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Comment by lr4444lr | Hacker News Reader

This is precisely why I happily pay for an annual subscription to ConsumerLab[0]. It's largely just for supplements and a few functional foods, but with a tiny staff they are doing more work to help the public on the unregulated medicine market than the entire FDA, IMHO.

[0]https://www.consumerlab.com/

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Congress are the ones who define what the FDA does. Blame them and the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Congress could easily tell the FDA to do something different.

Blaming people for a problem only helps if you have the power to take away their ability to cause the problem. In this case, the most effective way to keep Congress from causing you health problems by giving you misinformation about supplements would seem to be to get your information from a source that Congress doesn't control, such as ConsumerLab. Hopefully it's a better source than the FDA rather than a worse one; but, if not, maybe you can switch to a better one, or start one yourself.

I also recently subscribed to ConsumerLab, and I'm glad I did. I wish they could test products more frequently as things are bound to change from batch to batch, but it's a whole lot better than nothing.

I don't take a lot of supplements, but I won't buy even one without some form of third party testing.

What does a subscription to ConsumerLab provide you? Is in in-depth product-reviews? e.g. you are curious of a supplement, you check there first?

Independent lab testing for contaminants and actual active ingredient levels vs. what's stated. They also publish summaries of studies on the active ingredients that test the effectiveness against claimed therapeutic value. (It's depressing how few studies actually show benefit over placebo.)

> It's depressing how few studies actually show benefit over placebo

Look at it another way, isn’t it good to know you probably don’t need suplements.

Also, not surprising. The odds of snake oil actually curing anything are likely to hover just above zero (while bad side effects hover much higher).

If it isn't proven with multiple, independent studies, it is snake oil.

Even then, if the effect size is tiny it's little better. Almost every time I see some supplement that's supported by good studies the effect is always minuscule.

Shout out to examine.com, they also do a great job summarizing studies on supplements.

TechGearLab[0] is a great, free resource, too. I have never been done wrong by one of their reviews and I have been using them for years.

[0] https://www.techgearlab.com/

Also, a happy customer of the consumerlab. Highly recommend the product.

Looks like something I'd love to support / become member in, but I wonder how many brands outside US the lab tests? Do they also test products available in Europe/Asia?

Subscribed. Thanks!

I don't see anything new here. How is it not just another "quality" seal that can be bought through some under-the-table deal?

You should read their methodology. For one, they are entirely subscriber supported. Secondly, they send out people to buy the product at random stores off the shelf, not solicit manufacturers to send possibly biased batches. Thirdly, manufacturers often write in to them when they receive bad reviews, urging a retest. (The back and forth of those letters gets published.)

Sure, it could all be a hoax. But we don't have too many alternatives.

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