Why standard supplement dosing is designed to keep you buying, not to keep you healthy

Tom
2026-03-22T14:53:47+00:00

Why the supplement industry's standard dosing is designed to fail

Most supplements on UK shelves contain doses so far below what clinical trials actually used that any physiological effect is implausible. A typical magnesium capsule delivers 50-100mg; the RCTs showing sleep benefit used 300-500mg. That gap isn't accidental - it's structural. Understanding why it exists will change how you read every supplement label you ever pick up.

In this article

1. What the evidence actually shows

2. The commercial logic behind underdosing

3. The biology of why dose actually matters

4. What clinical trials actually used - ingredient by ingredient

5. The "fairy dusting" problem

6. Why this matters more for certain populations

7. How to read a supplement label properly

8. The olive leaf and pine bark question

9. Frequently asked questions

10. My honest take

What the evidence actually shows

The disconnect between label doses and study doses is well-documented if you're willing to dig into the primary literature. Take ashwagandha. The most-cited trial showing reductions in perceived stress used 600mg of a root extract daily for 60 days in 64 adults - and even then, the effect on cortisol, while statistically significant (p<0.0001), was a reduction of around 27.9% compared to placebo, not a dramatic transformation [Chandrasekhar et al. (2012)]. Walk into any high-street health shop and you'll find 125mg capsules sold with near-identical claims on the box.

Creatine is the clearest case where the science is unambiguous and the dosing gap is most egregious. The evidence base for creatine is enormous - meta-analyses covering hundreds of trials consistently show that 3-5g daily is the effective maintenance dose for muscle phosphocreatine saturation and performance benefit [Lemon (2002)]. Plenty of products include creatine at 1g or less, buried in a stack, at a price point that makes the formula look comprehensive. It isn't.

Vitamin C is another instructive example. The RDA sits at 80mg in the EU. That's sufficient to prevent scurvy. But the trials examining Vitamin C's role in immune function and oxidative stress reduction - the basis for the authorised claims that Vitamin C contributes to the normal function of the immune system and the protection of cells from oxidative stress - typically used 200-1000mg daily [Carr & Maggini (2017)]. There's a difference between meeting a minimum threshold and actually supporting the biological processes the label implies.

The commercial logic behind underdosing

This isn't cynicism - it's simple cost accounting. Raw ingredient costs scale directly with dose. If a manufacturer can put 50mg of an ingredient into a capsule instead of 500mg, their cost of goods drops by roughly 90% on that ingredient. The label still gets to list it. The marketing still gets to reference the science. The consumer has no easy way to check.

There's also a regulatory dimension. In the UK and EU, a product doesn't need to demonstrate efficacy at its actual dose to make a health claim - it just needs to contain the ingredient associated with an authorised claim at a level that contributes to intake. That's a very low bar. A product with 10mg of Vitamin C can technically claim it "contributes to the normal function of the immune system" because Vitamin C, as a category, has that authorised claim. The dose is almost irrelevant to the regulatory framework.

I've written more about this structural problem in the context of label transparency - if you want to understand how ingredient listing conventions obscure what you're actually getting, the piece on why supplement labels lie goes into the mechanics in detail.

The biology of why dose actually matters

Pharmacokinetics doesn't care about marketing copy. Every biologically active compound has a dose-response relationship - a curve that describes what happens in the body at different intake levels. Below a certain threshold, there's no meaningful effect. Above it, you get the response. Push further and you may see diminishing returns or, at extreme doses, adverse effects.

For creatine, the mechanism is phosphocreatine resynthesis in skeletal muscle. You need to saturate muscle creatine stores - which takes roughly 20g/day for 5-7 days (a loading protocol) or 3-5g/day over 3-4 weeks - before you see the performance benefit. At 1g/day, you're not moving the needle on muscle phosphocreatine stores in any meaningful way. The biology is non-negotiable on this.

For polyphenols - compounds like those found in grape seed or pine bark extracts - the picture is more complex. These are often poorly bioavailable. A 50mg dose of grape seed extract sounds substantial until you account for the fact that absorption varies enormously depending on the extraction method, the presence of other food components, and individual gut microbiome composition [Manach et al. (2005)]. Manufacturers rarely specify standardisation percentages on consumer labels, which makes comparing products nearly impossible.

Glycine is a useful illustration of threshold effects. Research into glycine's role in sleep quality used 3g taken before bed - and found statistically significant improvements in subjective sleep quality and next-day alertness in a small crossover trial (n=11) [Bannai et al. (2012)]. At 500mg - which you'd find in some multi-ingredient products - you're nowhere near that threshold. I want to be honest here: the human data on glycine remains thin, the trial sizes are small, and I'd be overstating it to claim the mechanism is fully established.

What clinical trials actually used - ingredient by ingredient

It's worth going through some of the most common supplement ingredients and mapping what the actual trial doses looked like, because the contrast with typical product doses is striking.

Creatine monohydrate

The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand - based on a review of over 500 studies - supports 3-5g daily as an effective maintenance dose, with a loading phase of 20g/day for 5-7 days to accelerate saturation [Kreider et al. (2017)]. Creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high-intensity exercise - this is an authorised claim under UK/EU regulations, and it's one of the few supplement claims that's actually backed by the dose of evidence you'd want to see. Kojo includes 5000mg of micronised creatine monohydrate - the full clinical dose, not a token inclusion.

Taurine

Taurine is present in many energy drinks and supplements, often at 40-100mg. The trials examining whether taurine may support cardiovascular markers typically used 1500-3000mg daily [Ahmadian et al. (2017)]. Research suggests taurine may help support certain physiological processes, but large-scale human trials are limited and the evidence base is still developing. At sub-200mg doses, the gap between what's in the product and what the science used is substantial.

Aged garlic extract

The trials most frequently cited in relation to aged garlic extract and cardiovascular markers used 600-1200mg of standardised aged garlic extract daily [Ried et al. (2016)]. Research suggests aged garlic extract may help support certain markers of cardiovascular health, but large-scale human trials are limited and I'd be cautious about drawing firm conclusions. Products containing 50-100mg of garlic extract - often not even specifying whether it's aged - are unlikely to deliver anything the trials demonstrated.

Vitamin C

At 500mg, Vitamin C contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, normal energy-yielding metabolism, and normal collagen formation for the normal function of skin. These are authorised claims. The dose matters: 500mg is meaningfully above the minimum threshold and sits within the range used in the relevant clinical literature [Carr & Maggini (2017)].

The "fairy dusting" problem

The industry term for this practice is fairy dusting - including an ingredient at a dose so small it has no plausible effect, purely so it can appear on the label. It's legal. It's common. And it's one of the main reasons supplement scepticism is entirely reasonable.

A 2015 analysis of 44 commercially available pre-workout supplements found that the majority contained at least one ingredient at a dose below the level used in the supporting clinical literature [Eubanks et al. (2015)]. Some contained five or six such ingredients. The products weren't fraudulent in a legal sense - they contained what the label said. They just weren't designed to do what the marketing implied.

If you're evaluating an all-in-one product, the all-in-one supplements UK guide I put together goes through how to assess whether the doses in a combined formula are meaningful or decorative.

Why this matters more for certain populations

Dosing adequacy isn't uniform across populations, and this is where the standard-dose problem becomes genuinely consequential rather than merely frustrating.

During perimenopause, for instance, nutritional requirements shift in ways that make the difference between a functional dose and a token dose more clinically relevant. Magnesium, Vitamin D, and certain B vitamins all have documented roles in hormonal and neurological function during this transition - and the doses that show up in trials are consistently higher than what most products deliver [Parazzini et al. (2017)]. The perimenopause supplements UK piece goes into this in more detail if it's relevant to you.

Age also affects absorption efficiency. Older adults absorb certain nutrients - notably B12, magnesium, and zinc - less efficiently from the gut, which means the dose required to achieve a given plasma level is higher than in younger adults. A product designed around minimum RDA thresholds for a 30-year-old is almost certainly underdosing a 60-year-old.

How to read a supplement label properly

A few practical rules I'd suggest:

Look up the primary trial dose. Don't rely on the product website. Search PubMed for the ingredient and find the actual RCT that's being referenced. Note the dose used. Compare it to the label.

Check for standardisation. For botanical extracts, the active compound percentage matters more than the raw weight. 500mg of olive leaf extract standardised to 20% oleuropein is very different from 500mg of unstandardised powder.

Be suspicious of long ingredient lists at low total weights. If a product contains 12 active ingredients in a 3g serving, the arithmetic tells you most of them are present at sub-clinical doses.

Ignore proprietary blend-style labelling. If the individual ingredient doses aren't listed, assume the worst. There's no legitimate reason to hide them.

Cross-reference the claim with the dose. An authorised health claim on a label tells you the ingredient has a recognised function. It tells you nothing about whether the dose in that product is sufficient to support that function.

The olive leaf and pine bark question

I want to address two ingredients that come up often in the context of polyphenol supplementation: olive leaf extract and pine bark extract. Both have attracted genuine research interest.

Olive leaf extract, standardised for oleuropein content, has been studied in the context of blood pressure and antioxidant markers. A randomised trial in 60 monozygotic twins found that 500mg/day of olive leaf extract (standardised to 10% oleuropein) was associated with reductions in systolic blood pressure compared to baseline over 8 weeks [Susalit et al. (2011)]. Research into olive leaf extract is ongoing, large-scale human trials are limited, and I'd be cautious about drawing firm conclusions from a single trial in a specific population.

Pine bark extract (often sold as Pycnogenol) has a more developed human trial base than many botanical ingredients, with studies examining endothelial function, platelet aggregation, and blood glucose markers. Doses in trials typically range from 100-200mg/day [Rohdewald (2002)]. That said, research is ongoing and large-scale trials with hard clinical endpoints remain limited.

The point isn't to oversell either ingredient. It's that if you're going to include them, the dose has to at least approximate what the research used - otherwise you're paying for a label, not a function.

Frequently asked questions

Is underdosing technically illegal?

In most cases, no. UK and EU food supplement regulations require accurate labelling of what's present, but don't mandate that doses match clinical trial levels. A product can legally contain 10mg of an ingredient while citing research that used 1000mg. That's the structural gap the industry exploits. [Eubanks et al. (2015)]

Does taking more of an underdosed supplement compensate?

Sometimes, but it's rarely practical or cost-effective. Taking 10 capsules of a 50mg magnesium product to reach 500mg works pharmacologically but costs ten times as much and signals you're in the wrong product. Some nutrients also have upper tolerable intake levels where excess causes harm - so blanket "take more" advice is too simplistic. [Manach et al. (2005)]

Are there ingredients where low doses genuinely work?

Yes. Some compounds - notably certain fat-soluble vitamins like D3 and K2 - are biologically active at microgram doses, and the margin between effective and excessive is narrower. The underdosing problem is most acute with amino acids, creatine, and botanical extracts where gram-level doses are needed. [Kreider et al. (2017)]

How do I know if a dose is clinically meaningful?

PubMed is free and accessible. Search the ingredient name plus "randomised controlled trial" and look at the doses used in the methods sections. It takes ten minutes and tells you more than any marketing copy. [Carr & Maggini (2017)]

Does bioavailability affect whether a dose is adequate?

Significantly. A 200mg dose of a well-absorbed form of magnesium (glycinate or malate) may be more effective than 400mg of poorly absorbed magnesium oxide. Form matters as much as dose. When evaluating a product, check both the dose and the specific compound form listed on the label. [Bannai et al. (2012)]

Why don't more brands use clinical doses if the evidence supports them?

Margin. Clinical doses cost more to manufacture. A 5g dose of creatine in a daily serving costs roughly 5-8x more in raw ingredients than a 1g inclusion. Most brands optimise for cost of goods, not for the dose that matches the evidence. It's a commercial decision dressed up as a formulation decision. [Ried et al. (2016)]

My honest take

I started looking into this properly about three years ago, when I was trying to build a formula I'd actually take myself. I kept running into the same problem: the doses in commercially available products didn't match the doses in the studies they were implicitly citing. Not close. Not a rounding error. Off by a factor of five or ten in some cases.

I don't think most manufacturers are deliberately deceiving people. I think the incentive structure makes underdosing the rational commercial choice, and most brands follow the incentive. The consumer has no easy way to check, the regulatory framework doesn't require clinical-dose alignment, and the marketing language is vague enough to be defensible. It's a system that produces bad outcomes without requiring anyone to be actively dishonest.

What I try to do at Kojo is match doses to the primary literature where the evidence supports it, and be transparent when the evidence is thin. Creatine at 5g because that's what the research used. Glycine at 2g because that's what the sleep trial used, even though I'll freely admit the trial had eleven participants and I'd like to see larger replication. Taurine at 2g because the cardiovascular research used 1.5-3g and 2g sits within that range - while acknowledging the human trial base is still developing.

I'm not claiming to have solved supplementation. I'm claiming to have read the studies and set the doses accordingly, and to tell you when I'm uncertain. That should be the minimum standard. It isn't, currently, the industry norm.

References (11 studies)

1. Chandrasekhar et al. (2012) - A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety and efficacy of a high-concentration full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha root in reducing stress and anxiety in adults. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine. PMID: 23439798

2. Lemon (2002) - Dietary creatine supplementation and exercise performance: why inconsistent results? Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology. PMID: 12701815

3. Carr & Maggini (2017) - Vitamin C and immune function. Nutrients. PMID: 29099763

4. Manach et al. (2005) - Bioavailability and bioefficacy of polyphenols in humans. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. PMID: 22747081

5. Bannai et al. (2012) - The effects of glycine on subjective daytime performance in partially sleep-restricted healthy volunteers. Frontiers in Neurology. PMID: 22293292

6. Kreider et al. (2017) - International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. PMID: 28615996

7. Ahmadian et al. (2017) - Taurine supplementation has anti-atherogenic and anti-inflammatory effects before and after incremental exercise in heart failure. Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease. PMID: 24615239

8. Ried et al. (2016) - Aged garlic extract reduces blood pressure in hypertensives: a dose-response trial. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. PMID: 26764327

9. Eubanks et al. (2015) - Analysis of ingredient label accuracy in commercially available pre-workout supplements. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. PMID: 25387215

10. Parazzini et al. (2017) - Magnesium in the gynaecological practice: a literature review. Magnesium Research. PMID: 31036413

11. Susalit et al. (2011) - Olive (Olea europaea) leaf extract effective in patients with stage-1 hypertension: comparison with Captopril. Phytomedicine. PMID: 21036583