Reading Time: 4 minutes

Note: This is a sponsored post.

The dietary supplement industry brings in billions of dollars each year, with an estimated 90,000 products on the market in pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid form. About half of American adults take at least one dietary supplement for health or wellness, or to fill nutrition gaps. But are these supplements safe? Not always.

A 2015 Consumer Reports survey found that most people think that dietary supplements are vetted for safety by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Unfortunately, this isn’t true. The FDA must approve prescription or over-the-counter drugs before they can be marketed. However, the FDA is NOT authorized to review dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are sold. As a result, this makes the supplement industry a bit of a hot mess, frankly.

There are far, far too many supplements that don’t contain what the label says they contain, either in amounts or actual ingredients. This can make those supplements ineffective, or possibly even dangerous. One of the biggest concerns about supplement safety is adulteration with ingredients that aren’t listed on the label. This includes ingredients that may be toxic at high doses.

This is most common with botanical or “natural” supplements — not really with, say, a multivitamin. However, any supplement has the potential to be contaminated with heavy metals or with bacteria and other pathogens.

If you would benefit from taking a dietary supplement – maybe a multivitamin to cover your nutritional bases, or something more specific – where does this leave you? Is it possible to find a brand you can feel confident about? The good news is that, yes, you can.

When writing about supplements or discussing them with my clients, I generally recommend that they choose one that’s undergone third-party testing by an independent organization that offers offer quality testing. The three best-known are U.S.

Pharmacopeia (USP), ConsumerLab and NSF International. These organizations’ seals of approval mean that the supplement was properly manufactured, contains the ingredients listed on the label, and doesn’t contain harmful levels of contaminants.

Certainly, lots of brands do seek out this testing, but one brand that goes even further is VitaQual. VitaQual’s Safe & Sound supplement line is also tested by a third-party accredited lab, but VitaQual’s standards go above and beyond what you would typically find in higher-quality supplements. Not only are Safe & Sound products tested to make sure that what’s on the label matches what’s in the supplement, but they have exceedingly strict standards for making sure they don’t contain anything you don’t want. This includes heavy metals, pesticides, bacteria, molds, parasites and other pathogens.

Even better, the testing isn’t done on a random sample from of batches of supplements.

It’s done on sealed bottles from every manufacturing batch. Amazingly, there’s no regulation requiring that supplements be tested in their final packaged form for pathogens. The only requirement is that the raw materials be tested before mixing them and putting them into capsules. As a result, disease-causing pathogens have been found in supplements that are ready and waiting for purchase. Safe & Sound supplements are tested for more than 26 pathogens, making them safe even for individuals with suppressed immune function.

VitaQual offers a carefully curated range of Safe & Sound supplements, and these are the ones I’m most excited about:

• Multi Vitamin & Mineral Formula. What I love about this formulation is that it contains close to 100% of the recommended daily value (DV) of key vitamins and minerals.

  Far too many multis contain 1000% (or more) of a few nutrients, which is not necessary and not balanced.

• Prenatal Vitamin & Mineral Formula. This formula doesn’t contain iron, which is a good thing. Even though iron is very important during pregnancy to prevent anemia, many pregnant women need to experiment with different iron supplements to find one that doesn’t cause digestive side effects, such as constipation. So you can have your high quality multi and have the freedom to take the iron supplement that works best for you.
• Essential Fatty Acid Complex. The omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA are important for health, especially heart and brain health, and we need to get them from food. If you don’t regularly include oily fish such as salmon in your diet, a quality supplement can help bridge that gap.

  But quality fish oil supplements are hard to find. This Essential Fatty Acid complex has been rigorously tested to make sure it doesn’t contain heavy metals (especially mercury), chemicals, pesticides or microbes. Plus it contains GLA (gamma linolenic acid) – an anti-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acid – from borage oil.

• Digestive Enzyme #1 Blend. Some people have trouble digesting and absorbing protein, certain minerals, and, importantly, vitamin B12, which plays a key role in healthy blood and nerves. This blend contains enzymes and other ingredients to help your body make use of these valuable nutrients from the food you eat.
• Calcium Magnesium Formula. We often think “calcium” when we think of bone health, but magnesium is important, too.

  This formula provides 60% of the recommended daily amounts, and 50% of the recommendation for magnesium. If you consume some calcium- and magnesium-rich foods, but not enough, this is a nice formula for making up the shortfall. And don’t forget that calcium and magnesium support neurological health and even healthy sleep.

When you are looking for safe dietary supplements to help you meet your nutrition needs and support your health, it’s essential that the product supplies you with all that you need, and nothing you don’t. You can feel safe choosing Safe & Sound.

Carrie Dennett is a Pacific Northwest-based registered dietitian nutritionist, freelance writer, intuitive eating counselor, author, and speaker. Her superpowers include busting nutrition myths and empowering women to feel better in their bodies and make food choices that support pleasure, nutrition and health.