We have to face the facts:
The supplement industry is mired in less-than-savory tactics including overhyped marketing, exaggerated claims, cost-cutting formulation tactics, ineffective ingredient doses, third-party markups, and more.
Did I leave anything out?
I’m sure we can do some digging and add a few more if we wanted but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.
What I’d like to do is suggest that even though there are some bad eggs out there, you shouldn’t throw away the baby with the bathwater.
But at the same time, I recognize that I’m fighting an uphill battle when it comes to the reputation that supplement companies have.
For that reason, I have made transparency one of my top priorities.
The goal?
To set a new standard for supplement companies.
Here’s how I plan to do that:
Available Third-party Testing Results
If you are purchasing, or planning to purchase, any supplement you should always look to make sure that they undergo what is commonly referred to as third-party testing.
Third-party testing is exactly as it sounds, testing from a third party that is outside of the relationship between the manufacturer and the supplement provider.
Why does this matter?
Because it’s very often the case that supplement manufacturers will do whatever they can to cut costs by cutting corners (with or without the knowledge of the supplement provider).
These third-party tests keep manufacturers on their toes and provide an extra layer of safety and security for customers purchasing supplements.
Why wouldn’t a company third party test their supplements?
Either out of negligence (they don’t know any better) or as a way to save money, because this testing isn’t cheap.
I’m proud to say that every single lot that we manufacture and sell to customers is third-party tested prior to their release.
Here’s what we test for:
- Arsenic
- Cadmium
- Lead
- Mercury
- Yeast count
- Mold count
- E. coli
- Salmonella species
- Staphylococcus aureus
- Enterobacteriaceae
- Clostridium spp
Want to see the results from the supplement you are taking? You can make a request for this information and we will email you the results.
If you wish to do that please email us at hello@restartmed.com and let us know the lot # of the supplement you are taking.
We will then email you the results.
We use several different third-party lab companies to run these results and they are all ISO accredited.
ISO accreditation is a way to measure the competence and validity of lab testing results.
You can see an example of what these third-party testing results look like here.
Unaltered Product Reviews
Have you ever gone to look at the product reviews of something you are interested in purchasing only to find that they are either altogether unhelpful or clearly altered?
I have to.
This is a huge problem that major retailers like Amazon are constantly dealing with.
Businesses know that reviews are an important part of the purchasing process so they will do whatever they can to create fake reviews or make their product look better than it really is by manipulating reviews.
On a place like Amazon, there are limits to what a business can do to manipulate reviews (but, believe me, this still occurs).
But on a website, manipulation of reviews can be out of control.
What you may not realize is that businesses can hide, delete, or even change reviews once they are left.
Having been in this business for 8 years, I can usually spot a set of fake reviews right off the bat.
If you see anyone trying to sell you a supplement that has over 95% 5-star reviews, you can be sure that something is not quite right.
The reality is that even the best-formulated supplements will not have a success rate that high because each person is so unique and different!
There will always be about 10-20 percent of people who don’t react well to any given ingredient or formula despite the best efforts of the formulator.
One way that I’m fighting back against review manipulation is with the use of a third-party review aggregator.
All reviews on the products on this website are aggregated and posted by a third party known as Judge.me.
Judge.me integrates with the backend of our system and independently emails out customers after purchasing to request feedback.
They then take those reviews and post them on the product pages on our website.
We are proud to boast a 99% transparency rating that has been verified by this third-party review aggregator.
In other words, we do not hide or manipulate reviews!
Less than 1% of reviews that are left for the products are not posted due to various reasons like a request from the customer to remove it or a review that is left as a question (not a review) or something similar.
We believe that transparency builds trust and it just makes the buying process better for everyone.
When you look at a product, you get to see the amazing 5-star reviews as well as the issues that some people experience in the 1-star reviews.
At the time of this writing, we have a total of over 9,900 reviews and you can check out every single one of them here.
Trademarked Ingredients
Some of my supplements may include what are referred to as trademarked ingredients.
These are special ingredients that have often undergone additional testing beyond regular ingredients.
Here’s how it works:
Imagine a group of researchers are able to identify a special way to formulate ashwagandha such that they can achieve a higher percentage of active ingredients compared to the next best alternative.
When this sort of thing happens, the researchers will trademark their ingredient so that other people can’t just copy it.
These ingredients are unique among standard ingredients in that they have undergone additional testing for specific purposes.
The trademarked ingredient ORALVISC in my Leptin Resistance Rx is a perfect example of this.
Whenever a trademarked ingredient is used on any of my supplements you will see the name of the trademark as well as identification of what’s inside.
In the case of ORALVISC, the trademarked name is included on the supplement facts panel as well as the ingredients which, in this case, include naturally occurring glycosaminoglycans.
Sometimes, manufacturers make it difficult to find what’s in the active ingredients because they don’t want you to compare their ingredients and pricing to other products.
That’s not how we do things around here.
Our supplement facts panel will include as much information as possible so that you know exactly what you are getting whenever we use trademarked ingredients.
No Proprietary Blends
Another way that supplements manufacturers love to obscure and hide ingredients is through the use of proprietary blends.
Here’s how this little trick works and why I don’t do it:
Imagine you want to put 4 ingredients into a supplement.
Normally, what you’d do is list each ingredient and then state the dosing of each one.
So it may look like:
- Vitamin A at 1,000 mcg
- Vitamin C at 125 mg
- Vitamin D3 at 1,800 IU
- Vitamin E at 67 mg
This method of listing your ingredients is clear, concise, and shows the customer exactly what they are getting.
But if you were a less-than-savory manufacturer, what you might do is create what’s called a proprietary blend of ingredients.
So instead of listing off the ingredients and their doses individually, you’d do something like this:
- Super special proprietary blend 200 mg (Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, Vitamin E)
In this example, all you know is that you are getting 200 mg worth of stuff, but you don’t know how much of each individual ingredient you are getting.
This allows manufacturers to hide their formulas and is often used as a way to reduce the dosage of more important and costly ingredients in favor of less active ingredients.
So in this case, they may fill that proprietary blend up with a cheap vitamin C supplement and skimp on the other ingredients.
This cuts their cost and obscures the information for you.
It should go without saying, but I don’t do that!
The supplement fact panel on my supplements will contain individual doses and ingredient forms in a clear and obvious way (except in the case of Trademarked ingredients because that information is proprietary even to us).
This means you know exactly what you are getting with each dose.
Be wary of any supplement that contains an excessive amount of proprietary blends!
This is often a way to mask the ingredients for their benefit, not yours.
Realistic Expectations
I love supplements and I believe that they are a powerful tool, but I’m also not going to turn around and tell you that they are the cure for everything that ails you.
There’s a fine line between explaining how a supplement works and making exaggerated claims about what it can do for you.
Many manufacturers lean to the exaggerating claims side of the equation because they want to sell more supplements.
Unfortunately, this leads to distrust in supplements more generally and only offers more confusion to people who use them.
Exaggerated claims and overhyped marketing are not something you’ll find here.
Here’s why:
If you use one of my supplements because you think it will do something that it can’t, that doesn’t benefit either of us.
You’ll just end up upset, for good reason, and my team will have to help you with a refund.
Doesn’t it make far more sense for me to be clear about what my supplements can do so that you continue to purchase them over and over again?
This way we both win.
You end up feeling better and I end up with a long-term customer.
To avoid confusion, let me be clear about what you can expect when using my supplements.
While my supplements contain well-researched, clean, and effective ingredients, that have helped thousands of people over the years, they are absolutely not a replacement for lifestyle changes or even prescription thyroid medications.
As their name implies, they are supplemental to these things.
No matter what you are trying to do to improve or fix, your priority should always be spent on changing your diet, exercise routine, stress levels, and sleep schedule.
Altering these factors will provide you with the biggest bang for your buck, hands down.
If after you’ve done these things and you still aren’t feeling 100% then you can use my supplements to pick up the slack.
In this way, they are used as an effective tool that helps you get to where you want to go faster.
Product Updates & Reformulations
Another way to bring transparency into my process is by sharing information on what happens behind the scenes.
There’s a lot that goes into supplement formulation.
In fact, most of my day is spent on this process.
And, over time, I’ve noticed that a lot of people like to have a better understanding of why changes are made.
My team gets questions like these all of the time:
Why did this formula change?
Why are you using a new ingredient?
Why did the bottle size change?
Why are my capsules a different color?
Why is this product out of stock?
And so on and so on.
I’m not sure if people are just curious, skeptical by nature, or if they just want to keep me on my toes but, either way, I’m always willing to share this information.
To show that, I will occasionally create blog posts that detail my decisions on why certain changes were made to my formulas.
You can see an example of such a blog post here.
If you have any questions about my products or formulas, why a product is out of stock, why something has changed, or anything similar, feel free to reach out to me or my team at hello@restartmed.com.
We will always be open about why the change was made.