The global supplement industry is worth billions and billions of dollars. There are a lot of companies that want a bite of that pie. So, it should come as no surprise that while there are some brilliant supplement brands on the market, there are some chancer companies.
Ones that make absolutely awful supplements. We want to help you to avoid those. On this page, we’re going to give you a few tips on ensuring that you choose only reliable, safe brands of supplements.
This way, you know that if you are spending your hard-earned cash, you’re going to be getting something very useful out of it.
Stick With Known Brands
There are hundreds and hundreds of brands out there. Make sure that you stick with the well-known ones.
A lot of supplement companies don’t produce their own products. They just slap their brand on it. They are hoping to make money, and don’t really care too much about the overall quality of the product. In fact, if you buy from a generic brand, chances are that you’ll end up with exactly the same product as if you bought from another generic brand.
This is why you should go for companies that are well-known. Bigger brands. Ones that have invested a lot of cash when it comes to establishing themselves in the marketplace. Take a company like Huge Supplements, for instance. They are a newer supplement store, but one that cares about its brand name. They care about the products that their company produces, and they are always striving to protect their reputation.
Thankfully, it isn’t too tough to find out which brand names are decent. You’ll often see people talking about their products, and their website will clearly have a lot of thought put into it. You may also see them investing in paid advertising online. Basically, if a company looks like it invests in itself, then it is probably a decent company.
Check Where The Brand Manufactures Their Supplements
If you want a safe supplement (i.e. something that doesn’t have random unsafe additives in it), then pay attention to where the product is manufactured. You want a company that manufactures their products in countries with reasonably tough laws on product labeling, selling pharmaceutical products, etc. (i.e. you don’t want there to be any pharmaceutical products loaded into your supplements).
Ideally, you should only be buying supplements manufactured in places like Canada, the United States, Europe, or Australia. That’s not to say that other places do not have great supplement brands. We are sure they do.
It is just when you venture into buying from countries with looser restrictions, you’ll probably run into more issues.
Check Product Reviews
No. We don’t mean the product reviews on the brand’s website. We are talking about product reviews on third-party websites e.g. TrustPilot. There is more chance of those reviews being ‘accurate’.
When you stumble across a new brand that you may be interested in, check out some reviews for their products on third-party review websites. See whether the reviews tend to trend positive or negative.
Make sure that you read the reviews too (especially the more positive ones). It makes it easier to tell whether the reviews are fake.
Check The Ingredients
All reputable brands will list all of the ingredients in their products. They will also list the quantity of ingredients in their products. Absolutely nothing should be kept hidden. If a company claims a super-secret ingredient in their products, give them a WIDE berth. Chances are, that super-secret ingredient probably isn’t as safe as they make out.
When you go through the ingredient list, we suggest that you have a look at whether there are any studies that back up the efficacy of those ingredients, especially in the quantities included in the supplement.
You don’t have to go through every single product a brand offers here. Just check 2-3 of them, or maybe just focus on the one that you are planning on buying. But, you do need to know what you are putting into your body.
Has Third-Party Testing Been Carried Out On The Product?
In the United States, the FDA does not provide certification for supplements. The supplements cannot make certain claims (i.e. they cannot claim to cure an illness), and they can’t contain pharmaceutical products. As long as they are natural supplements with unrestricted ingredients, they can be sold in the US (and in most other countries). This doesn’t mean that the product is good.
The best brands will have third-party testing carried out on their supplements. The third-party testers are just there to demonstrate that the product is safe and has no restricted ingredients in there. We suggest that you always check the website for the third-party tester to make sure that they are legit.
Are There Independent Studies That Back Up The Supplement Claims?
This ties into what we said before – always make sure that there is scientific evidence that backs up the efficacy of a supplement. If a supplement makes a claim that its product will help with some sort of ailment, then there should be a matching piece of evidence that demonstrates this.
Now, you are rarely going to find independent studies that look at an actual supplement. Instead, you’ll find scientific studies that look at individual ingredients. You can then Google the benefits of a particular ingredient and see whether there is real, verifiable, evidence that the ingredient could have a positive impact on your body.
Most good supplement companies will tell you exactly what each ingredient does, so this part shouldn’t be too tricky.
What Is The Customer Support Like?
Reputable supplement brands believe in their products. They make themselves accessible. They always have a decent customer support team that is there to help.
If you cannot reach a company easily (i.e. no proper contact details on their site), give them a skip. Chances are that their products aren’t all that good.
Final Thoughts
Finding a safe and reliable supplement brand may seem tricky, but we promise that it isn’t. If you stick to the big brands based in countries like the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, or continents like Europe, then you should be fine.
Make sure you read legit third-party reviews too. If there are a lot of negative reviews, chances are that the company isn’t producing great products and you should avoid them.