The label

The supplement facts panel transcribed row by row, beside the photograph it was transcribed from.

7 declared entries665.5 mg declaredNo proprietary blend

Supplement Facts

Serving Size: 1 Capsule
Servings Per Container: 30

Amount Per Serving%DV

Niacin7.5 mg NE47%

Calcium(as Calcium Carbonate)18 mg1.5%

L-Arginine(base)200 mg**

L-Arginine AKG 2:1Extract200 mg**

L-Citrulline HCL100 mg**

L-Citrulline Malate100 mg**

Beta Alanine40 mg**

** Daily Value (DV) not established.Other Ingredients: Hypromellose (Vegetable Capsule), Vegetable Stearate, Silicon Dioxide.

Transcribed line for line from the carton photographed above. If a figure here ever disagrees with the bottle in your hand, the bottle is right and we want to know.

AS A TABLE

The same seven, sortable by eye

Each name links to a page about that entry: what it is, what it is doing here and where it turns up in ordinary food.

Serving size one capsule. Thirty servings a container.
Declared as	Per capsule	Daily value	Kind
L-Arginine (base)	200 mg	no daily value established	Amino acid
L-Arginine AKG 2:1 Extract	200 mg	no daily value established	Amino acid salt
L-Citrulline HCL	100 mg	no daily value established	Amino acid salt
L-Citrulline Malate	100 mg	no daily value established	Amino acid salt
Beta Alanine	40 mg	no daily value established	Amino acid
Niacin	7.5 mg NE	47% of the daily value	Vitamin B3
Calcium (as Calcium Carbonate)	18 mg	1.5% of the daily value	Mineral

Adding it up

Niacin 7.5, calcium 18, arginine 200, arginine AKG 200, citrulline HCL 100, citrulline malate 100, beta alanine 40. Six hundred and sixty-five and a half milligrams of declared material in a capsule.

Six hundred of that is arginine and citrulline. Forty is beta alanine. The remaining twenty-five and a half is the two nutrients with daily values. If you want a one-sentence description of this product, that is it, and you can derive it yourself from the panel without taking anyone’s word for anything.

What the other ingredients are

Hypromellose is the capsule shell, a plant cellulose used instead of gelatine. Vegetable stearate is a lubricant that stops powder welding itself to the filling machinery. Silicon dioxide keeps the powder flowing. None of the three is an active and none is there to bulk the capsule out.

The front of the carton.

QUESTIONS

Reading the panel

What does the double asterisk mean?

That no daily value has been established for that ingredient. It is not a warning and not a footnote about quality; it simply means the authorities have never set a reference intake for it, which is the normal state of affairs for amino acids.

What is NE after the niacin figure?

Niacin equivalents. Your body can make niacin from the amino acid tryptophan, so intake is expressed in a unit that accounts for both sources. Sixty milligrams of tryptophan counts as one milligram NE.

Why is calcium described as calcium carbonate?

Because the label has to name the compound the mineral arrives in, not just the element. Calcium carbonate is chalk, and eighteen milligrams of calcium means rather more than eighteen milligrams of the carbonate went into the capsule.

What is silicon dioxide doing in there?

Keeping powder flowing. Fine powders clump and bridge inside a filling machine, and a tiny amount of silica stops that happening. It is inert and it is in most capsules you have ever taken.

Is there a proprietary blend?

No, and it is the single most useful thing about this panel. Every declared entry carries its own figure, so you can add them up, compare them with other bottles and form your own view.

THE FORMULA

Seven entries, seven amounts

Every declared item on this label carries its own printed figure. There is no proprietary blend hiding the split, so each one can be read, checked and argued with. Each has a page here.