The dose problem

The commonest way to sell an ineffective supplement is not to lie. It is to include the right ingredients in the wrong quantities and let the ingredient list do the persuading.

The mechanism is the proprietary blend. A label declares “2,000 mg Performance Complex” and lists eight ingredients beneath it. You now know the total and nothing else. If the first ingredient is 1,900 mg of an inexpensive filler and the last is four milligrams of the one you were interested in, the label is entirely accurate.

The check takes thirty seconds. Find the ingredient the product is named after. Find its individual milligram figure. If there isn't one, you have your answer. If there is, compare it to the dose used in whatever research the brand is gesturing at — which they will rarely make easy, and which is itself informative.

There is a second, subtler version. Citrulline malate is sold at a stated ratio, usually 2:1. Published NMR analysis of five UK products found four were nowhere near that ratio, and one delivered just over half its stated citrulline. Nobody broke a rule. The ratio was simply not what the label said, and almost no buyer has the equipment to know.

Which is the argument for pure ingredients over compounds wherever it is possible. Pure L-citrulline has no ratio to be wrong about.