The write-ups
The videos give you the story. These posts give you everything else: the numbers, the methods, the expert interviews, and every source document.
17 questions for a muscle protein metabolism researcher at Manchester Met: how much protein you really need (the RDA is "based on surviving"), whether BCAAs do anything, soy vs whey, soy and oestrogen, building muscle in a calorie deficit, why whey got so expensive, and why the protein number on a tub can be wrong.
Read the full Q&A →Seven popular products tested for nitrogen, amino acids and heavy metals, with four second-lab tests. See how the results compare with the labels, explore the amino-acid charts, and check what the protein costs at your own pack price.
Read the full results →Seven best-sellers, all labelled 4,000 IU, bought at retail and tested at two accredited labs for dose and heavy metals. Five passed, Nutrition Geeks sat inside the uncertainty, WeightWorld came in 12% under and Howard James 29% under. Every number, what each brand said when asked for its test report, and a Queen Mary professor on whether 4,000 IU is safe.
Read the full results →18 questions for a Queen Mary professor who has run vitamin D trials for twenty years: what blood level to aim for (and why the UK, Europe and the US disagree), how much to take, when it turns toxic, sun vs supplements, body weight and genetics, blood tests, K2, and what deficiency actually does. Exact transcript, with charts.
Read the full Q&A →Collagen capsules with no magnesium stearate came out up to 16% under target; tablets with no MCC crumbled to powder. Then the toxicity studies "clean" brands quote: you'd need 42,000 capsules a day. Plus the "no fillers" brand that admitted, when asked, there's no evidence of harm at supplement doses.
Read the full explainer →12 questions for a pharmacist, professor and supplement-lab founder in Hungary: what silymarin really is (20+ compounds, not one), why UV testing reports a bigger number than HPLC, what the European Pharmacopoeia uses, how a chromatogram fingerprints a bad extract, and what he found in "100% natural" products: Viagra, in six of ten.
Read the full Q&A →16 questions for the chemist whose lab isolated and crystallised the silymarin compounds: why HPLC beats UV, what silymarin actually is, how far two labs can legitimately disagree, herb-drug interactions, which products to avoid, the one regulation he'd pass, and his verdict on the Nutrition Geeks "UV is the right method" claim.
Read the full Q&A →20 questions for a chemist with twenty years in botanical quality and co-founder of the Ashwagandha Standards Alliance: is it safe, is the leaf toxic, how lab shopping and secret methods inflate withanolide numbers, why 5% claims don't add up on cost, how extracts get diluted with spent plant material, and the red and green flags to look for.
Read the full Q&A →19 questions put to one of the world's most published magnesium researchers, with his exact answers: how much to take, why the label number isn't the dose, why "chelated absorbs better" is marketing, oxide vs citrate, whether threonate really targets the brain, and the blood level to aim for. Full transcript, timestamps and charts.
Read the full Q&A →Two rounds of accredited lab tests on the UK's fastest-growing supplement brand: ashwagandha at under 1% of its claimed withanolides, milk thistle at half its silymarin claim, and magnesium label maths that doesn't add up. Plus the brand's response, the legal threats, three PhD experts on testing methods, and every source document.
Read the full investigation →I'll email you when I've tested more supplements and have results worth seeing.
