How to Read a Cognitive Supplement Label

Cognitive supplements are among the easiest products to dress up, because the ingredient names sound impressive on their own. These four checks cut through most of it.

1. Is every amount stated?

Find the Supplement Facts panel and check that each ingredient carries a figure. If several are grouped under an invented name — a "proprietary cognitive blend" — with one combined weight, you cannot know how much of anything is present.

Proprietary blends are common in this category specifically because the ingredient names carry the marketing weight. A blend can contain a generous amount of the cheapest item and a trace of the expensive one, and the label reads identically either way.

2. Are extracts standardised?

Look for a percentage in brackets after an extract name — bacoside content for Bacopa, flavone glycoside and terpene lactone content for ginkgo. That converts a weight into a known amount of the compound research actually studies.

Where you see only a ratio like 10:1, you can work out how much raw plant it represents but not what the extract contains.

3. Does the dose match the research?

Multiply out the amounts and compare them against what studies on that ingredient used. This single check eliminates a large share of products, because many contain recognisable ingredients at fractions of studied amounts.

4. What does the front of the bottle claim?

Language matters here in a way that tells you about the whole operation.

Permitted: supports memory, helps maintain focus, supports normal cognitive function. These are structure/function claims about healthy people.

Not permitted: treats, prevents or reverses any condition. Anything referencing dementia or Alzheimer's as something the product addresses has crossed a clear line.

Also worth noting: "FDA approved" on a supplement is not a real status. No dietary supplement is FDA approved. A product may be made in an FDA registered facility, which describes premises. A brand that gets this wrong on the front of its bottle is telling you how carefully the rest was written.

The two-minute version

• Every ingredient has a number, or it is a blend and you cannot assess it
• Extracts state a standardisation percentage
• Amounts are comparable to the research
• Claims stay on the right side of the disease line, and "FDA approved" appears nowhere