What is in a supplement, and is that a lot?
Look up any of the 116,682 products in the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database (214,780 labels, version 9.4.0): every amount on the label is set against every other product that lists the same ingredient, the FDA Daily Value and the adult upper limit.
- Products on file
- 116,682214,780 labels: sizes, designs and versions
- On the market
- 92,07079% of products, at the January 2026 release
- Brands
- 5,741letter case and punctuation folded
Where do supplement amounts sit?
Each capsule is the middle half of the amounts products list per serving; the line in it is the median, the whiskers the 10th and 90th percentiles. The green tick is the FDA Daily Value, the red dashed tick the adult upper limit.
- Vitamin Dmedian 15 mcg across 14,175 products
- Vitamin Cmedian 100 mg across 18,583 products
- Vitamin B12median 36 mcg across 14,425 products
- Magnesiummedian 86 mg across 14,003 products
- Zincmedian 11 mg across 13,186 products
- Ironmedian 5 mg across 6,910 products
- Calciummedian 115 mg across 17,831 products
- Vitamin B6median 6 mg across 15,277 products
Source: NIH ODS Dietary Supplement Label Database version 9.4.0 (current labels); Daily Values 21 CFR 101.9; upper limits Institute of Medicine (2011).
What have we found in the labels?
- Supplement labels above the adult upper limit, nutrient by nutrientWhich nutrients most often pass the adult Tolerable Upper Intake Level at the most servings a label allows, and on which products.
- How supplement amounts compare with the Daily ValueFor each nutrient with an FDA Daily Value: the amount the typical product lists per serving, and how many products give five times the DV or more.
- Proprietary blends: how many supplement labels do not disclose their amountsHow many products list a proprietary blend whose ingredient amounts are not disclosed, by product type and by brand.
- Vitamin D amounts on supplement labels, by yearHow the amount of vitamin D per serving has moved on labels entered into the NIH database each year since 2011.
- Which forms of magnesium, B12, folate and other nutrients supplements useOxide or glycinate, cyanocobalamin or methylcobalamin: how many products list each form of twelve nutrients, and at what amounts.
- Gummies, tablets, capsules: how amounts differ by physical formThe median amount per serving of ten common nutrients in gummies, tablets, capsules, softgels, liquids and powders.