How to read a supplement label
A supplement label is designed to look reassuring and reveal as little as possible. Before you sign up for a monthly delivery, it pays to read it properly. Run through this checklist with the bottle, or the product page, in front of you, and most marketing gloss falls away.
Run down this checklist
- Serving size first. Check how many capsules count as one serving. A bottle of 60 sounds generous until you see the dose is three a day, which makes it a 20-day supply.
- The actual amount per nutrient. Look for the milligram or microgram figure next to each ingredient, and the percent daily value. A long ingredient list with tiny doses is worth less than a short one at meaningful amounts.
- The form of each nutrient. Forms matter for absorption. Magnesium citrate or glycinate behaves differently from cheap oxide; methylated B12 differs from cyanocobalamin. A label that names the form is being more honest than one that just says "magnesium".
- Proprietary blends. Treat "proprietary blend" with caution. It lets a brand list a group of ingredients without saying how much of each is inside, which can hide a pinch of the expensive stuff behind a wall of filler.
- The other ingredients line. Scan the fillers, binders and coatings listed below the actives. A few are normal; a long list of additives and artificial colours is a flag if you are sensitive.
- A third-party mark. Look for independent testing seals such as USP, NSF or Informed Sport. They do not prove the supplement works, but they do show the contents match the label and were screened for contaminants.
The quick version
Read the serving size, check the doses are real, prefer named nutrient forms, be wary of proprietary blends, and value an independent test seal. Do that and you can tell a thoughtful product from a pretty bottle in about a minute. If you would rather start from brands that already label clearly, our comparison notes which ones do.