Read The Label And All Is Well?

Many supplement labels have little to do with what’s in the bottle. Often times you might as well be guessing what you are actually getting.

Don’t Judge A Book…

On my very first article covering Jack3d and the deaths possibly connected to it I recently had a number of comments stating that those who died using the supplement didn’t follow the instructions on the label and, the commenters implied, overdosed.

These people of course could be much better informed than I am, but then at least they never said where they got that valuable piece of information from. To my knowledge the only publicly available hint about the doses the two soldiers used is found in the New York Times, that mentioned that one of them at least used Jack3d as per instructions.

Then again following labels might not be all it is made out to be, anyway, as apparently the information on them at times only carries a fleeting resemblance to what you’ll get in the bottle they are glued to.

Supplement Labels And Reality

Already years ago we had the case of the Oregon high school football players who used a protein supplement that likely contained creatine without ever saying so on the tub. Too little liquid and strenuous activity coupled with creatine make bad companions, and accordingly a good number of the players had to be hospitalized.

Now researchers from the Harvard Medical School came up with some interesting findings when they compared the actual amount of caffeine in supplements with the amount that was (not) stated on the labels.

Of the 31 products coming with caffeine tested, only twenty felt it necessary to mention so on the label. Five had a caffeine content that either was much lower or higher than what the label said, with the difference ranging from 27% below to a whopping 113% above. Only nine products came close to the real number.

Interestingly, those supplements that listed caffeine as ingredient without giving a number had the highest levels, while the eleven that had caffeine from herbal ingredients didn’t mention caffeine at all.

Turn Off Your Smugness

If we take into account all the happy news we recently had about energy drinks, caffeine and the deaths possibly connected to the first two, it’s easy to see what implications this could have for people who are sensitive to caffeine and use the above supplements.

It is not proper style to publicly attack your readers, but toward the commenter who called the dead soldiers “mindless sheep” and “meatheads” because they supposedly didn’t follow labels, I have trouble keeping professional distance. You, buddy, are deluding yourself.

Picture courtesy of “Noodles and Beef“.