The Supp Digest | Urolithin A - When Promising Nutrients Meet Questionable Products
Welcome to The Digest, your guide to key insights and updates across the SuppCo community.
In this series, we dig into the fascinating (and anonymous) trends SuppCo sees from our unique vantage point to help you make sense of supplements.
Our latest SuppCo Tested report delivered some eye-opening results: 6 out of 10 Urolithin A products we put through rigorous third-party testing contained little-to-no Urolithin A despite bold label claims promising meaningful doses.
In this issue of The Digest, we’re digging into how the SuppCo community is approaching this promising, but problematic nutrient category.
Want to see all the details of our Urolithin A testing? You can find our full SuppCo Tested report here.
Urolithin A: The Cellular Powerhouse
Urolithin A has been making waves in longevity circles for good reason. This metabolite, derived from compounds found in pomegranates and berries, has shown impressive potential for supporting mitochondrial health and cellular energy production.
The research is particularly compelling around muscle function and endurance. Studies suggest Urolithin A may help maintain muscle strength as we age by promoting mitophagy—a process that replaces damaged mitochondria with fresh, energy-efficient ones.
It's why Urolithin A appears as a key nutrient in two of Dr. Mark Hyman's Expert Protocols: Essential Longevity Support and Mitochondria Support. When one of the world's leading functional medicine practitioners includes a nutrient in protocols focused on healthy aging, you know it's worth paying attention to.
But here's where things get tricky: Urolithin A is notoriously expensive to manufacture. We're talking about a nutrient that can cost supplement companies hundreds of dollars per kilogram of raw material. This creates a perfect storm for what we've unfortunately discovered: brands making big promises on labels while cutting corners on actual ingredient levels.
An Emerging Category with Big Problems
The SuppCo numbers tell the story of just how new Urolithin A is to the supplement scene. Despite all the buzz, just 84 of the over 230,000 products in the SuppCo database contain Urolithin A. That's a microscopic 0.04% of all products.
Yet these 84 products have found their way into 5,856 SuppCo user stacks, representing about 2.3% of our community. For such a new category, that adoption rate suggests serious interest from supplement optimizers who are willing to invest in cutting-edge longevity research.
When it comes to product popularity, three brands dominate the Urolithin A landscape among SuppCo users.
Timeline leads the pack with their highly studied Mitopure Urolithin A appearing in over 3,100 stacks. Timeline has invested heavily in clinical research, and it shows in both their product quality and their popularity among our community.
IM8 follows with both 1,300 stacks containing either their Daily Ultimate Essentials or Daily Ultimate Longevity, both of which contain Urolithin A in proprietary blends (exact Urolithin A levels not disclosed).
Pure Encapsulations rounds out the top three with their Renual Urolithin A product appearing in 540 stacks.
Here's the good news: both Timeline and Pure Encapsulations passed our rigorous SuppCo testing, fully delivering on their label promises (IM8 was not tested in our report).
The concerning news? Many of the products that failed our testing also enjoy relatively high popularity in this emerging category.
To put the following numbers in perspective: less than 1% of all products in the SuppCo database appear in more than 100 user stacks, and less than 3.5% appear in more than 25 stacks.
Three of the 6 Urolithin A products that failed SuppCo testing clear that 25-stack popularity threshold.
CystoRebalance with 200 stacks
Totaria Health with 40 stacks
Pepeior with 40 stacks
That means hundreds of SuppCo users are potentially paying premium prices for products that aren't delivering what's promised on the label.
Making Sense of Supplements in an Imperfect World
Our mission at SuppCo has always been to take the guesswork out of supplements, and categories like Urolithin A are exactly why this work matters.
Through our SuppCo Tested series, we'll continue to shine a light on product categories where the risk of products missing their label claims runs high.
For products we haven't yet put through the SuppCo Tested program, TrustScore remains your most reliable guide for finding quality supplements. When you see a high TrustScore, you can feel confident that the product features high-quality ingredients that have undergone rigorous manufacturing and testing standards.
The supplement world will continue to grow and expand. New nutrients backed by exciting research will emerge, and unfortunately, so will brands looking to capitalize on that excitement without doing the hard work of actually formulating quality products.
That's where we come in. Whether it's through comprehensive testing, transparent scoring, or expert-curated protocols, SuppCo is here to help you navigate this ever-expanding landscape with confidence.
When it comes to your health and your hard-earned money, you deserve supplements that actually deliver on their promises.
Call for Topics
Do you have topics or trends you'd like to see covered in this newsletter? Drop us a note at support@supp.co.
Fresh Additions
Here are a few brands we've added TrustScores for recently that offer longevity-focused products:
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