本文探讨了保健品真实性的问题，并非指保健品是否有效，而是指消费者购买的保健品是否真的含有其宣称的成分。文章回顾了引发人们对假保健品担忧的两个主要研究，并分析了其局限性，同时引用了实验室测试结果和行业内部人士的证词，最终提供了一些判断保健品真实性的经验法则。

😄 **两个引发对假保健品担忧的主要研究** 2013年的Newmaster研究和2015年纽约州总检察长Eric Schneiderman赞助的一项未发表的研究都使用了DNA条形码技术。该技术通过检测样本中DNA片段来识别样本的来源。这两项研究都发现，许多草药补充剂中缺乏宣称的草药成分，反而含有其他常见的植物，例如大米。这些研究结果被主流媒体广泛传播，引发了公众对保健品安全性的担忧。 但是，一些专家指出，DNA条形码技术并不适用于所有类型的草药补充剂。许多草药补充剂是植物提取物，这意味着它们只包含植物中的一种或两种有益成分，而制造商则会将这些成分提纯，并不会包含大量的植物叶子、茎等。因此，当DNA条形码技术检测到一些草药补充剂中没有相应的植物DNA，而是有大量大米DNA时，并不意味着存在欺诈行为。

😊 **实验室测试结果和行业内部人士的证词** 一些独立实验室对市售的保健品进行了测试，结果显示，大多数保健品都符合其标签上的成分标示。例如，LabDoor是一个独立的实验室，它对市售的保健品进行了广泛的测试，并发布了测试结果。他们的测试结果显示，大多数保健品都符合其标签上的成分标示。 一些行业内部人士也表示，他们认为大多数保健品都是真实的。例如，一些保健品制造商表示，他们会严格控制原材料的采购和生产过程，以确保产品的质量。

🤔 **判断保健品真实性的经验法则** 虽然一些研究表明，市场上存在一些假冒的保健品，但大多数保健品都是真实的。为了更好地判断保健品的真实性，消费者可以参考以下几个经验法则： * 选择信誉良好的品牌。 * 查看产品的标签，确保其成分标示清晰、准确。 * 了解产品的生产过程，以及制造商的质量控制措施。 * 咨询医生或营养师，了解保健品的安全性以及是否适合自己。 总而言之，消费者应该理性地看待保健品，不要盲目相信一些夸大其词的宣传，并选择信誉良好的品牌和产品。

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/how-trustworthy-are-supplements

[EDIT: LabDoor responds here]

[Epistemic status: not totally sure of any of this, I welcome comments by people who know more.]

Not as in “do supplements work?”. As in “if you buy a bottle of ginseng from your local store, will it really contain parts of the ginseng plant? Or will it just be sugar and sawdust and maybe meth?”

There are lots of stories going around that 30% or 80% or some other very high percent of supplements are totally fake, with zero of the active ingredient. I think these are misinformation. In the first part of this post, I want to review how this story started and why I no longer believe it. In the second and third, I’ll go over results from lab tests and testimonials from industry insiders. In the fourth, I’ll try to provide rules of thumb for how likely supplements are to be real.

I. Two Big Studies That Started The Panic Around Fake Supplements  

These are Newmaster (2013) and an unpublished study sponsored by NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman in 2015.

Both used a similar technique called DNA barcoding, where scientists check samples (in this case, herbal supplements) for fragments of DNA (in this case, from the herbs the supplements supposedly came from). Both found abysmal results. Newmaster found that a third of herbal supplements tested lacked any trace of the relevant herb, instead seeming to be some other common plant like rice. Schneiderman’s study was even more damning, finding that eighty percent of herbal supplements lacked the active ingredient. These results were extensively and mostly uncritically signal-boosted by mainstream media, for example the New York Times (1, 2) and NPR (1, 2), mostly from the perspective that supplements were a giant scam and needed to be regulated by the FDA.

The pro-supplement American Botanical Council struck back, publishing a long report arguing that DNA barcoding was inappropriate here. Many herbal supplements are plant extracts, meaning that the plant has one or two medically useful chemicals, and supplement manufacturers purify those chemicals without including a bunch of random leaves and stems and things. Sometimes these purified extracts don’t include plant DNA; other times the purification process involves heating and chemical reactions that degrade the DNA beyond the point of detectability. Meanwhile, since supplements may include only a few mg of the active ingredient, it’s a common practice to spread it through the capsule with a “filler”, with powdered rice being among the most common. So when DNA barcoders find that eg a ginseng supplement has no ginseng DNA, but lots of rice DNA, this doesn’t mean anything sinister is going on.