How to Identify Low Quality Supplements

We have been asked if there is an easy way to ID the cheap supplements referred to in the prior post regarding the Centrum brand of "drugstore vitamins". Well first the obvious, if you are in a drugstore, they are very likely cheap low quality supplements loaded (like a firearm) with toxic substances. Price of course is another obvious identifier, as the high quality supplements are more expensive to produce and therefore have a higher price tag -- hence the old adage, "you get what you pay for", but in the case of cheap vitamins it might be more correct to state that you are paying for what you do NOT get and getting malnourished and toxified... Otherwise, check the following points.

One way to identify low quality supplements is by the use of standardized “USP” vitamins. For example, “thiamine USP″ is indicative of the synthetic chemical form of vitamin B1. Another indicator of cheap vitamins is the use of "cyanocobalamin" for the B12 vitamin. These forms of the B vitamins actually sap cellular energy from your body to make them usable to any extent (you will actually feel fatigued rather than energized).

And, a way to identify high quality supplements is to look for the “coenzyme” forms of the B vitamins (listed using the word “coenzyme”). Or, the high quality form of vitamin B12 will appear as either "methylcobalamin" or "hydroxycobalamin". The "methyl" prefix on methylcobalamin stands for methylated, which is a good thing indicating high quality if noted elsewhere.