Why I don’t purchase my supplements on Amazon

Unsurprisingly, over the last year or so, I’ve seen an increase in the need to discuss quality supplements with my patients and clients. If you are feeling motivated to purchase vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other supplements to support health and longevity right now, you are not alone. But there is an aspect of purchasing supplements that I personally feel is highly underdressed and that is that QUALITY MATTERS.

The reason for this is twofold: first, there may not actually be much of the labeled substance in the bottle. An article (see a NY times summary here) published by the British Medical Journal in 2013 showed that the majority of herbal products contained DNA from other species not listed on the label. Additionally, many also contained contaminants or fillers (also not listed on the label). So even more important than not getting what you intend in that supplement bottle is the fact that your body has to get rid of all these extraneous substances! This means that your liver, kidneys and other organs of elimination will need to detoxify and remove all these compounds from the body. Supplements can sometimes be difficult for the body to process too, especially if the intestinal barrier is inflamed. 

When people ask me about getting supplements from amazon I reply with, well would you purchase your pharmaceutical medications from amazon? While supplements are not regulated by the FDA, virtually anyone can post supplements for sale without verification. Ensuring the product is legitimate can be difficult.  

Supplements should always be verified by third party testing and the labels should reflect this. Supplements can cause harm too. As with anything that you put into your body, it is important to be intentional and compassionate. 

A qualified integrative or holistic provider will be able to discuss various reputable brands that provide certificates of third-party testing for quality assurance, and likely have undergone clinical trials to prove some amount of efficacy. 

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References

 1.       Newmaster SG, Grguric M, Shanmughanandhan D, Ramalingam S, Ragupathy S. DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products. BMC Med. 2013;11(1):222. doi:10.1186/1741-7015-11-222