Supplements Database

A herb contains dozens or hundreds of compounds in proportions determined by the plant.

A supplement is usually much narrower: a defined nutrient, molecule, extract, or chemical form given at a measurable dose.

That makes supplements easier to study.

You can usually say exactly what was taken, how much was taken, and whether the same dose can be repeated.

It also means the dose can move far beyond what would ever occur naturally in food or a plant.

An isolated compound at 100 times its natural concentration shouldn’t automatically inherit the safety profile of the plant it came from.

Whole herbs have their own advantage.

Their constituents occur together, and those combinations can change absorption, metabolism, tolerance, and overall effect.

Neither form is inherently better.

They’re simply different kinds of medicine and need to be judged differently.

“Magnesium” isn’t one product.

Magnesium citrate, magnesium glycinate, and magnesium L-threonate all supply magnesium, but they differ in absorption, gastrointestinal effects, cost, and the claims made for them.

The same problem appears with many supplements.

25 pages cover different forms of 5 parent compounds.

The parent page explains the substance itself.

The form page explains what changes when you switch salts, chelates, esters, or delivery forms.

For many supplements, the form is just as important as the dose.

A stack is the other case where one label covers several substances. ZMA is zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6 in a single tablet, so what it does — and who it helps — depends on all three.

Some compounds sit in a grey area between supplements, research chemicals, and drugs.

This database includes pages for 39 of them because people are already using and searching for them.

But they aren’t listed alongside ordinary nutrients and supplements when their regulatory status or safety record is fundamentally different.

That includes 28 research chemicals, 6 compounds still in clinical development, and 5 drugs approved in some countries but not others.

If something is mostly discussed on forums rather than sold as an ordinary nutrient, check what category it actually belongs to before treating it like a supplement.

The most reliable supplement effects are usually the simplest ones: correcting a genuine deficiency.

Iron works when iron is deficient. Vitamin B12 works when B12 is deficient. Vitamin D is most useful when vitamin D status is low.

Once nutritional sufficiency is reached, taking more often produces much smaller returns.

Sometimes it produces none.

And with fat-soluble vitamins and several minerals, excessive intake can cause harm.

The evidence becomes less predictable as the claims move away from deficiency correction.

Nootropics are a good example — 28 of the 104 compounds here carry that tag, the largest group on the page.

Many have interesting mechanisms, animal data, or early human studies, but far fewer have strong evidence for meaningful cognitive improvement in healthy people.

That doesn’t mean the compound does nothing.

It means the claim needs to match the evidence behind it.

Each supplement page separates mechanism, human evidence, dose, and practical use so you can see where that line sits.

• Plant Constituents — browse the same molecules as components of medicinal plants.
• Nootropics — compounds used for cognition, memory, focus, and mental performance.
• Peptides — peptide compounds and related research.
• Explore the Herbs — the whole-plant side of the site.
• Conditions — start with the problem rather than the compound.