What is the best clean supplement brands?

Clean at brand level is about marketing, not excipients: the claims count, how it is run in ten minutes, and the three columns it produces

What are the best clean supplement brands in the UK is a question that uses clean at a different level from the clean supplements question, and the difference matters. At product level, clean is about the ingredient list, the lines after the active, and the clean supplements page reads it backwards. At brand level, the ingredient list is not the issue, because a brand with forty products has forty lists and a buyer reads the one they are buying; what a brand has in common across all forty is its marketing, the statements it makes about what its products do, and a clean brand is one whose marketing survives the authorised claims register. That gives the word a test, and the test is the claims count, which a buyer runs on any brand's listing, site or catalogue in about ten minutes. The method is to go through every product the brand sells and write down every health statement made about it, in the product title, the bullet points, the description, the images and the brand's own pages, since a claim is a claim wherever it is printed, and then to check each statement against the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register, where every claim a food may lawfully make about a nutrient or substance is listed with its wording and its conditions of use, and a statement either appears there in substantially the words used or it does not.

The count produces three columns. The first is the authorised claims: statements on the register, made for a nutrient the product contains at the register's qualifying amount, in wording close enough to the register's that the meaning is the same, such as magnesium contributes to normal muscle function, creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term high-intensity exercise, or vitamin D contributes to the normal function of the immune system. The second is the unauthorised health claims: statements that a nutrient or product does something for health that the register does not list, such as supports recovery, boosts testosterone, promotes lean muscle, improves sleep quality or enhances focus, each of which is a health claim that is unlawful on a food supplement whatever the evidence behind it, because the claims law permits only the authorised list, and each of which the advertising regulator has ruled against repeatedly in published decisions searchable by advertiser. The third is the medicinal claims: statements that a product treats, prevents or cures a condition, lowers blood pressure, reduces anxiety, fights infection, relieves joint pain, which move a product across the border into medicines law, where it needs a licence it does not have, and which the medicines regulator's borderline guidance exists to catch. A brand's clean score is the first column as a share of all three, and the three columns describe three different brands: a brand at a hundred per cent is clean in the only sense that can be checked; a brand with entries in the second column is unclean in a way that is unlawful rather than merely untidy, and has told a buyer that its view of the evidence is not the regulator's; and a brand with entries in the third column is unclean in a way that a regulator can act on and sometimes does.

What the count reveals that an ingredient list cannot, the three brands it sorts the shelf into, the worked example counted in the open, and the honest buy

The count reveals something an ingredient list cannot, which is how a brand thinks about its customers. A brand whose every claim is authorised has decided to sell what the evidence allows it to say, which usually means it sells vitamins, minerals and the handful of substances with claims, creatine and caffeine among them, and prices them as the commodities they are; its marketing is dull because the register is dull, and dullness at brand level is the reliable sign of cleanliness. A brand with a second column has decided that the register is a constraint to be worked around, and the phrases it uses to do so, supports, promotes, helps maintain, optimises, are the vocabulary of a claim that knows it is not on the list; the more of them a listing contains, the more the brand is selling the sentence rather than the substance, and a buyer who counts them has measured the gap between what the brand says and what it may say. A brand with a third column has decided that the border into medicines law is worth crossing for the sale, and that is the brand a buyer leaves on the shelf whatever its ingredient lists look like, because a company willing to tell a buyer that a capsule treats a condition has shown what it will say to make the sale. The count also exposes the clean brand paradox: many brands that use the word clean most loudly, in their names and their straplines, score worst on the count, because clean is itself an implied health claim when it is used to suggest the product is healthier or safer, and a brand built on the word has usually built its listings on others like it.

The worked example is counted in the open, because a method that runs only on the shelf is a sales pitch. {FL} makes four claims on its label and listing: magnesium contributes to normal nervous system function, to normal psychological function, to normal muscle function, and to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, each on the register for magnesium at the qualifying amount, which 300mg elemental at 80% NRV exceeds; it makes no claim about sleep, because none exists, no claim about recovery, stress, testosterone or performance, and no claim that it treats anything, so the count is four, zero and zero, and the clean score is a hundred per cent, which the reader is invited to verify against the listing rather than take from the paragraph. Beneath the claims, for completeness, the ingredient list is three lines, magnesium bisglycinate, an HPMC shell and rice flour, the tub is batch tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium with the certificate on request, UK made under GMP and BRC, and 180 capsules cost £19.99 at 22p a day. The best clean supplement brands in the UK are not a list this guide will print, because any list would be a fourth column of its own; they are the brands whose count comes out at a hundred per cent for the products a buyer is considering, found by ten minutes with the register open, and they are, almost without exception, the brands whose marketing is dullest, because the register permits nothing exciting and a brand that obeys it has nothing exciting to say.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

What makes a supplement brand clean?

At brand level, its marketing rather than its ingredient lists, since a brand with forty products has forty lists and one way of talking about them: a clean brand is one whose every health statement appears on the authorised claims register in substantially the words used, which a buyer checks by counting every claim on the brand's listings and site and sorting them into authorised, unauthorised health claims, which are unlawful on a food supplement, and medicinal claims, which cross into medicines law; the clean score is the authorised share, and a hundred per cent is clean in the only sense that can be checked.

How do I check if a supplement brand's claims are legal?

Open the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register and read each statement the brand makes against it: a claim is lawful if it appears on the register for a nutrient the product contains at the qualifying amount, in wording close enough to the register's that the meaning is the same; phrases such as supports recovery, boosts testosterone, promotes lean muscle, improves sleep or enhances focus are health claims not on the register and unlawful on a food supplement, and any statement that a product treats, prevents or cures a condition is a medicinal claim that the medicines regulator's borderline guidance exists to catch.

Why do clean brands often make the most claims?

Because clean, used to imply that a product is healthier or safer than another permitted formulation, is itself an implied health claim with nothing on the register behind it, and a brand built on that word has usually built its listings on others of the same kind, supports, optimises, promotes, helps maintain, which are the vocabulary of claims that know they are not on the list; the count exposes the paradox, since the brands whose marketing is dullest, selling vitamins, minerals, creatine and caffeine with the register's own wording, are the ones that score a hundred per cent.

Does a clean brand mean a good product?

Not by itself; the claims count measures how a brand talks, and a brand that obeys the register has shown that it sells what the evidence allows it to say, which is the single most informative thing about a company, but the product is still read by the five quality reads, elemental or protein dose against its threshold, form, pence per day at the labelled serving, the batch certificate for the analytes the category is exposed on, and the ingredient list read backwards for the buyer's own specification; a brand with a hundred per cent count and no batch certificate is honest and untested, and both facts matter.

Which supplement brands make only authorised claims?

Any list this guide printed would be a column of its own, so the answer is the method: ten minutes with the register open, counting every health statement on the brand's listings for the products being considered and recording the authorised share; brands that pass are, almost without exception, the ones whose marketing is dullest, because the register permits statements such as magnesium contributes to normal muscle function and nothing more exciting, and the worked example's count is offered as the shape of a pass, four authorised magnesium claims, normal nervous system, psychological and muscle function and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, and zero others.

Sources

1. Retained Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods, and the Great Britain nutrition and health claims register. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/great-britain-nutrition-and-health-claims-nhc-register
2. The retained nutrition and health claims regulation: health claims may be made only if authorised and listed, following a scientific assessment of the submitted evidence, and subject to conditions of use including minimum amounts per portion. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2006/1924/contents
3. The MHRA's borderline guidance: a product is a medicine if it is presented as treating or preventing disease or has a significant pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action, determined case by case on presentation and function. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-guide-to-what-is-a-medicinal-product
4. The Advertising Standards Authority's rulings on food supplement advertising: claims that a supplement treats, prevents or cures a condition, or health claims not on the authorised register, have been ruled against repeatedly, with the rulings published and searchable by advertiser. https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/rulings.html

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