If you are looking for new health supplements, the online world can be a reliable place to look. Here are tips for buying supplements online for beginners.
Is it fertilizer or a weight loss supplement?
If you’re thinking about buying supplements online, you have to know how to protect yourself from deceitful companies like Enhanced Athlete. Anyone who bought a fat burning supplement from Enhanced Athlete from 2015-2017, was really buying Dinitrophenol or DNP.
The substance DNP is both a fertilizer and pesticide, and it’s no big surprise that the FDA has marked it unsafe for human consumption. Thankfully, Scott has been sentenced to 3 years in prison, along with numerous fines.
Buying supplements can be a wonderful way to invest in your health, but only if you know what to look for. Are you ready to shop and buy supplements that you know are safe and effective?
Read on to learn everything you need to know when you’re buying different types of supplements.
Choose Professional Brands
Do you normally shop for name-brand medications or generic brands? When you’re buying something like headache medicine, or cough syrup, the generic brands are usually just as effective as the expensive name-brand options. The main difference usually is the packaging, and the better price the generic brand offers.
However, while a generic medication, like blood pressure, will use a lot of the same ingredients as the name brand blood pressure medication, supplements don’t work the same way. Thankfully, when you buy a name brand supplement like Viril-X, you can rest assured that the ingredients are pure.
A legitimate company will also test their quality ingredients regularly. Whereas an over the counter supplement company isn’t likely to perform any quality check tests on their ingredients. Next, we’ll show you what type of impure ingredients to look out for.
Know Your Excipients
Have you ever heard of excipients before? Excipients are inactive ingredients used in prescription medications, as well as supplements. The excipients don’t provide any medicinal uses.
Instead, excipients make it possible for companies to manufacture a stable product that patients can consume. For instance, there are some excipients that either color, sweeten, or dilute the supplement.
Excipients aren’t a bad thing when companies use the right ones. Professional name brand health supplements will use excipients that are safe for your health.
Whereas off-brand supplements will try to save money by using cheap, toxic excipients. A few toxic excipients to avoid include polysorbate 80, propylene glycol, benzoates, and saccharin sodium. Polysorbate 80 is linked to blood clots and heart attacks!
Capsules Are Better Than Tablets
Supplements that come in tablet form are more likely to contain a lot of excipients, like coloring agents. Tablet supplements also require other excipients like lubricants, coatings, and binders. Depending on the company, they may even spray their tablet with an unhealthy preservative like corn oil.
Instead of consuming all of these extra ingredients, we suggest you stick to the purest form of the supplement available. Typically, a capsule will be the best way to get the raw supplement ingredients, without any unwanted add ons.
Avoid Free Supplements
Has this happened to you? You go to a website for a supplement, and once you’re there a deal pops up on the screen. The deal says something like, “Sign up to get your 1 month free supply of ____ today!”.
Be careful, whenever a website offers you a one-month or one-week supply of a product, it’s usually a red flag. Sketchy websites that sell ineffective supplements will use this scam to trick you into buying a lot of their product. After getting the free sample, if you don’t cancel in time you could be charged for an entire year’s supply!
One of the worst parts is that it’s highly likely you’ll be getting a year’s supply of an ineffective supplement. Whenever a company has a quality supplement, they’re not going to want to give it away for free.
Quality companies aren’t trying to give their supplements away, it wouldn’t be cost-effective. While, a legitimate company might offer you a special such as, buy one get the second half off, but it’s not normal to see bulk amounts of a quality product just given away. If you find a website you think is too good to be true, check out their contact information.
Do they have a phone number that reaches the company when you call it? Does the website have an email address that responds to your inquiries? Or is there only a place for you to input your contact information when you sign up?
A legitimate company will have access to their contact information on the homepage. You should also be able to call and speak to a company representative, without any difficulty.
Finally, when you talk to the representative, they should be more than happy to answer your questions. Once you find a quality company, the next step is to start your new supplement regime off slowly.
Start With One
Are you currently taking any supplements? Or are you getting ready to start taking supplements for the first time? We find that for you to get the best results, it helps if you start off only taking 1 supplement at a time.
If you’re already taking supplements, you don’t have to stop taking the ones you’re already benefiting from. However, instead of adding in 2-5 new ones, just pick one! By adding in one supplement at a time, you’ll be able to better assess how effective it is.
Another benefit to slowly introducing new supplements is that you’ll be able to monitor your body for any unwanted side effects. Even safe supplements that use all of the right ingredients, can be dangerous for some people. For instance, let’s say you have a slight allergic reaction to a coloring agent used in a supplement.
If you start taking multiple supplements that use that coloring agent, you could have a severe allergic reaction. Whereas, if you start off slowly, you’ll be able to notice the mild allergic reaction before it gets worse.
Finally, taking one supplement at a time is also helpful to your body. As your body builds upon the new supplement, your entire health can benefit. However, if you overload your body with too many new supplements, you can have adverse side effects.
Multi-Ingredient Supplements Are Weak
When you’re buying supplements online, you should look for types of supplements that stick to only using one ingredient. By only using one ingredient, the supplement is usually more effective than one that uses multiple ingredients.
Take for instance glucosamine sulfate. By itself, glucosamine sulfate is a wonderful supplement to help promote healthy joints. However, when companies add in other ingredients, like immune-boosting herbs, the supplement gets overloaded.
Instead of giving you the necessary dose of glucosamine to be effective, the manufacturers have to use some of the room in the pill for the herbs. The result is a less than effective supplement that winds up being a waste of money, and time.
Companies sometimes pack two ingredients into a supplement in hopes of being able to market the pill to a larger audience. However, on top of making the supplement less effective, multi-ingredient supplements can also be dangerous.
The more ingredients you cram into a capsule, the more likely it is to deliver unwanted side effects, like an allergic reaction. To make matters worse, if the supplement has a lot of ingredients, you won’t be able to pinpoint what ingredient caused the reaction. Instead, keep it simple and just buy the mineral or vitamin you wanted in the first place.
Know What You Need
There are all sorts of different forms you can buy your supplements in. When you’re buying supplements online you’ll be able to choose between gummies, powders, energy bars, capsules, and more!
However, before you start adding things to your shopping cart, it’s helpful if you know exactly why you’re getting the supplements in the first place. Simply buying health supplements to be healthier is never a good idea.
Finally, you should set realistic expectations for what a supplement can do for you. Yes, they are wonderful at boosting your health when used the right way. However, there aren’t any miracle supplements. Any supplement companies that claim to be able to cure diseases or help you drop weight overnight are likely fraudulent.
Instead of buying supplements online that are fads, stick to natural ones you can read research on. To see a list of natural supplements and what they can do, check out this supplement fact sheet.
Talk to Your Doctor
Since supplements are specifically made to help with certain issues, blindly taking them can do more harm than good. We suggest you first speak to your health care provider and let them know you’re looking into taking supplements.
Explain what you need the supplements for, and they’ll be able to make recommendations as to what supplements will help the most. For instance, if you want to prevent osteoporosis, you’d need a supplement with a lot of calcium and vitamin D.
Whereas someone who wants to slow down vision loss should try taking supplements that are high in vitamins C and E, as well as zinc and copper. There are also types of supplements made especially for pregnant women, like folic acid. Doctors have found that taking folic acid lessens the risk of certain birth defects.
Supplements You Should Try
If you’re brand new to the world of online supplements, it can help to have an idea of what’s out there.
Here’s a shortlist of supplements you should consider trying:
- Probiotics
- Vitamin D
- B12
- Joint supplements
- Hair growth supplements
- Prenatal vitamins
- Omega-3 supplements
- Bone health supplements
- Multivitamins
- Fiber supplements
Whenever you purchase any of the supplements above, be sure to double-check the ingredient label. If the supplement contains a lot of preservatives, fillers, or additives, it’s not the best choice. Instead, stick to supplements that offer the rawest form of ingredients possible.
It’s also a good idea to check the companies’ websites for a certificate of analysis. The analysis certificate will be able to tell you how pure the supplement is, as well as how effective you can expect it to be.
The best certificates of analysis are the ones that a third party company approves. Once you find a reputable supplement, keep looking so you can compare supplement prices.
Finally, if you have any pre-existing health conditions, or you’re taking other medications, talk to your doctor before you start a new supplement. Your doctor will be able to give you the guidance you need to avoid having any unwanted side effects.
Buying Supplements Online at eBay or Amazon
Are you planning on buying your supplements using eBay or Amazon? If yes, you’ll want to know how to tell legitimate companies apart from the fake ones. A legitimate company sellings supplements on either site will list the company’s name, user name, and brand.
Next, there should always be a way to contact the company that’s selling the supplements. If there isn’t a website or any contact information, it’s a clear sign that the seller isn’t legitimate. Instead, companies that withhold contact information are usually selling knock-off versions of supplements that are either useless or potentially harmful.
Finally, it’s always a wise idea to read online customer reviews for a company before you purchase from them. While seeing a few negative reviews isn’t anything to worry about, you’ll want to avoid companies that have a lot of negative reviews. For instance, if the company has 200 reviews but their rating is 1-3 stars, don’t buy anything from them.
Buy With Confidence
As you begin buying supplements online, remember all of the tips and tricks you learned here today. By choosing a quality brand, with a fair price, you can rest assured you’re making a smart decision for your health. For more ways to invest in your health, check out the rest of this site!
