How Products were Selected:
Products selected represent those commonly sold and/or available nationally in the U.S. ConsumerLab.com purchased products on the open market through retail stores, on-line retailers, catalogues, or multi-level marketing companies. Products were not accepted directly from manufacturers and Identities of the products were not disclosed to laboratories performing the testing.
Testing Methods:
- Analysis for dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were performed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).
- Analysis for lead, arsenic and cadmium were performed using an ICP-MS (inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectroscopy).
- Disintegration of non-chewable, non-capsule and non-timed release formulations was analyzed utilizing USP (United States Pharmacopeia) <2040> recommendations.
Products failing to meet any Passing Score (below) were re-tested in a second independent laboratory using similar methods and instrumentation.
ConsumerLab.com may modify or use other appropriate test methods if necessary to test special product formulations.
Passing Score:*
To achieve a "Pass" in testing, a product had to meet the following applicable criteria:
- Have a minimum of 100% of its labeled amount of DHEA and a maximum of 125% of this amount.
- Not exceed the following limits for elemental lead:
- Products marketed for use by children may not exceed the State of California's Prop 65 limits for lead in dietary supplements of 0.5 mcg per recommended daily serving with an additional allowance of 0.8 mcg if the product contains more than 1,000 mg/day of calcium.
- Products with a single serving weights of less than 5 grams which are not marketed for use by children, may not exceed the State of California's Prop 65 limits for lead in dietary supplements of 0.5 mcg per recommended daily serving with an additional allowance of 0.4 mcg if containing 250-999 mg/day of any combination of elemental calcium, magnesium and potassium or 0.8 mcg if containing more than 1,000 mg/day of any combination of these minerals. An additional allowance of 0.5 mcg is provided if containing 250-999 mg/day of whole herb (not extract) or 1.0 mcg if containing 1000 mg/day or more of whole herb (not extract). However, total lead allowance will not exceed 2 mcg.
- Products with single serving weights of 5 grams or more which are not marketed for children may not exceed 2.5 mcg per serving nor 4.0 mcg per daily serving.
Arsenic: Contain less than 10 micrograms of total arsenic and no more than 5 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per daily serving (EPA limit - based on 1 liter of water). - If applicable to the product, it must meet recommended USP <2040> parameters of disintegration for dietary supplements (excluding capsule chewable and time-release products).
- Be in compliance with FDA labeling requirements.
** If available for sale in California, a product that exceeds the State of California's Prop 65 lead limit requires a warning label. However, with or without this warning label, a product cannot pass ConsumerLab.com testing if it exceeds the levels described in this paragraph.
ConsumerLab.com reserves the right to disqualify a product at any time from passing its testing if it considers such product to present a safety risk or to provide misleading or inaccurate information in its labeling.
