How to read this ranking

Each row counts how many distinct dietary supplement product labels in the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) declare the listed ingredient at any amount. The ranking is a measure of prevalence in the US supplement market, not a measure of efficacy, safety, bioavailability, or quality. Ingredients that show up in more products are simply more common in formulations , they may be there because they are well-studied, because they are inexpensive, because they are required by FDA labeling rules in certain product types, or because they appear in many multi-ingredient blends as fillers or supporting compounds.

Counts include both currently on-market and historical (off-market) labels, the DSLD preserves discontinued labels for research and historical lookup. Click any ingredient name to see its NIH ODS dosing context (RDA, UL, IU↔mcg conversion, drug interactions, pregnancy notes) plus the full list of products containing that ingredient.

Why prevalence varies across categories

Vitamins and minerals tend to dominate the ranking because nearly every multivitamin contains at least the eight or nine major ones (vitamins A, C, D, E, K, B-complex, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron). Botanicals appear less often per category but show much wider category diversity, there are thousands of distinct botanical ingredients used across the market, each appearing in a smaller number of specialized formulas. Excipients (cellulose, magnesium stearate, gelatin, microcrystalline cellulose, silicon dioxide) also rank highly because they are required functional components of capsules, tablets, and powder formulations, their presence is a manufacturing fact, not a nutritional one.

For meaningful comparisons, treat the prevalence count as one signal among many. A vitamin appearing in 70% of multivitamins tells you it is a market default, not that it is right for any individual person. Always check the dosing context on the per-ingredient page (linked above) and consult a healthcare provider before starting any supplement. The methodology page documents how ingredient names are normalized and aggregated.