Ran across this video and others testing health and diet supplements and to say the least there are a lot of scams out there with some not containing any of the ingredient at all.

So just be careful with what you are buying and stick to the better well known brands. If it is sold instore by a major retailer you are probably good to go but in particular Amazon be careful and ideally buy only those sold and shipped by Amazon or at least shipped by Amazon. Not saying anything that is not is bad but chances are higher. Also consider getting supplements from iHerb or Swanson and the prices are often better than Amazon and they often have good promotions.

I also recommend doing research on any supplements you may be taking or considering as there are different versions as I found out a few years ago. For instance I was buying magnesium oxide and zinc oxide because they were the cheapest but found out that magnesium glycinate and zinc bisglycinate are much more effective. I also dumped my generic Centrum Silver daily multi vitamin for Now Daily Vits as it cost just a few cents more a day and had much better dosages and more vital minerals and better versions. Beware that a daily vitamin/mineral will not have very much Magnesium, calcium, or potassium - just a few percent of RDA at best.

Another problem often is finding out how much dosage you are actually getting with a supplement as in the "elemental" dose which some of the better brands show on their packaging now. An example would be how much "elemental magnesium" rather than just "magnesium glycinate" shown.

Check the "per serving" too when making comparisons for value. For instance one may show serving is one capsule and other 2 capsules for the same amount of dosage.

Myself I use the following brands. Now, Swanson, Doctors Best, Life Extension, and Nutricost.

I came to many of the same conclusions. At times, Bulk Supplements or Pure Bulk can be good as well.

Testing results combined with ChatGPT and such can be useful to research bioavailability, absorption, and conflicts of any supplement. I started out taking magnesium oxide as well and found magnesium glycinate to work much better.

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Originally posted by bryan11:
I came to many of the same conclusions. At times, Bulk Supplements or Pure Bulk can be good as well.

Testing results combined with ChatGPT and such can be useful to research bioavailability, absorption, and conflicts of any supplement. I started out taking magnesium oxide as well and found magnesium glycinate to work much better.

In 2022 I was taking magnesium oxide and zinc oxide and thought I was good to go and the bottle on each showed I was taking over RDA. Then I got two colds in 6 weeks that knocked me on my butt. I looked into what I was taking further and found out I was taking the worst version of both and was lucky to be getting 10 percent of my RDA when actual absorption was taken into account. Since switching to glycinate I have only gotten one cold that was annoying at worst for a short time.

Also after starting strength training I did more of a deep dive into nutrition and supplements and learned of importance of particularly magnesium and vitamin D for overall health, energy level, insulin sensitivity, muscle growth, testosterone level, sleep, etc.