8 replies to this topic

[bigsend]

I was wondering if lab-grade chemicals are all right to use for supplementation. I used to take pure lab-grade caffeine, and there are others such as glycine that I would be interested in trying out. The tubs generally announce what proportion of the preparation is heavy metals and other contaminants, and they are all extremely low. I really think some of these supplement companies go ahead and repackage the same chemicals, so in that sense it is cutting out the middleman. Is there any reason why this is a terrible idea, or should I just go for it?

[hamishm00]

I' ve used lab grade ascorbic acid.

Just go for it. We usually have no idea what we're swallowing anyway when we take our supplements. Why slow down now?

[ajnast4r]

We usually have no idea what we're swallowing anyway when we take our supplements.

if you have no idea whats in the supplements youre swallowing then you need to reconsider brands... i know exactly what is in my supplements.

[OneScrewLoose]

I always go to labs when I huff my daily supplemental CL2.

[malbecman]

You still need to check for purity and metal contamination. You can buy ammonium acetate, for instance, as 95% pure, 99%, 99.9 and 99.999% pure. Whats in the less pure products?

Also, most lab supply companies won't sell to individuals. So what is the source for your lab chemicals and how are you paying? If federal grant dollars are paying, then those chemicals are supposed to be for research, not personal use.....

[hamishm00]

if you have no idea whats in the supplements youre swallowing then you need to reconsider brands... i know exactly what is in my supplements.

No, you believe that you know. You don't actually know, unless you test every bottle or batch of powder, you have to rely on what someone else tells you.

Edited by hamishm00, 09 February 2009 - 08:45 AM.

[kismet]

if you have no idea whats in the supplements youre swallowing then you need to reconsider brands... i know exactly what is in my supplements.

No, you believe that you know. You don't actually know, unless you test every bottle or batch of powder, you have to rely on what someone else tells you.

Well, well, little grasshopper, let's extrapolate that thought, even if you test every batch you don't "know", as the measurement may be off, because your tools are incorrectly calibrated and what about statistical fluke? Oh, and can you trust what you see? Maybe even your mind deceives you? What is reality anyway? If you buy lab grade chemicals, you still have to rely on someone's testing (or your own which could be wrong and expensive obviously).
Knowing things for sure is pretty difficult, science has struggled with it for hundreds of years already... the shortcomings of the scientific method are undeniable. Buying from renown resellers is close enough to "knowing" in most cases, though. 

Edited by kismet, 09 February 2009 - 01:39 PM.

[bgwithadd]

Why do you think buying from renowned sellers equates to knowing?

Even in pharmacies where there's far stricter control than supplements by a factor of about a million, plenty of counterfeit or badly stored drugs make their way into circulation. Most of them sold by the big three distributers.

The question with lab quality is...why WOULD it be contaminated? Well?

With vitamin C for example, the process is to use glucose and some enzymes to metabolize it into vitamin C. How can that lead to massive doses of poisons? It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not like they will be making the vitamin C in the same lab they make flouridic acid or there's any reason for glucose to have massive doses of lead and mercury.

People act like supplements are made in some kind of russian gulag where they assemble nuclear devices one day and thermometers the next and supplements in between. They also illogically worry about 'synthetic' production of supplements, but ask yourself - would you rather have a simple process where you take simple ingredients like glucose and some enzymes and yield a product, or else harvest something from god knows where and distill it so any toxins or pesticides will be concentrated 10 or 100 times what they are?

I'm not sure I'd have the guts to order research chemicals just on the off chance something like a drug spilled into the mix somehow and they didn't test because it's research only, but I don''t think in general that people have much to worry about from most supplements. I'd bet you get much more contamination from food than supplements, and the supplements I worry about being contaminated are not the ones made in a vat but the ones grown who knows where or harvested from the wild and then distilled into a potentially toxic extract.

[bigsend]

Yes, I work in a lab, but I also partially fund myself, so there is no conflict there! I can buy the chemicals with my money.

However, no one here has addressed what I find to be a major concern: since lab grade chemicals have such high purity, perhaps other chemicals were used in the purification that are not meant to be ingested. They may only form a small fraction, but they could be potent liver/kidney toxins or carcinogens. For example, phenol and chloroform are used to purify DNA, and I imagine the final product retains traces of those chemicals. This would imply nutritional supplements are less pure but safe for consumption.

Perhaps I should inquire about the specific purification procedures for each individual chemical of interest. Other than that, I assume Sigma's, etc. industrial facilities are clean and not randomly contaminated with arsenic and mercury.