Investigation · 2 min read
Two Ingredient Lists, One Product, Four Names Apart
Where two sources disagree, this site follows the artwork and records the disagreement. Here that rule produces an uncomfortable answer.
On the artwork: L-Arginine HCl, ashwagandha root, horny goat weed, Tribulus terrestris, maca root extract, Panax ginseng.
In the written pack: those six, plus L-Citrulline, fenugreek extract, zinc and vitamin D3.
Zinc and vitamin D3 both carry Daily Values. A Supplement Facts panel must declare ingredients with Daily Values separately, by weight, with a percentage beside them.
So the two ingredients a panel is most obliged to show are the two that appear only in prose.
The lists, side by side
Two lists, one product
The product's own graphics name six ingredients. The written pack that came with them names ten. This site does not merge the two into a tidy ten, because merging them would hide the thing worth seeing: the four that appear in prose and on no artwork include both of the ingredients that carry Daily Values — which are exactly the two a Supplement Facts panel is obliged to break out by weight.
On the product's own artwork
INSIDE ALPHAEREC · HOW ALPHAEREC WORKS
- 01L-Arginine HCl
- 02Ashwagandha Root
- 03Horny Goat Weed
- 04Tribulus Terrestris
- 05Maca Root Extract
- 06Panax Ginseng
In the written pack
the supplied brief, in prose
- 01L-Arginine HCl
- 02Ashwagandha root
- 03Horny Goat Weed
- 04Tribulus Terrestris
- 05Maca root extract
- 06Panax Ginseng
- 07L-Citrullinenamed here only
- 08Fenugreek extractnamed here only
- 09Zincnamed here only · has a Daily Value
- 10Vitamin D3named here only · has a Daily Value
Where two sources disagree, this site follows the artwork and records the disagreement, which is the house rule. Here that rule produces an uncomfortable answer: the artwork's list is the shorter one, and it is the one this site has to treat as authoritative until a photograph of the back of the bottle settles it.
Why this is not a small discrepancy
A marketing graphic showing six of ten ingredients is ordinary. Nobody fits ten hexagons round a bottle. If the four missing names were four more botanicals, this would be a footnote.
They are not. Two of them are a mineral and a vitamin with established Daily Values and established upper intake levels — 40 mg a day for zinc, 100 micrograms a day for vitamin D. Those are the two ingredients in the whole formula where the amount has a consequence a reader can act on, and they are the two with no document behind them at all.
Still deciding?
The two numbers to hold on to: 60 days to ask for your money back, and the seller's own many wait 90 days
before the product can be judged. The third number is the one that is missing — how much of anything is in the gummy.
Where to buy itThe 60-day window
- Ten ingredients named, none with an amount
- No Supplement Facts panel was supplied to this site
- U.S. stocking partner for Alpha Erec
Prices on this site were supplied with the product pack. The checkout governs, and no delivery date is printed here because none was supplied.
The addition a reader cannot do
If you take a multivitamin, you know what is in it, because a multivitamin declares its zinc and its vitamin D to the milligram and the microgram. You cannot add this gummy to it, because this gummy gives you nothing to add — not a figure, and not even a reliable yes or no on whether the two are in there.
That is the practical cost of the gap. Not that the product is dangerous, but that a reasonable person doing a reasonable sum is stopped at the first step.
Questions
Which list should I believe?
The artwork, until a photograph of the back of the bottle settles it. That is this site's standing rule and it does not bend because the answer is inconvenient.
Could the written pack simply be out of date?
It could. It could also be ahead of the artwork. Neither possibility is a fact and this site prints neither as one.
Does this mean zinc is not in the product?
No. It means nothing supplied to this site shows that it is.
Sources
- 21 CFR 101.36 — Nutrition labeling of dietary supplementsU.S. Electronic Code of Federal RegulationsThe rule that
the label of a dietary supplement that is offered for sale shall bear nutrition labeling in accordance with this regulation
, and the proprietary-blend rules on total weight and descending order of predominance by weight. - Zinc — Consumer Fact SheetNIH Office of Dietary SupplementsThe 11 mg adult male RDA, the 40 mg tolerable upper intake level, and the copper and antibiotic interactions.
- Vitamin D — Consumer Fact SheetNIH Office of Dietary SupplementsThe 15 mcg (600 IU) RDA for men 19 to 70 and the 100 mcg (4,000 IU) tolerable upper intake level for adults.
What this page was checked against
Every figure on it is transcribed from the supplied Supplement Facts panel and checked-out pack, derived by arithmetic from those, or taken from a source on the references page.