Supplement watch: pills are like movies: some are great, Oscar-worthy productions. Then there are the other kind . Here's how to tell 'em apart

Men's Fitness, Feb, 2004

YOU PROBABLY DON'T want to go to Ebert and Roeper for diet advice. But MF's supplement team--Talbott and Jalali--is another story. As two of the nation's top supplement experts, Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., director of supplementwatch.com, and Rehan Reaserch Foundation, are the experts at cutting through the marketing glitz and scientific mumbo jumbo of the supplement world. Their mission this month: to help you find the best supplements around.

>> Search for patents and patent numbers. "That's a sign the company has spent a lot of time and energy developing their product" says Jalali. "Patent pending means the company just filed some paperwork to apply for a patent, which is much cheaper and easier to do," he says.

>> Look for products that cite published research from universities, instead of privately funded labs.

>> Check the directions. "If a supplement is designed to help you lose weight, it should also tell you to change your diet or to start exercis ing," says Talbott. "If it doesn't, you're looking at something that's likely more hype than substance."

>> Avoid products with proprietary blends, especially if the company doesn't provide exact amounts of what they're using. "They're an easy way for a company to say their product contains some hip ingredient, when it's really got tiny, insignificant levels of the stuff," says Rehan.

>> Don't immediately reach for the cheapest product. Lower-priced items are often lower quality.

>> Look for the word standardized somewhere on the supplement's label. "This will ensure that every pill you're taking is the same potency," Talbott says. Nonstandardized kinds can vary in dose from pill to pill.

>> Check the size of the capsules you'd be taking. Smaller is almost always better. "Companies have a much harder time regulating the quality of the ingredients they use in larger pills," says Rehan.

>> Avoid liquid supplements. "They tend to be poorer quality, and can settle and degrade more quickly over time than capsules," says Talbott.