Introduction
A proprietary blend is the single line on a supplement label that tells you the least, and my own flagship formula uses one. If you have read the criticism, you know the concern: a blend hides how much of each ingredient you are getting. That concern is fair, and I will not try to argue you out of it. Below, I set out what a proprietary blend is, what federal labeling rules require, and what independent laboratory research has found. I will also show you what my own label discloses, what it withholds, and what you can check instead.
What Is a Proprietary Blend? A Closer Look
A proprietary blend is a group of dietary ingredients listed together on a Supplement Facts panel under one combined weight. Federal labeling rules allow a company to disclose that total without stating how much of each ingredient the blend contains. The ingredients inside the blend must still be named, in descending order of predominance by weight (Jagim et al., 2019). In other words, the label tells you what is inside and which ingredient weighs the most, but not the individual amounts.
Companies give these groupings many names. You will see "blend," "complex," "matrix," "proprietary formula," or a trademarked name followed by a total in milligrams or grams. Each of these works the same way on the panel, whatever the marketing name suggests. The first skill in reading any label is recognizing that a branded name and a proprietary blend are often the same thing.
The practice is common across the supplement aisle. Among the top 100 commercially available pre-workout supplements, 44.3 percent of listed ingredients sat inside a blend with undisclosed amounts (Jagim et al., 2019). In a separate analysis of 12 products marketed for brain health, seven carried a proprietary blend on the label (Crawford, Boyd, et al., 2020). Blends are routine in brain health products, not an exception.
I learned to read Supplement Facts panels long before I sold a product of my own. Drug-free competitive bodybuilding subjects athletes to drug testing, so an unlisted ingredient in a supplement was a personal risk for me, not an abstraction. That habit of reading the panel first has stayed with me throughout my career as a researcher. It is the habit I want to give you here.
Why Proprietary Blend Supplements Draw Criticism
The central criticism of proprietary blend supplements is that you cannot compare what you are taking with the amount a study used. Researchers reviewing multi-ingredient pre-workout products made this point directly (Harty et al., 2018). They noted that the first ingredient in a blend may dominate it, while others may sit far below the amounts studied. They also noted that blends make direct comparisons between products, or between a product and a single ingredient, difficult or impossible.
The pre-workout analysis showed what that looks like in practice. Across those 100 products, the average amount of beta-alanine per serving fell below the dose the research recommends (Jagim et al., 2019). Beta-alanine is an amino acid with a well-studied dose range in exercise research, which makes it a useful test case. When amounts sit inside a blend, a shopper cannot run that comparison at all.
The second criticism is subtler. A long ingredient list inside a blend can make a product look more complete than it is. Ten names on a panel carry the same visual weight whether each one is present at a meaningful amount or at a trace. I take that criticism seriously since a blend makes those two situations impossible to tell apart from the label alone.
Most pages on this subject end with the same advice, which is to avoid proprietary blends entirely. Many of those pages are written by supplement companies that sell fully disclosed formulas, so the advice also serves their own products. That does not make the criticism wrong. It does mean the more useful question is what a blend can and cannot tell you, and what else you can check.
How to Read a Supplement Label That Lists a Blend
Learning how to read a supplement label starts with the serving size at the top of the Supplement Facts panel. Every amount listed below it applies to that serving, not to a single capsule or scoop unless the serving says so. Next, find any line that gives one weight for a group of ingredients. That line is the blend, and its total is the combined weight of everything named beneath it.
Then read the order of the ingredients inside the blend. The first ingredient weighs the most and the last weighs the least, which gives you a ranking even without amounts. A blend whose headline ingredient appears near the bottom deserves a harder look. Finally, read the "Other ingredients" line below the panel for fillers, flavors, and capsule materials.
A readable panel answers only half of the question, since a label is a claim about what the bottle contains. Among 12 brain health products that military service members had asked about, eight lacked a labeled ingredient on analysis (Crawford, Boyd, et al., 2020). The same analysis detected compounds missing from the label in 10 of those 12 products. Findings like these show why a label cannot be read in isolation.
The pattern repeats across categories. Among 57 sports supplements bought online and analyzed by mass spectrometry, 40 percent contained no detectable amount of the labeled ingredient (Cohen et al., 2023). Only 11 percent of those products contained an amount within 10 percent of the labeled quantity. In 22 brain health products listing huperzine A, 73 percent lacked at least one labeled ingredient on analysis (Crawford, Wang, et al., 2020).
Weight loss products told a similar story. Of 30 weight loss supplements bought online from companies offering military discounts, 25 had inaccurate labels on laboratory testing (Crawford et al., 2024). None of these studies examined my products, and I am not suggesting they did. I cite them to show that a label, disclosed or not, is only as trustworthy as the testing behind it.
Why I Keep the Daily Brain Care Formula Proprietary
Daily Brain Care is a proprietary blend, and it will remain one. The formula is the only intellectual property my company owns. It grew out of research my colleagues and I conducted at the University of Miami. A formula with published amounts is a formula anyone can copy. Keeping it closed is a business decision, and I would rather name it as one than dress it up as something else.
My label names every ingredient in the blend. The blend contains stabilized rice bran, golden flaxseed, sunflower lecithin, wild yam root, organic inner-leaf aloe vera, and tart cherry. It also contains N-acetyl cysteine, calcium silicate clay, citric acid, inositol hexaphosphate, and natural vanilla flavor. What the label does not state is how much of each ingredient the blend contains.
That gap has a genuine cost for you, and I want to name it. You cannot check my serving against an ingredient amount from someone else's study. If you compare my formula with a single-ingredient product on milligrams, my label will not let you finish that comparison. I would rather say that plainly than ask you to take the blend on faith. When a single ingredient is the better choice is a question I take up in single vs multi-ingredient supplements.
The same trade applies elsewhere in my product line. The Curcumin capsule I sell is built the same way, and tetrahydrocurcumin vs curcumin explains which figure its panel leaves out. I made a shorter version of this admission when I wrote about the best caffeine-free brain supplement, next to the stimulant questions buyers ask.
What You Can Check Instead: Third-Party Tested Supplements and a Certificate of Analysis
A closed formula still leaves several things you can verify, and testing is the most important of them. Every lot of every product I sell is tested by Swift Labs, an independent laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025. That international standard covers the competence of testing laboratories, and I have no ownership or financial stake in Swift Labs. In plain terms, my products are third-party tested supplements, and the laboratory has no stake in my company. Independent testing has limits of its own, which I set out in third-party tested supplements.
Each lot is tested for lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury, and for microbial contamination (i.e., bacteria, yeasts, and molds). The results appear on a certificate of analysis, which is a report tied to one specific production lot. I receive a certificate for every lot, and I send a copy to any customer who asks for one. Everyday sources of metal exposure are covered in my explainer on what heavy metals are.
LipoTX (Hack Technologies, LLC) manufactures my products at a Carrollton, Texas facility certified for current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires supplement makers to follow these practices to help ensure identity, purity, strength, and composition (Office of Dietary Supplements, 2023). A certification adds an outside audit of the facility against those practices. Testing, certification, and a report you can request are three things a closed label does not take away from you.
Testing has a limit, and it matters for this discussion. The independent laboratory screens for contaminants, and it does not measure how much of each ingredient the blend contains. Each certificate also lists an ingredient verification, which is done in-house at the manufacturing facility and is therefore not independent. The copy customers receive shows every ingredient passing its specification, with the amounts withheld. Quality seals themselves, the federal Office of Dietary Supplements notes, are no guarantee that a product is safe or works (Office of Dietary Supplements, 2023).
Is a Proprietary Blend Bad? What Should Decide It for You
Whether a proprietary blend is bad depends on what else the company can show you. A blend with no testing and no study of the finished product asks you to trust the front of the bottle. A blend with lot testing and a published human study of the formula gives you something to examine, limits included. The label format alone does not settle the question in either direction.
In a 12-month, open-label pilot study published in 2013, my research team tested an aloe polymannose multinutrient complex (Lewis et al., 2013). We studied it in 34 adults with moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease, and 26 of those adults completed the year. Participants took four teaspoons a day, and every participant knew what they were taking. The study had no placebo group, which limits what its results can establish.
That paper answers the blend question in an unexpected way. It named every constituent of the study formula and described them as a fixed combination by weight, without publishing individual amounts (Lewis et al., 2013). The research tested the finished combination as a whole, not individual ingredients borrowed from other trials. A blend can be studied as a blend, and that is the evidence worth asking any company for.
Daily Brain Care descends from that study formula, and today's suggested serving of two 2.5-gram scoops is about half the amount participants took. The pilot therefore does not show that today's product, at today's serving, will produce the same results. I describe what changed, and what the study measured, in the published research behind Daily Brain Care.
I take Daily Brain Care myself every day, and I have eaten a whole-food, plant-based diet since 1999. That is my choice as a consumer, and it is not evidence. If you are weighing any blend, mine included, ask for the testing and ask what was studied. The questions to ask before you buy a brain supplement are a good place to begin.
Conclusion
A proprietary blend names its ingredients and withholds their individual amounts, and that trade deserves scrutiny. The research on label accuracy shows why independent testing matters as much as disclosure. My formula is a blend, it will stay a blend, and I have told you what that costs you. In exchange, every lot is independently tested, and its certificate of analysis is yours on request. If that standard meets yours, Daily Brain Care has earned a place on your shortlist.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a proprietary blend?
A proprietary blend is a group of supplement ingredients listed under one combined weight. The label names each ingredient in descending order by weight but does not state individual amounts.
Is a proprietary blend bad?
Not by itself, but it limits what you can verify from the label. Look for independent lot testing and published human research on the finished formula before you decide.
Why do companies use proprietary blends?
Many companies use them to protect a formula from being copied. Critics note that blends can also hide tiny amounts of costly ingredients, which is why testing and research matter.
How can I tell what is in a proprietary blend supplement?
Read the ingredient order inside the blend and its total weight. Then ask the company for a certificate of analysis and for any human research on the finished product.
What are third-party tested supplements?
Third-party tested supplements are checked by a laboratory independent of the company that makes or sells them. Testing scope varies, so ask which contaminants or ingredients the laboratory measured.
Does Daily Brain Care use a proprietary blend?
Yes. Daily Brain Care is a proprietary blend, and its label names every ingredient without individual amounts. Every lot is tested for heavy metals and microbial contamination by an independent, ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratory.
References
Cohen, P. A., Avula, B., Katragunta, K., Travis, J. C., & Khan, I. (2023). Presence and quantity of botanical ingredients with purported performance-enhancing properties in sports supplements. JAMA Network Open, 6(7), e2323879. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.23879
Crawford, C., Avula, B., Lindsey, A. T., Katragunta, K., Khan, I. A., & Deuster, P. A. (2024). Label accuracy of weight loss dietary supplements marketed online with military discounts. JAMA Network Open, 7(5), e249131. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.9131
Crawford, C., Boyd, C., Avula, B., Wang, Y.-H., Khan, I. A., & Deuster, P. A. (2020). A public health issue: Dietary supplements promoted for brain health and cognitive performance. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 26(4), 265–272. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2019.0447
Crawford, C., Wang, Y.-H., Avula, B., Bae, J.-Y., Khan, I. A., & Deuster, P. A. (2020). The scoop on brain health dietary supplement products containing huperzine A. Clinical Toxicology, 58(10), 991–996. https://doi.org/10.1080/15563650.2020.1713337
Harty, P. S., Zabriskie, H. A., Erickson, J. L., Molling, P. E., Kerksick, C. M., & Jagim, A. R. (2018). Multi-ingredient pre-workout supplements, safety implications, and performance outcomes: A brief review. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 15(1), 41. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-018-0247-6
Jagim, A. R., Harty, P. S., & Camic, C. L. (2019). Common ingredient profiles of multi-ingredient pre-workout supplements. Nutrients, 11(2), 254. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11020254
Lewis, J. E., McDaniel, H. R., Agronin, M. E., Loewenstein, D. A., Riveros, J., Mestre, R., Martinez, M., Colina, N., Abreu, D., Konefal, J., Woolger, J. M., & Ali, K. H. (2013). The effect of an aloe polymannose multinutrient complex on cognitive and immune functioning in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 33(2), 393–406. https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-2012-121381
Office of Dietary Supplements. (2023). Dietary supplements: What you need to know. National Institutes of Health. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/WYNTK-Consumer/
