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Understanding Ingredients: Active vs Inactive Ingredients

November 7, 2024

Ingredients Breakdown: Active vs Inactive Ingredients

Understanding the ingredients in your supplements is crucial to knowing what you’re really consuming. Not all ingredients are created equal, and it’s important to distinguish between active and inactive components to ensure you’re getting what you need.

Why It Matters:

Understanding the distinction between active and inactive ingredients helps you assess the quality of a supplement. A high-quality product should prioritise active ingredients, and minimise unnecessary fillers or additives. Products with fewer inactive ingredients often indicate a more concentrated formula that focuses on delivering benefits.

Active Ingredients

• Key Health Components: Active ingredients are the components that deliver the intended health benefits of the supplement. These include vitamins, minerals, herbs, or extracts that target specific functions, such as supporting liver health or joint care.

• Active vs Carrier: In some compounds, only part of the ingredient is active. For example, Choline Bitartrate provides around 41% Choline, the active component that supports brain health, while the Bitartrate acts as a carrier to stabilise and deliver the Choline. Similarly, in joint health supplements, Glucosamine Sulphate 2KCL provides 59% Glucosamine, and Chondroitin Sulphate provides 90% Chondroitin, with the remaining portions acting as carriers or stabilisers. It’s important to recognise the active portion to understand how much of the beneficial compound you’re actually getting, and to check whether the amount stated on the label refers to the active ingredient or the entire compound.

Inactive Ingredients

• Also known as excipients, these are often added to help with the manufacturing process, improve shelf life, or simply bulk up the product (e.g. binders, fillers, preservatives, bulking agents, rice flour). While they may serve practical purposes in some products, they don’t contribute to the supplement’s health benefits.

Spot the Hidden Tricks on Labels

Hidden Fillers Behind Long Lists

Some products are promoted with a long list of active ingredients, but upon closer inspection, the ingredients list may include fillers like rice flour or bulking agents. This likely means the active ingredients are present in small, ineffective amounts, used as a marketing tactic.

Confusing Compound Weights

Some products list the total weight of a compound, such as Choline Bitartrate or Glucosamine Sulphate, without specifying the actual dose of the active ingredient, like Choline or Glucosamine. This can make it difficult to understand how much of the active component you’re really getting.

Misleading “Active” Ingredients

Certain ingredients might be presented as active but are essentially fillers because they don’t deliver enough of the active compound. For example, turmeric powder might appear beneficial, but without enough curcuminoids, it lacks effectiveness.

Read our Raw Powder vs Extract tutorial

Top Tip: Spotting Fillers in the Ingredients List

Companies don’t have to declare the exact weight of fillers, but the ingredients must be listed in order of their weight within the formula. If fillers like “rice flour,” “bulking agent,” or even “powder” appear high up in the ingredients list, it’s a sign that they might make up a large portion of the supplement, leaving less room for the active ingredients.

Look for Clear Labeling

Choose supplements that clearly distinguish between active and inactive ingredients, ensuring the focus is on the beneficial components.

Minimise Fillers

Opt for supplements with minimal inactive ingredients to avoid unnecessary additives that don’t contribute to your health goals.

Imagine you’re looking at two brain health supplements, both of which include Choline Bitartrate as a key ingredient. The first product lists “Choline Bitartrate 200 mg,” while the second lists “Choline 100 mg.” At first glance, the first product seems to offer more, but there’s a catch: Choline Bitartrate is only about 41% Choline, with the rest being the carrier (bitartrate).

So, the first product actually provides 82 mg of Choline, while the second product offers the full 100 mg of Choline from 243 mg of Choline Bitartrate. The second product is giving you a higher dose of the active compound, even though the amount mentioned in the Nutritional Information on the label appears smaller.

Support Your Liver with Precision

With LiverGuard+, you’re getting high-strength liver support with transparent, accurate dosing of key ingredients like Choline. Our formula ensures you’re getting the right amount of Choline for optimal liver health, alongside 8 other scientifically backed active ingredients. Discover how LiverGuard+ can support your liver function today.

Discover LiverGuard+

Next: Why Standardisation Ensures Potency

Now that you understand the difference between active and inactive ingredients, let’s dive deeper into why standardisation is key to ensuring consistent potency and reliable results in your supplements.

Standardisation of Ingredients: Why Consistency Matters

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Active Ingredients, Buying Tips, Case Study, Clean Label, Consumer Awareness, Health Education, Ingredients, Label Reading, Labels, Marketing Tricks, Quality, Smart Choices, Supplement Guide, Supplement Tips, Supplements, Transparency