The ANTI Labs Formulary

Soluble fiber with decades of clinical use and one of the most settled evidence bases in the category. Repeated human trials back its effects on cholesterol, blood sugar, and regularity, and the safety record is long and well established.

An essential mineral most diets under-deliver. Its role in normal muscle, nerve, and metabolic function is well established, the human evidence is deep, and the safety record is long and well characterized.

Widespread insufficiency in populations with limited sun exposure. One of the best-evidenced micronutrients to supplement, with extensive human data on correcting deficiency and a strong safety record within recommended intakes.

The marketing runs ahead of the evidence. The human trials are mostly small, many are industry-funded, and case reports have linked ashwagandha to liver injury. Until independent data catches up, it doesn't clear our bar.

There is no universal microbiome. A generic strain isn't guaranteed to colonize your gut, and even when it does, more bacteria isn't automatically better for any given person. Without strain, dose, and person-specific evidence, a one-size-fits-all capsule is a guess.

A pinch of everything, a real dose of almost nothing. Greens powders microdose dozens of extracts at fractions of any studied amount, and plenty of those ingredients have no human evidence to begin with. A long label isn't a formula.

Plain curcumin is barely absorbed, and the high-absorption formulations that fix that are the ones now tied to liver injury. Turmeric has become a leading cause of supplement-related liver injury in the US. Not worth the risk.

The weight and glucose claims come from small, weak trials, and the biggest one was retracted in 2025. The acid can erode tooth enamel.

Best obtained from food, and for people who already get enough, routine supplements add little. An earlier signal tying supplements to vascular calcification has not been confirmed in later guideline reviews.

Without a confirmed deficiency, supplementing iron risks overload, since the body has no way to clear the excess. Not a general-population product.

Easy to get from food. High doses upset the zinc-copper balance and can cause a copper deficiency.

Deficiency is rare and diet covers it. The hair and nail claims don't hold up outside actual deficiency, and biotin skews common lab tests, including troponin.

A narrow safety window, and toxicity at high doses is well documented.

At higher doses, supplementation has been tied to increased all-cause mortality in meta-analyses.

Easy to get from food. High doses have been linked to nerve damage.

It moves the lipid panel, but the large outcome trials found no cardiovascular benefit added to statins, plus added harms, and guidelines dropped it. Not a general-population supplement.

A narrow safety window, and most diets already cover it.

The blood-pressure effect is small, and it comes from concentrated extracts, not the garlic on your plate. Products vary widely in what they actually deliver.

Concentrated extracts carry a well-documented risk of liver injury, and the benefit is modest at best.

The energy and cognition results are inconsistent across trials, and products vary wildly in how much active they actually contain.

The large trials found no benefit for memory or preventing dementia. There's a bleeding-risk signal in case reports too, worth caution with blood thinners or before surgery.

The immune claims outrun the evidence, and the best trial found no benefit for flu. Many syrups are mostly sugar, and some have been caught cut with cheaper black-rice extract.

Cochrane looked at the cold-prevention and treatment trials and found the evidence weak and clinically unconvincing.

The liver-protection evidence is weak and inconsistent.

The good trials are clear: it does nothing for prostate symptoms that a placebo doesn't.

The sleep studies don't agree, and most aren't good enough to settle it.

It does help mild depression, but that makes it drug-like, not a wellness supplement. It induces liver enzymes that weaken birth control, blood thinners, and transplant drugs, and it risks serotonin syndrome with antidepressants.

Oral HA does improve skin hydration and elasticity in pooled trials, but the effect is modest and topical is the better-established route. Not enough to build a product around.

The inflammation trials are small and few, and the pooled effect isn't clinically meaningful.

Barely absorbed when you swallow it. If you want the precursor, NAC is the more defensible route.

No evidence for routine detox or bloating, and it binds nutrients and medications indiscriminately in the gut.

Sold for detox, deodorizing, and alkalizing, none of which has credible human evidence behind it.

Marketed as a detoxifying, alkalizing superfood, with no credible human trials behind any of the broad claims.

Superfood marketing over a real contamination problem: heavy metals and microcystins show up in testing. The nutrients are easy to get from food.

The heavy-metal-chelation and immune claims run on minimal, poor-quality human data.

A marketing-driven superfood. Its iodine content swings wildly, enough to cause thyroid problems, and heavy-metal contamination is a real concern.

Marketed as a cure-all superfood. The human evidence behind the claims is thin and low quality.

The libido and energy claims run on a handful of small, weak studies.

Its glucose-lowering effect is drug-like enough to need monitoring, and it interacts with common medications. Not a general-population supplement, and product standardization varies.

The cognitive claims come from tiny, preliminary human studies.

A trending ingredient with limited clinical evidence in healthy adults.

The fatigue and stress trials are small, mixed, and run on extracts that vary batch to batch. Thin evidence, unreliable product.

Barely absorbed when taken orally, and the human longevity and cardiovascular claims are unproven.

Weak evidence for performance, and the carnitine-to-TMAO pathway is a cardiovascular concern that outweighs the marginal benefit.

The mood and sleep evidence is weak, and it carries real serotonin-related safety and drug-interaction concerns.

Sold for calm and sleep, but swallowed GABA barely crosses into the brain, and the relaxation evidence is small, inconsistent, and mechanistically shaky.

The weight-loss claims aren't supported, and there are reports of liver injury.

The flagship study was retracted, and the FTC won multimillion-dollar judgments over the weight-loss claims.

A fat-burner in a bottle backed only by rodent and test-tube data. No credible human trials.

The human trials conflict: the most-cited one, in men, showed a small drop in body fat, while another, in women, showed nothing. Tiny samples, never replicated.

The one human appetite trial found no effect on intake or weight, and it raised blood pressure, heart rate, and liver enzymes.

The weight-loss evidence is a few small, low-quality, industry-funded studies.

The best long-term meta-analysis puts weight loss at about 0.7 kg, too small to matter, and it comes with GI side effects.

The weight and craving effects are clinically meaningless, and the FTC has acted against its fat-loss claims.

It works only because it contains monacolin K, chemically identical to the statin lovastatin. Potency swings batch to batch, it carries the same risks as a statin, and in 2024 a contaminated product in Japan was linked to kidney injuries and deaths.

An ephedra-free fat burner with no evidence it helps you lose weight, and it tends to raise blood pressure and heart rate.

The fat-loss pharmacology is real but inconsistent in practice, and it commonly causes anxiety, high blood pressure, and palpitations.

The testosterone and libido claims come from small, short, low-quality studies, many of them funded by the makers.

Small, heterogeneous trials do show a testosterone rise, but it's inconsistent across measures, mostly run on proprietary extracts, and hasn't translated into a real strength or body-composition benefit.

Sold as a testosterone and libido booster. Systematic reviews find no reliable rise in testosterone, and only very-low-quality evidence for sexual function.

Marketed as a natural testosterone booster. Controlled trials show no increase in testosterone, strength, or lean mass in healthy men, and it converts to estrogen.

Marketed to raise testosterone and strength. In athletes who aren't deficient, controlled trials show no hormonal or performance benefit.

The free-testosterone claims come from tiny studies showing modest, short-lived shifts, with no demonstrated effect on muscle or performance.

One early study suggested a testosterone bump. Better trials in trained men show no increase, and sometimes a decrease.

An influencer-driven natural anabolic. The only human trial showed no effect on body composition, and lab testing finds most products contain under 1% of what's on the label.

The libido and erectile claims come from test-tube and animal work on icariin. Credible human evidence is essentially absent.

The original prohormone. Trials show it fails to raise testosterone or build muscle, while raising estrogen. A banned-in-sport agent with no upside.

Sold for IGF-1, growth, and recovery. But IGF-1 is a peptide your gut destroys, and controlled trials show no benefit. Pure marketing.

The guideline bodies are split, and the positive trials lean on pharmaceutical-grade material most products aren't. The big NIH GAIT trial found no overall benefit for knee osteoarthritis. Not settled enough to make.

The better menopause trials show no advantage over placebo for hot flashes, and it carries documented reports of liver injury.

Standardized extracts do ease osteoarthritis pain in trials, but the studies are small and mostly run by the makers. Not enough independent replication to make it.

The joint-comfort claims come from a handful of small studies, most of them funded by the makers.

The hair, skin, and nail claims run on thin, largely industry-funded evidence.

A broad menu of circulatory, skin, and cognitive claims, supported mostly by small, industry-linked trials.

Sold as an immune and antiviral booster. The one controlled human trial showed no effect, and the rest is test-tube work.

The blood-pressure drop is real but small, roughly 4 mmHg systolic in the meta-analysis. We hold the bar higher than a supplement-sized effect, and olive oil covers the same ground.

The immune and longevity claims lean on low-quality studies and tradition more than controlled trials.

The cold-symptom trials are low quality and often test it inside fixed herbal blends. It also carries a real signal for severe allergic reactions.

Sold as a detox and liver herb with essentially no human evidence. The claims rest on animal studies.

It may modestly ease anxiety, but documented liver toxicity, including cases of liver failure, rules it out on safety.

Plenty of influencer attention, not enough human data.

The cognitive claims outpace the evidence, and a large observational study flagged an unresolved stroke-risk signal.

The real evidence is in cognitive decline and stroke recovery, not healthy users. The few positive trials in healthy people are small and mostly maker-funded.

The focus and cognition claims have little credible human support.

The memory and cognition signals are weak and inconsistent in healthy people. Even the FDA claim it carries admits there is very little scientific evidence behind it.

You get choline more reliably from food, and the cognitive claims overreach the evidence.

The memory benefit is real but small and slow, about twelve weeks to show up and nothing like what's marketed. GI side effects are common.

A drug-like acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. The human trials are small, low quality, and concentrated in a single region.

The cognition evidence is weak, the FDA has said it doesn't qualify as a dietary ingredient, and it carries a documented risk in pregnancy.

A trendy brain-and-energy dye that's actually an FDA-regulated drug. The cognitive evidence is small, it's a potent MAO inhibitor with serotonin-syndrome risk, and it's often sold as reagent or industrial grade that can carry heavy-metal contaminants.

It raises blood NAD+, a surrogate marker, but a durable clinical or longevity benefit in humans is unproven. The trials are short and mostly industry-sponsored.

Reliably raises NAD+, but like NMN it hasn't shown a durable benefit in healthy people. The one positive trial is in a rare genetic aging disease, not general aging.

Marketed for memory and longevity, but the largest, lowest-bias trial found no cognitive benefit. The results are inconsistent.

A heavily marketed senolytic with striking mouse data but nothing proven in humans, poor absorption, and unvalidated outcomes.

The antioxidant, immune, and senolytic claims show weak, modest effects in humans, and it's poorly absorbed.

A longevity-branded ingredient whose only human data is minimal and uncontrolled, despite the anti-aging marketing.

The FDA ruled it neither safe nor effective for any condition. It offers no immune benefit and can turn skin permanently blue-grey (argyria).

The claims for enzyme supplements don't hold up in healthy people.