Independent Testing Helps Consumers Make More Informed Decisions on Health and Wellness Products

In a Nutshell: Most people know that exercise and a nutritious diet can improve their health. But consumers may struggle to find a dietary supplement that meets their needs. ConsumerLab.com evaluates supplements and foods to help consumers discover products to help them improve their health. The company also tests products to ensure they don’t contain contaminants that can harm people.

Many Americans want to live a healthy lifestyle, but their busy schedules can stand in the way of implementing healthful practices. Full-time jobs, raising children, and keeping pace with life’s daily responsibilities can combine to leave little time to devote to activities intended to promote one’s physical and mental health.

Taking dietary supplements is a convenient way to consume a variety of essential vitamins and minerals in one capsule, gummy, or beverage.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 defines a dietary supplement as “a product (other than tobacco) intended to supplement the diet that bears or contains one or more of the following ingredients: a vitamin (a), a mineral (b), an herb or other botanical (c), an amino acid (d), a dietary substance for use by man to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake (e), or a concentrate, metabolite, constituent, extract, or any combination thereof of any ingredient described in clause a, b, c, d, or e.”

With so many dietary supplements on the market, consumers may struggle to determine which ones fit their lifestyles. ConsumerLab.com (CL) tests and evaluates health and nutrition products to help consumers and healthcare professionals discover products that best suit their needs. We spoke with Tod Cooperman, MD, CL’s President, Founder, and Editor-in-Chief, to learn more about the company’s evaluative techniques and guidelines.

The supplement market exploded in popularity in the middle of the 1990s. Cooperman said journalists from leading newspapers of the time began conducting tests to determine the quality of supplements on the market. They discovered numerous problems in many of the products they tested.

Cooperman partnered with a scientist from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who had experience testing supplements and started ConsumerLab.com to help consumers understand more about supplements available on the market.

ConsumerLab.com has grown over the years. The company now has more than 100,000 subscribers who fund its independent research and testing.

The FDA does not approve dietary supplements for any purpose. Once they are on the market, the products are expected to provide 100% of the ingredients they claim, but the FDA rarely tests products and only inspects a small fraction of manufacturing sites each year.

“Our goal is to help people find the best quality supplements and healthy foods through testing,” Cooperman said. “We’ve been doing this for more than 25 years, so when we report a problem with a product we selected to be tested, we report it in our published review, but we’re not likely to test that product again in the future. Instead, we move on to other products that are popular in the market because we’re constantly trying to find the best ones.”

ConsumerLab.com has tested numerous products over the years. The company has found that, in general, one out of five products it tests has a problem pertaining to its quality. 

Consumers must exercise caution when purchasing dietary supplements on the internet. Cooperman said online retailers that sell various products may feature supplements that don’t include ingredients in the amounts their manufacturers claim on their labels.

Consumers who are loyal to brands that sell shoes, athletic equipment, or jewelry may want to avoid extending that same loyalty to companies selling dietary supplements. Cooperman said that while some companies that sell nutritional supplements are more trustworthy than others in terms of offering quality products, he doesn’t recommend relying on a single brand.

“There are definitely some brands that do a better job with certain types of supplements than other brands do,” Cooperman said. “But among large brands where we have tested a large number of their products, I don’t think there are any where we haven’t had at least one product fail our tests.”

ConsumerLab.com does not permit advertising on its website, and all its tests are independent. The company employs a membership model to allow customers to access more than 1,400 product reviews. Members also receive CL’s newsletter and can suggest products they’d like the company to test. 

ConsumerLab.com’s tests and reviews help members avoid specific products that are ineffective and entire categories of products that the CL team has determined to be unhelpful.

Many consumers have found that they get what they pay for when purchasing goods or services, but that may not be the case when it comes to dietary supplements. Cooperman said he and his team have not found that the cost of a dietary supplement or similar product relates to its quality. ConsumerLab.com’s research can save members both time and money.

“With supplements, especially simple supplements, vitamins, and minerals, you can definitely get a very good product for 10 cents a day or less,” Cooperman said. “Or you could be spending a dollar or two dollars per day to get a product that has mostly the same ingredients with a few extra bells and whistles that aren’t really needed. Something we often hear from our members is how our work saves them a lot of money and helps them avoid potential health issues.”

The rising costs of healthcare in the U.S. can put a financial strain on consumers, especially those with families to support. Consumers who rely on trial and error to evaluate dietary supplements may spend much more money and time to find a product that’s right for them than consumers who leverage CL’s guidance.

ConsumerLab.com helps consumers who know which ingredients they seek in a dietary supplement to find the best quality products at the lowest price. The company’s reviews contain product-specific ratings to help consumers assess a supplement’s efficacy. 

ConsumerLab.com conducts a chemical analysis on each of the products it tests to determine whether they include key ingredients their packaging or marketing claims they contain. The company also ensures they don’t contain harmful contaminants, such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium.

The company tests oils, including avocado and olive oils, to determine whether they are fresh. ConsumerLab.com also tests foods many dietary experts consider healthy, such as walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and herbs.

“We do a cost comparison where we figure out exactly how much of an active ingredient we can find in each product,” Cooperman said. “Then we’ll figure out how much someone would have to pay to get that same amount of active ingredient across the board from different products. And that’s where you can see that people can easily spend up to 10 times as much in many cases to get the same ingredients from a different product.”

As the Editor-in-Chief of CL, Cooperman oversees and reviews everything the company works on. Dr. Mark Anderson, a PhD in both pharmacology and toxicology, is responsible for the actual tests the company conducts. Meredith Worthington, who holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry, is CL’s Executive Editor. The employees collaborate to produce the content CL’s members seek. 

Cooperman said companies that manufacture dietary supplements aren’t subject to strict regulations, and some of the methods they use to test products are unreasonable. 

“For dietary supplements, it’s up to the companies to figure out how they want to test their products and what standards they want to hold them to,” Cooperman said. “But we employ people who are accustomed to holding products to very high scientific standards.”

ConsumerLab.com considers its members to be its eyes and ears. The company relies on its members to inform it of new supplements and health foods on the market. 

Cooperman said he learns of a new supplement that CL hasn’t previously tested or reviewed monthly, even though he’s reviewed products for more than 25 years.  In addition, he learns of a new brand producing dietary supplements nearly every week.

Surveys help CL test the most popular products among its readers. ConsumerLab.com issues a comprehensive survey to its members each year to gauge which categories of supplements they are most interested in seeing the company test. The company also conducts smaller surveys throughout the year to determine specific brands members would like the company to evaluate. 

ConsumerLab.com’s Quality Certification Program allows businesses to submit their products to CL for review. ConsumerLab.com uses the same methods to test products in its Quality Certification Program that it uses to assess products outside the program. 

“If there’s a new small company that really wants to get their product evaluated to see if it passes muster with us, then they can do that,” Cooperman said. “They pay a fee for that, but they don’t get any special privileges. We still have to buy the product on the market because we would never accept a product from a company directly.”

ConsumerLab.com licenses its seal of approval to companies for products that have passed CL’s tests. Cooperman said companies can use the seal to promote a specific product.

ConsumerLab.com’s commitment to helping people find the right healthcare products for their needs drives the company’s practices.

“I’ve always been interested in helping consumers look inside the black box of healthcare where they just don’t have the information they need,” Cooperman said.