By far the most important thing to look at when considering starting a nutritional supplement program is the label. The label will tell you everything you need to know about the contents of the supplement. Not only does it tell you what is in the supplement, but it also tells you in what amounts, how much of the supplement is in the container, and the dosage. With all of this information on a label, it is important to know what you are looking at, and what you should be trying to understand when you look at the label.

FDA's Role in Dietary Supplement Labels

Due to the fact that we depend so much on the label of a health supplement, we need to be assured that the label is accurate. This is where the FDA helps protect the consumer from supplements that have misleading labels with inaccurate information. The FDA does not regulate the effectiveness of Dietary Supplements, but it does regulate the manufacturing process, and the ingredients that the manufacturers use. By April 2010, the FDA require all manufacturers of Dietary Supplements in the U.S. to abide by a set of guidelines called current Good Manufacturing Practice for Dietary Supplements, also referred to as GMP or cGMP. These guidelines require the manufacturer to ensure that it is manufacturing supplements according to what it states on the label. Additionally, the guidelines create standards for the purity of the ingredients used in the supplements. These rules help protect the consumer and provide them with the confidence that supplements manufactured in the U.S. contain what the label says.

Now that we have confidence that the labels are accurate, we can take a look at the different components of a Nutritional Supplement label to better understand what we should be looking for when making a purchase.

The Front:
This is an example of what the front of a Nutritional Supplement Label might look like.

The first highlighted area shown below is the brand, or the name of the supplement. You can see the name of the supplement is NeoVitin, and you can also see a brief description and tagline beneath it.

Next, you will notice that at the top of the label the words “Dietary Supplement” appear. In 1994 Congress enacted the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act. This act requires all Dietary Supplements to contain the words “Dietary Supplement” on the label.

The final part on the front of the label to notice is the amount of tablets in the container. NeoVitin contains 60 tablets, as highlighted below.

The Back:
Here is an example of what the back of a Dietary Supplement Label will look like. It shows a great deal of information about the supplement.

The boxed area below shows the amount of pills in the bottle, and how many to take per day.

The highlighted areas below show the different ingredients in the Supplement. Each line shows a different ingredient that is in the Supplement.

Finally, the last picture indicates the amount of each ingredient. The label shows the actual amount, and then shows a percentage of the Daily Value based on a 2,000 Calorie Diet, when there is an established amount.

These are the basic elements of a Nutritional Supplement label. By understanding these different parts, you will be able to easily compare different nutritional supplements. Use our Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements to help utilize the information from the labels to compare different Nutritional Supplements. Using this information will allow you to make an informed decision when you purchase a Nutritional Supplement. For more information regarding purchasing Nutritional Supplement, take a look at our Nutritional Supplement Buyer’s Guide. Also, be sure to subscribe to our NeoVitin newsletter to receive updates about new blog posts, articles, and everything else related to NeoVitin.

Similar Articles