Emailing other brands to check magnesium purity
Is our transparency truly different? We thought we should check.
We emailed 3 leading magnesium brands to learn about how they determine the purity and identity of their magnesium bisglycinate.
Reminder: Purity refers to an absence of foreign materials in a supplement. Namely heavy metals and microbials. Identity is the chemical composition of the supplement.
A transparent supplement company would have: An NMR lab result that verifies the identity of magnesium bisglycinate. This is because an NMR spectroscopy can isolate and identify magnesium bisglycinate vs. other forms of magnesium.
They wouldn't just have an ICP-MS test for elemental magnesium at the raw material level. The ICP-MS test only tests for elemental magnesium - not whether that is in the form of magnesium bisglycinate, or oxide, or any other form.
And not just a "Certificate" of Analysis from the Raw Material Supplier with no test results verifying the claims from the "Certificate" of Analysis. Raw material suppliers can literally make these up...and without a test to verify its accuracy, it is worthless.
Inclusion of the words "3rd Party Tested" on a website or on the label mean nothing without the actual evidence to back this up. Let's dive into why...
Here's what happened when we emailed these top magnesium brands. We'll provide our evaluation:
Magnesium Brand #1
Highlights: Has test results linked to batches and insisted on that for the verification. This means they likely have strong internal controls around batch purity.
Lowlights: Only has ICP-MS test for elemental magnesium. Not magnesium bisglycinate identity. There could be anywhere between 0% and 100% of the elemental magnesium as magnesium bisgylcinate. Most likely it is 50-85% - but without an NMR Test, this cannot be firmly concluded. Ergo, you don't know what you're paying for or putting in your body for sure.
When pressed for identity testing methods: We're still waiting to hear back from them. We will update if we receive it.
Magnesium Brand #2
Highlights: Responded to our email quickly.
Lowlights: Has a generic Certificate of Analysis - so the "transparency" could be linked to any batch. Also: Only has ICP-MS test for elemental magnesium. Not magnesium bisglycinate identity. There could be anywhere between 0% and 100% of the elemental magnesium as magnesium bisgylciante. Most likely it is 50-85% - but without an NMR Test, this cannot be firmly concluded. Ergo, you don't know what you're paying for or putting in your body for sure.
When pressed for identity testing methods: They told us their internal testing is proprietary. In other words, "we should just trust them".
Here is their response. Scan for transparency and accountability.
Why is an internal testing method proprietary? A quick Google or ChatGPT search reveals that an NMR spectroscopy is the main way to validate the identity of magnesium bisglycinate. This should be the test they perform and make public. Why are they so opposed?
Magnesium Brand #3
Highlights: Responded to our email quickly with helpful context.
Lowlights: Did not provide an Certificate of analysis. This raises the question of how important batch quality control really is internally. We can't even analyze it to understand how much purity or identity analysis they do.
When pressed for identity testing methods: We are waiting on their response. We will update if we receive it.
Conclusion
We won't be calling out the specific brands because that's not how we want to build our own. We wanted to write this article so that magnesium takers can get a lay of the land and learn what questions to ask.
Now, if you don't want to go through that trouble, you can go ahead and see what we put in our capsules. We're now confident that we're the only company doing that.
We don't believe that showing the identity of raw materials is proprietary. We believe that it is the customer's right to know. So that's why we make it as easy as possible for our customers to scan the QR code of their bottle lid to see exactly what's inside.