What Supplement Labels Do Not Tell You

Walk down a supplement aisle, or scroll one online, and almost every product claims to be backed by science. Very few of them tell you which science, at what dose, or whether that dose is even in the bottle you are holding.

The proprietary blend problem

A proprietary blend lets a brand list ingredients without disclosing how much of each one is actually in the product. That means two products can share an identical ingredient list and differ enormously in whether either dose does anything at all.

Studies do not always transfer to store shelves

Research on an ingredient is often done at a specific dose, in a specific form, for a specific population. A product can legally cite that study while containing a different form or a fraction of the studied dose. The claim is technically true and practically misleading.

Third-party testing is the part nobody advertises clearly

Third-party certification, checking that what is on the label is what is in the bottle and that it is free of banned substances, is one of the few objective signals available. It is usually buried in fine print instead of front and center, because most of the industry does not have it.

What we are trying to standardize

SuppWhich exists to put ingredient, dose, form, and testing status in one consistent, comparable format across products, no brand copy, no "clinically proven" without a citation. The goal is not to tell people what to take; it is to make it possible to compare products on facts instead of packaging.

• Check for disclosed doses, not just ingredient names
• Look for third-party testing seals, not just a lab-tested claim
• Be skeptical of blends that do not list per-ingredient amounts