WHY WE ARE THE BEST

It is very difficult to find quality information on the effectiveness of name brand supplements. The biggest problem is that most of the information you read about comes from some company that is trying to sell you a supplement. Another big problem is that most of the independent testing is done on a specific substance or ingredient, not the actual name brand supplement. Let’s take a look at the available sources of information and see why SupplementTests.com is the best.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Most supplement companies will use hype, exaggeration and lies to get you to buy their products. They will use professional bodybuilders who are on massive doses of anabolic steroids in their ads hoping you are stupid enough to think they got that big and ripped using their products. They will use phrases like “mind-blowing pumps”, “steroid-like gains” and “extreme anabolic” to get your attention. To make their ads look scientific, they will sometimes show a guy in a lab coat, add some graphs and refer to some mysterious scientific test. Give me a break! If these supplement companies are so confident about their products, instead of paying a professional bodybuilder to appear in their ads, why don’t they use that money to have their products tested by an independent research company or university and advertise the results? The answer is simple. They know that the test results wouldn’t come anywhere close to the exaggerations and lies in their advertising. The truth would kill their sales. Even if a supplement company wanted to be honest and use independent test results in their advertising, they wouldn’t, because the companies that use hype, exaggeration and lies are the ones that are most successful.

MAGAZINES

Health and fitness magazines are full of ads for supplements. These magazines are making millions of dollars by selling ad space to supplement companies. Do you think a writer for a health and fitness magazine is going to write an article that criticizes the effectiveness of one of their customer’s products? On the contrary, these magazines will often hype the products of their largest ad customer. Also, some articles you read in magazines are actually written by a supplement company. SupplementTests.com was rejected when trying to advertise in one fitness magazine and was told there would be a “conflict of interests”. This was before seeing any of our test results. Obviously, they know the ads in their magazines are full of hype, exaggerations and lies, but the companies placing these ads are paying them millions of dollars. Magazines will not do anything to jeopardize that relationship. Thus, any articles you read in these magazines are totally biased.

SUPPLEMENT REVIEWS

Supplement reviews are advertisements in disguise or are written by magazines. See above.

INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC TESTING ON A SINGLE SUBSTANCE

Most independent scientific testing has been performed on single substances or ingredients, not actual name brand products. Let’s take creatine monohydrate for example. There have been a number of independent studies showing creatine monohydrate’s positive effect on strength and muscle mass. However, does that mean that any brand name supplement you buy that has creatine monohydrate on the label is going to be effective? There isn’t just one creatine monohydrate processing plant that makes this stuff for all the supplement companies in the world. Thus, you are going to get variations in quality. Also, just because the label says each serving contains 5 grams of creatine monohydrate doesn’t mean there actually are 5 grams. We have already established that many supplement companies are dishonest in their advertising. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume they are dishonest about their label claims, too. Most supplement companies have gone way beyond just selling creatine monohydrate. Now there is creatine ethyl ester, creatine alpha-ketoglutarate, liquid creatine, etc. Furthermore, companies have added a huge list of ingredients to their creatine-based products which they claim increases the effectiveness. The bottom line is there needs to be research on the actual name brand product, not some generic testing on an individual substance or ingredient.

SUPPLEMENT FORUMS

There are plenty of supplement forums out there that allow anybody to post their personal comments about supplements. There are many problems with the information you find on these sites. First of all, any mentally challenged person can post comments about a supplement he or she has tried. The poster may not know the first thing about eliminating other variables while on the supplement or calculating body fat and muscle mass. Also, the poster may work for a supplement manufacturer or the supplement retailer that provides the forum. Furthermore, the information you find on these forums is unorganized and rarely gives you the hard data you are looking for. You read things like “I really got a good pump of this product” or “I gained 10 pounds on this product”. You rarely read statements that sounds like “Over a 30 day trial on this supplement, while keeping my diet and workout routines constant, I gained 5 lbs of lean body mass, lost 1.5% body fat, added ¼” on my bicep and my bench press went up from 10 reps to 15 reps using 200 lbs. In conclusion, the information you find on forums are highly unscientific, unorganized, can be biased and don’t have hard data you are looking for.

SUPPLEMENT LOGS

Supplement logs are available on a few supplement websites and allow anyone to post their bodily changes while using a supplement. These sites are one step better than a supplement forum because they request the posters to apply some scientific testing standards when doing their self tests. However, there are many problems with the information you find on these sites as well. These tests are completed by total amateurs with very little guidance. There is nobody there to watch over these tests and confirm and accuracy and integrity of the data. The data presented is unorganized and often doesn’t give you hard data you are looking fore. Also, you don’t know if the posters are truly unbiased, because they might be working for a supplement manufacturer or the supplement retailer providing the site. Thus, the information you find on these sites can be completely unreliable.

SupplementTests.com

SupplementTests.com is the only research company that specializes in testing actual name brand supplements. We are completely unbiased and independent. We do not sell supplements, and we do not accept money from any supplement company. Our testing incorporates scientific principals which include elimination or minimization of variables. The tests are set up, controlled and monitored by our own staff. Each volunteer signs a statement that he or she fits our strict qualifications, has stuck to the rules of the test and the data taken by our staff is accurate. Our mission is to determine the effectiveness of name brand supplements in order to help the supplement consumer make better purchase decisions.