and I’ll look it up on ConsumerLab.

12 Likes
#19

When I buy Creatine I go for the Creapure brand. It is a creatine monohydrate produced by Alzchem Trostberg GmbH in Germany. It is marketed and sold by quite a few companies. I don’t know about bulksupplements, but I know that Bulk.com buys Creapure from Germany and sell it worldwide.

What is Creapure®? | Creapure

1 Like
#20

Very generous of you to share this info. Thank You.

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#21

My current favorite brand for the base supplements has switched from Thorne to Momentous. Most (All the ones I take at least) of their supplements are audited/certified (which is not the case for Thorne) and they have one or both of the “NSF certified sport” and “Informed Sport Certified” certifications. Compared to Thorne some supplements are cheaper and some more expensive. The ones I take are a little bit cheaper.

2 Likes
#22

Bulk supplements struggling with QC again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Supplements/comments/1b2rd55/weird_brown_object_found_in_my_bulk_supplements/

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#23

How do we know they are not making it up? Supplement companies play dirty with each other all the time.

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#24

I did a search for Urolithin A after reading about it here on Rapamycin.news

I found a product from Saglikli that looked like a good price ($63) for 240 capsules.

But, every review reads like a marketing promo written by the same person with different account names. The accounts all had posted only one or two reviews and all for the three supplement products that Saglikly sells on Amazon. If you google Saglikli the have no web presence, no address, no phone, etc.

I reported them to Amazon early last week and the agent said they would report their findings to me in a few days. Haven’t heard back and product is still on their site.

2 Likes
#25

“Sağlıklı” means “healthy” in Turkish. Probably a Turkish company then? I would avoid…

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#26

Occam’s Razor might need to be used here.

1 Like
#27

FWIW: The supplement field is ripe with fraud. It seems like we need to check the source of every single one of the supplements we take.

“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 the identification of Astaxanthin”

“14 out of 22 samples failed potency testing and 13 out of the 14 failures contained less than 1 mg of astaxanthin. Each of the 24 mg products failed very badly and the only gummy tested contained less than 1% of astaxanthin”

  • contained less than 1% of astaxanthin.

NOW Testing Astaxanthin Products August 2023

:warning:︎ = Brands that had less than 1 mg HPLC Results.

:warning:︎:warning:︎ = Brands that have less than 1 mg HPLC and Failed Alkemist ID only Results.

Astaxanthin Brand Tested 2023 Size Lot # Label Potency NOW HPLC Results Alkemist ID only Results
:warning:︎ Amazing Nutrition (NJ) 120 Sgels AV-0122199 12 mg 0.6 mg Pass
:warning:︎ aSquared (mislabeled 5%) 120 Sgels 221012 10 mg 0.6 mg Pass
:warning:︎:warning:︎ Best Naturals (NJ) 60 Sgels 052231 12 mg 0.4 mg Fail
Bulk Supplements 180 Sgels SG3304011 12 mg 13 mg Pass
:warning:︎ Cheeky Nutrition (UK) 180 Sgels 28829 12 mg 0.8 mg Pass
:warning:︎ Clear Formulas (FL) 180 Sgels 220310 10 mg 0.7 mg Pass
Deal Supplement (CA) 90 Sgels A302NB1 12 mg 11 mg Pass
Doublewood ¶ 60 Sgels 2301009 12 mg 14 mg Pass
Health Thru Nutrition (NY) 120 Sgels 1151 2230 12 mg 15 mg Pass
Horbaach (NV) 120 Sgels 109331 12 mg 13 mg Pass
:warning:︎:warning:︎ Lilicare (+ 500mg Resveratrol) 60 Gummi 731078 24 mg 0 mg Fail
Micro Ingredients (CA) 90 Sgels M04A0323 12 mg 15 mg Pass
:warning:︎ NatuVitz (mislabeled 5%) (FL) 120 Sgels 220406 10 mg 0.6 mg Pass
NatureBell (CA) 120 Sgels A301NB2 12 mg 11 mg Pass
:warning:︎ Neviss + Ashwagandha (CA) 2/75 Sgels 220620 24 mg 0.3 mg Pass
:warning:︎:warning:︎ Nootamin (+ Ashwagandha) 60 Vcaps MI/ASTC/0223 15 mg 0 mg Fail
:warning:︎:warning:︎ Nootrilabs (+ Formula) (FL) 90 Vcaps MI/APGC/0423 15 mg 0 mg Fail
NOW 60 Vgels 3289649 12 mg 13 mg Pass
:warning:︎:warning:︎ Osasuna Liposomal (KY) 60 Sgels UDT-089-8927 24 mg 0 mg Fail
:warning:︎ Research Labs (UT) 120 Sgels 220820 12 mg 4 mg Pass
:warning:︎:warning:︎ TerraVita (DE) (mislabeled) 100 Caps 78-D86F2DE7 450 mg 0.1 mg Fail
:warning:︎ We Like Vits (mislabeled 10%) 180 Sgels 41199A 10 mg 0.3 mg Pass
5 Likes
#28

If people would just follow good advice and buy from reputable companies that test every batch with 3rd party lab testing and then post the Certificate of Analysis (CoA) on their website, then quality and purity shouldn’t be a concern - and especially safe if you buy directly from the company’s website. As with many things, it’s caveat emptor so you should follow good practices. Aside from Bulk Supplements, Doublewood, Horbach and NOW, the names on that list are ones that I’ve never heard of.

3 Likes
#29

Are some companies that post coas still fake? It isn’t that hard to get one…

https://www.nowfoods.com/healthy-living/articles/nows-testing-results-berberine-products-december-2023

Does anyone know anything about alliwise?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/s/OhEElSD69q

#30

@DeStrider: did they review Pure Encapsulations and Solgar?

1 Like