NOW\u2019s vitamin C gummy which launched earlier this year<\/a>, as well as legacy brands Mary Ruth\u2019s, Nature\u2019s Way, New Chapter, Nordic Naturals and Solgar. All passed potency testing with extra overages. <\/p>\n\u201cResults showed that 48% of the non-legacy brands\u2019 products failed potency testing, with nearly no detectable vitamin C, and an additional 16% would likely fail before their expiration date,\u201d NOW reported.<\/p>\n
Notably, the five brands that claimed 1,000 mg or more of vitamin C per gummy had the poorest potency results. Each contained less than 2 mg total vitamin C\u2014significantly less than the 1% of the amount claimed on label.<\/p>\n
In addition, all of these five brands labeled their products with what NOW described as \u201cridiculous claims of very high potencies, using liposomal forms of vitamin C and unrealistically high amounts of various synergistic ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is sad to see such dishonest marketing being used and permitted to fool consumers,\u201d Richard said.<\/p>\n
Highlighting analytical method and stability studies<\/p>\n
NOW stressed the importance of choosing the correct testing method since non-specific methods, such as spectrophotometric assays, can be influenced by other constituents in gummies including flavorings and sugars. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese methods may artificially inflate potency results, making products appear compliant when they are not,\u201d NOW stated. \u201cIn contrast, HPLC can separate and identify vitamin C from closely related compounds, providing an accurate and reliable measure of product quality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gummy matrix in particular also consistently presents stability challenges, where moisture, heat, oxidation, pH and structural changes over time can all interfere with the active ingredient securing label claim at expiration even if properly dosed at confection. <\/p>\n
NOW\u2019s own studies have shown that vitamin C levels in gummies can decline by approximately 20% a year, underscoring the need for relatively high overages at the time of manufacture.<\/p>\n
Call to action<\/p>\n
NOW says that it will continue to purchase and test products sold on major online platforms and publicly share testing results to encourage higher quality standards across the supplement industry.<\/p>\n
This includes sending results to both the Food and Drug Administration and Amazon, along with a request to remove these \u201cbad actors\u201d from the marketplace\u2014a call that, to date, has not led to action.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter over 20 rounds of testing internally and externally, neither Amazon nor FDA have taken steps to address the issues NOW has raised,\u201d Richard said, noting that some brands from its initial testing of 400mg CoQ10 dry capsules in 2017 were retested multiple times and continue to fail at under 30% potency. <\/p>\n
\u201cNOW has brought these up repeatedly to both parties, yet the failing and cheating brands continue to be widely sold on Amazon today,\u201d he added. \u201cFDA seems to turn a blind eye to the problem. We have been told that FDA will not address potency issues unless a person has a health problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is NOW\u2019s 24th round of product policing since it initiated its testing program in 2017 to evaluate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[277],"tags":[10130,273905,2583,63175,27477,33858,12773,273906,273907,3914,2591,2592,152982,23737,47337,104946,2368,18,163441,273908,518,9219,273909,273910,10952,187631,273911,57224,135,39884,19,17,273912,250349,3917,27026,72276,508,19461,28404,57228,141113,9331,273913,7990,104955,167945,2617,32913,36809,14889,2683],"class_list":["post-647468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-adult","tag-assorted","tag-background","tag-berry","tag-calories","tag-candy","tag-care","tag-chewable","tag-chewing","tag-children","tag-color","tag-colorful","tag-confectionery","tag-cute","tag-delicious","tag-dessert","tag-diet","tag-eire","tag-flavor","tag-flavored","tag-food","tag-fruit","tag-fruity","tag-gelatin","tag-green","tag-gum","tag-gummi","tag-gummy","tag-health","tag-heap","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jelly","tag-junk","tag-kids","tag-many","tag-multivitamin","tag-nutrition","tag-orange","tag-red","tag-snack","tag-soft","tag-sugar","tag-sugary","tag-supplement","tag-sweet","tag-tasty","tag-texture","tag-treat","tag-vitamin","tag-white","tag-yellow"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}