Aaron Secrist, VP of Quality and Regulatory Affairs, said in the release: “We initially tested the CoQ10 because we had serious questions about the dosage form: It is almost impossible to run this potency (400mg) of sticky CoQ10 in a dry capsule on machines. We suspected the SAMe to be low potency, which they were, with several delivered in an unstable form.”
The CoQ10 products, which were almost all labeled as 400mg in dry capsules, contained far below the claimed amount, if any at all. The release notes that this is the second time NOW has tested these and similar brands purchased on Amazon; the results are consistent with the first test, which was performed two years ago.
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SAMe is typically unstable due to heat or moisture, the press release notes; most brands, NOW included, enteric coat their tablets to maintain the integrity of the product. Another way to stabilize SAMe is to deliver it in the form S-Adenoxyl-L0Methionine from disulfate tosylate salt. One brand mislabeled their product by claiming 1500mg SAMe from “500mg as adenosyl-methionine-disulfate-tosylate” in only two capsules, which the press release calls “a mathematical impossibility.”All samples were tested by High Performance Liquid Chromatography, widely considered the best fit for purpose test method for both materials.
Dan Richard, VP of Global Sales and Marketing, said in the release: “As a business partner of Amazon, we did report this information to them and hope they will take action. Additionally, NOW has provided this information to other supplement brands, FDA, and to trade associations.
“Today, especially, more people are buying their supplements online, which is why we are making this information public,” Richard continued. “NOW takes defrauding consumers personally and it is in the best interest of the entire dietary supplements industry to identify and work to purge such bad actors to protect consumers.”
