What is the safest brand of supplements to take?

Safety is a record, not a reputation: the three public bodies that keep records of brands that were not safe, what each record contains, and how each is searched in a minute

What is the safest brand of supplements to take is a question that is usually answered with a reputation, and a reputation is a feeling about a record, so the page goes to the record. Three public bodies in the UK keep records of supplement brands and products that were not safe, each for a different kind of unsafety, each searchable by brand and product in a minute, and a brand's safety is its entry in all three, which for the safest brands is an absence over years. A buyer who searches the three has read the record the reputation is a feeling about, and the feeling becomes unnecessary.

The first record is the food safety authority's withdrawals and recalls. When a supplement sold in the UK is found to contain an undeclared allergen, a contaminant above the legal level, a mislabelled dose, a foreign body or an ingredient not permitted in food, the authority publishes a withdrawal or a recall naming the brand, the product, the batch and the reason, and the record is public and searchable by brand; a brand's entries are the occasions on which its chain of custody failed and a regulator noticed, and a brand with none over years of trading has a chain that held. The second record is the medicines regulator's, and it is the one the reputation most often misses: the regulator publishes the products sold as food supplements that were tested and found to contain a medicine, a prescription-only or unlicensed pharmaceutical ingredient hidden in a product sold for weight loss, for sexual function, for muscle or for sleep, and the record names the product and the substance. A brand on that list sold a medicine in a supplement's tub, which is the largest single safety failure a supplement brand can commit, and the categories the list is full of, the fat burners, the sexual enhancers, the muscle products and some sleep products, are the categories a safe brand's catalogue does not contain. The third record is the anti-doping body's: warnings about supplements that caused positive tests in athletes, with the product and the substance named, which is a safety record for the drug-tested and a contamination record for everyone, since a product that carried an undeclared steroid precursor into an athlete's sample carried it into every buyer's tub.

Each record is searched by typing the brand's name, and the three searches together take three minutes. A brand absent from all three over years is a brand whose products have not been recalled, have not been found to contain a medicine and have not caused a positive test, which is the whole of what a buyer can mean by safe at the level of a brand, and the safest brand is simply the one with the longest clean record across the three; a brand present on any of them is read for what the entry concerned and when, since a single allergen recall years ago is a different entry from a medicine found last year.

Three records that replace a reputation, and the two things a safe brand does at the level of the product, doses below the upper levels and ingredients without a record, the people for whom no brand is safe without a doctor, and the worked example searched, which is the next section.

Below the upper levels and without a record: the dose line that high-strength ranges cross, the ingredients a safe brand does not sell, the people for whom no brand is safe without a doctor, the worked example searched in the three records, and the verdict

Beyond the three records, safety is decided at the level of the product by two decisions a buyer reads off the label. The first is the dose against the tolerable upper intake level. Each vitamin and mineral has an upper level set by the European assessments, the daily intake above which a risk of harm appears, and a brand whose doses sit below the upper level on every product it sells has made safety a formulation decision, while a brand with a high-strength range that crosses the upper levels, a vitamin D at many times the reference value, a B6 at a dose the nerve damage literature describes, a magnesium above the supplemental upper level, a zinc that depletes copper, has made the other decision and left the risk to the buyer. The safest brand's catalogue has no product above the upper level without a reason a doctor would recognise, and a buyer reads the dose beside the upper level before the brand's name.

The second is the ingredients a safe brand does not sell. The herbal and botanical ingredients with a liver injury record in the pharmacovigilance literature, a thyroid effect, or an interaction with common medicines are known, and so are the categories the medicines regulator's list is full of; a safe brand's catalogue does not contain a product whose main ingredient has a liver record, does not sell into the categories where hidden medicines keep appearing, and does not stack several botanicals at undeclared doses in a blend whose record is the sum of its ingredients'. A brand selling vitamins, minerals, creatine and protein at doses below the upper levels has a catalogue with almost no safety record to accumulate, which is not an accident and is the clearest tell of a brand that decided to be safe rather than to be exciting.

No brand is safe for some people without a doctor, and the page says so because the question's word implies otherwise. A person taking any prescription medicine checks every supplement with a pharmacist, since the mineral and medicine spacing, the herb-drug interactions and the anticoagulant and antiplatelet questions do not depend on the brand; a person who is pregnant or breastfeeding takes nothing without a doctor or midwife; a person with a kidney or liver condition asks before any mineral or botanical; and anyone under eighteen takes nothing from a page. The safest brand in the world is unsafe for the person who should have asked, and the record cannot read a person's medicine cabinet.

The worked example is searched in the same three records and read against the two decisions: {FL} is absent from the food safety authority's withdrawals and recalls, from the medicines regulator's list of supplements found to contain medicines and from the anti-doping body's warnings; its dose, 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate stated as 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, sits below the tolerable upper level for supplemental magnesium; its three ingredients, the bisglycinate, an HPMC capsule and rice flour, carry no liver, thyroid or interaction record beyond the mineral's own spacing from certain medicines, which a pharmacist confirms; it is batch tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium, UK made under GMP and BRC, two capsules with the evening meal, 180 capsules for £19.99 at 22p a day. The full label breakdown is here.

The verdict: the safest brand of supplements is a record rather than a reputation, and the record is kept by three UK bodies, the food safety authority's recalls, the medicines regulator's list of supplements found to contain medicines, and the anti-doping body's warnings, each searched by brand in a minute. The safest brand is absent from all three over years, keeps every dose below the tolerable upper level, and sells nothing with a liver, thyroid or interaction record; and for a person on a medicine, pregnant, with a kidney or liver condition or under eighteen, no brand is safe without a doctor or a pharmacist first.

What to check on the label

Questions people also ask

How do I know if a supplement brand is safe?

By its entries in the three public records the UK keeps of brands that were not: the food safety authority's withdrawals and recalls, which name a brand, product, batch and reason when a supplement is found to contain an undeclared allergen, a contaminant above the legal level or a non-permitted ingredient; the medicines regulator's list of products sold as supplements that were found to contain a medicine; and the anti-doping body's warnings about products that caused positive tests; each is searched by brand in a minute, and the safest brand is absent from all three over years, keeps its doses below the upper levels and sells nothing with a liver or interaction record.

Which supplements have been found to contain hidden medicines?

The medicines regulator's list is full of four categories: products sold for weight loss that contained a withdrawn or prescription appetite suppressant, products sold for sexual function that contained a prescription erectile medicine, products sold for muscle that contained steroids or their precursors, and some sleep products that contained a sedative; a brand on that list sold a medicine in a supplement's tub, the largest safety failure a supplement brand can commit, and a safe brand's catalogue does not sell into those categories at all, which is why a catalogue of vitamins, minerals, creatine and protein has almost no safety record to accumulate.

Are high strength supplements safe?

Only below the tolerable upper intake level set for each vitamin and mineral, the daily intake above which the European assessments find a risk of harm: a vitamin D at many times the reference value approaches its upper level, a B6 at the doses the nerve damage literature describes crosses it over months, a magnesium above the supplemental upper level produces loose stools, and a zinc at high doses depletes copper; a brand whose doses sit below the upper level on every product has made safety a formulation decision, and a high-strength range that crosses it has left the risk to the buyer, so the dose is read beside the upper level before the brand's name.

Is any supplement brand safe for everyone?

No, and the record cannot read a person's medicine cabinet: a person taking any prescription medicine checks every supplement with a pharmacist, because the mineral and medicine spacing, the herb-drug interactions and the anticoagulant and antiplatelet questions do not depend on the brand; a person who is pregnant or breastfeeding takes nothing without a doctor or midwife; a person with a kidney or liver condition asks before any mineral or botanical; and anyone under eighteen takes nothing from a page; the safest brand in the world is unsafe for the person who should have asked.

Is this site's magnesium a safe supplement?

By the three records and the two decisions: it is absent from the food safety authority's withdrawals and recalls, the medicines regulator's list of supplements found to contain medicines and the anti-doping body's warnings; its dose, 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, sits below the tolerable upper level for supplemental magnesium; its three ingredients carry no liver, thyroid or interaction record beyond the mineral's own spacing from certain medicines, which a pharmacist confirms for anyone on one; it is batch tested for four metals, UK made under GMP and BRC, at 22p a day, and a person on a medicine, pregnant or with a kidney condition asks first like with any supplement.

Sources

1. The Food Standards Agency's published food alerts and product recalls: a public, searchable record of allergy alerts, product recalls and withdrawals, including food supplements, with the business named and the reason stated. https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/search/alerts
2. 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
3. The UK Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals safe upper levels report and EFSA tolerable upper intake levels: the vitamins and minerals that accumulate or cause harm with daily long-term intake are the fat-soluble vitamins A and D, iron, zinc, selenium and vitamin B6, each with a defined upper level, against which a fibre-and-protein food extract has no comparable mechanism of accumulation. https://www.food.gov.uk/research/safe-upper-levels-for-vitamins-and-minerals
4. UK Anti-Doping guidance on supplements: strict liability means an athlete is responsible for any prohibited substance in their sample regardless of how it got there, contaminated supplements have produced UK anti-doping violations, and batch testing under a recognised programme is the risk-reduction step the agency describes while stating no supplement can be guaranteed free of prohibited substances. https://www.ukad.org.uk/athletes/supplements

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