No Government Oversight of Dietary Supplements? Enter LabDoor

With the government abdicating its responsibility to ensure that dietary supplements are all they're cracked up to be, the door is wide open for LabDoor, a service that promises to bring the facts.

 Are Your Supplements Safe? Here's How to Tell

Fish oil, and green tea, and vitamin D – oh my! With so many supplements constantly flooding the market, how can you tell which ones are the best for you? Which ones are safe? Which brand should you choose?

 The Stuff Legally Allowed in Your Bottle of Supplements is Alarming as Hell

"People don't want prescription medicine, but they'll take an unregulated substance that is misrepresented with bad labeling."

Are Supplements Killing You? The Problem With Vitamins, Minerals

In two recently published studies, researchers suggest that supplements can do more harm than good if taken in addition to a healthy diet.

How Your Supplements Interact With Prescription Drugs

St. John’s Wort, lavender, garlic and others can alter drug potency, cause side effects.

It’s Possible To Get Too Much Of These 5 Essential Nutrients

We’ve all been schooled about the unhealthy things we should limit, like sugar and sodium. But there are also some healthy things that, in excess, can do more harm than good. In other words, even when a nutrient is vital, more isn’t necessarily better. Here are the risks associated with going overboard on five key nutrients — some of them may take you by surprise.

Skip the Supplements

But the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate dietary supplements as drugs — they aren’t tested for safety and efficacy before they’re sold. Many aren’t made according to minimal standards of manufacturing (the F.D.A. has even found some of the facilities where supplements are made to be contaminated with rodent feces and urine). And many are mislabeled, accidentally or intentionally. They often aren’t what they say they are.

The $37 billion supplement industry is barely regulated — and it's allowing dangerous products to slip through the cracks

"Consumers should expect nothing from [supplements] because we don't have any clear evidence that they're beneficial, and they should be leery that they could be putting themselves at risk," S. Bryn Austin, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Business Insider. "Whether it's on the bottle or not, there can be ingredients in there that can do harm." Despite many such warnings, the supplement industry's market is as much as $37 billion a year, according to one estimate.

The hidden drugs in your favorite supplements

When you take a prescription drug in the United States, you can be reasonably sure of what's in it. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that all pharmaceuticals be thoroughly tested in humans, that they contain whatever ingredients are listed on the label, and that they have evidence to back their marketing claims. Unfortunately, the same isn't true for dietary supplements.

The Illegal Ingredients in Your Dietary Supplements

Consumers are taking dietary supplements with illegal—and potentially harmful—ingredients, a growing body of evidence shows. A new study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine this week found experimental stimulants in dietary supplements both before and after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued public warnings about the stimulants.

What’s in Those Supplements?

The authorities said they had run tests on popular store brands of herbal supplements at the retailers — Walmart, Walgreens, Target and GNC — which showed that roughly four out of five of the products contained none of the herbs listed on their labels.