What Does it Mean to Make Your Own Supplements?

Well, let’s rephrase that.. it’s not make your own supplements. That would take a chemical laboratory and a few doctorates. What most people really want is to mix and assemble their own supplements. 

This is what supplement companies do. They buy their powders and other ingredients from the cheapest source available, which is usually China, and ship them to the USA. Mixing them means adding preservatives, fillers, binders, and other additives.

Then they fill capsules, press tablets, or pack the powder into jugs before slapping a flashy label on the side.

Actually, supplement companies don’t even have to do that much. They can just send those powders from China to a food-packing facility in the USA to do it for them. All they need is a big storage closet and a P.O. Box address.

In reality, it takes a couple thousand dollars and some emails to start your own supplement brand. You don’t need a doctorate or to be approved to decide what’s good or not good for a person’s physical or mental health.

It makes you wonder who’s choosing what’s in the supplements you take... doesn’t it?

Why You Should Make Your Own Supplements

Can You Trust the Supplement Brands You Buy?

Aside from the fact that anyone and their mother can start their own supplement brand, few people even know if the products they take are effectively dosed.

How do we know this is true? The existence of proprietary blends confirms it.

Proprietary Blend - Also called a “blend,” “matrix,” “complex,” or “formulation,” a proprietary blend is when a company doesn’t disclose the dosage of each ingredient.

Instead, they only need to show the total blend weight and list its ingredients in order from most to least.

But nearly all useful supplement ingredients have established recommended dosages.

So why wouldn’t the company want to tell you how much you’d be getting?

Because they’re not giving you enough.

What’s so proprietary about the amounts of each ingredient anyway? That’s about as big a secret as the recipe for the Krabby Patty.

Companies do this because it allows them to put in much less of the expensive ingredients. In fact, the entire blend could be 98% of one ingredient, and .05% of the 40 ingredients that come after it.

This is why transparency is key today. But finding transparent companies is a task itself.

If this seems bad, there have even been plenty of cases in which supplements didn’t contain anything like the ingredient panel claimed. Such as the case of the pre-workout “CRAZE” that contained amphetamines. (Kerley)⁵

The Food and Drug Administration does not treat supplements like drugs. In fact, the FDA never even looks at a supplement unless it’s proven that it harmed someone. (FDA)²

So the question is whether you’d rather trust yourself with your health.. or a company driven by increasing their profit margin?

But even putting all the trust issues with normal supplements aside, there are undeniable advantages to do-it-yourself dietary supplements.

Four Main Reasons For Creating Your Own Supplements

Reason 1: DIY Supplements are HEALTHIER

The supplement industry is plagued by healthy-“ish” products. Flashy labels and buzz words trick consumers into thinking they’re doing good for their body. 

But the ingredient label never lies. 

The types of common food additives used in supplements include (FSANZ)³:

• Anti-caking agents – stop ingredients from becoming lumpy.

• Antioxidants – prevents oxidation (going rancid).

• Artificial sweeteners – increase the sweetness.

• Emulsifiers – stop fats from clotting together.

• Acids – maintain the right acid level.

• Natural and Artificial Colors – enhance or add color.

• Natural and Artificial Flavors – add flavor.

• Flavour enhancers – increase the power of a flavor.

• Mineral salts – enhance texture and flavor.

• Preservatives – stop microbes from multiplying and spoiling the food.

• Thickeners and vegetable gums – enhance texture and consistency.

• Stabilisers and firming agents – maintain even food dispersion.

• Gelling agents – alter the texture of foods through gel formation.

• Bulking agents – increases the volume without major changes to available energy.

Some of these chemicals, such as artificial colors, have been shown to be or contain carcinogens. (Summary of Studies on Food Dyes)¹⁰ This means they cause cancer.

Even “natural flavors” doesn’t mean what most think it does. A natural flavor only has to originate from a plant or animal source. But it's allowed to have up to 100 extra chemicals added to it to change the “flavor." These are referred to as “incidental additives” and don’t need to be on the ingredient label. (FDA)²

There’s also the pharmaceutical industry. Did you know that the USA makes up about 5% of the entire world’s population... yet consumes 75% of the entire world’s prescription drug supply? And 80% of the entire prescription pain-killer supply. (Manchikanti and Singh)⁶

Yet in a 2019 study of the healthcare systems of comparable countries, the USA came in dead last for “healthcare outcomes,” despite having spent nearly double on healthcare than any other country. (Tikkanen and Abrams)¹²

The United States ranked 34th for life expectancy in a 2014 report from the United Health Foundation¹³, tying with Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Nauru, and Qatar.

Perhaps it’s time for less prescriptions and more natural options?

We don’t mean to say that synthetic medications don’t help people. Rather, we’re pointing out that there's a wealth of natural herbal remedies that’ve been safely used on this planet for generations. And if other countries have better treatment outcomes than us, why not consider all the options?

Established systems of natural herbal medicine include:

• Traditional Chinese Medicine

• Ayurveda

• Unani 

Reason 2: DIY Supplements are Cheaper

Why pay a supplement company to buy cheap powders for you? Buying them yourself saves you the money that would have been their profit margin... and the savings is significant.

To give you an example, our basic pre-workout recipe has 6 ingredients. These are the same main ingredients in most of the top pre workout brands. 

It costs about $100-$150 for over a year’s worth of powder with daily use.

The same amount of the top-selling pre-workout powder is about $350-$450 on average.. and it’s full of additives.

Reason 3: DIY Supplements are More Effective

The only way to be sure brand supplements have the best ingredients and effective dosages is by doing the research yourself. 

So if you have to confirm the product ingredients are actually good anyway, why not buy the ingredients yourself too?

When you use single-ingredients to make your own blend, you choose the dosages that should be in your supplements. This makes it not only more effective, but it’s also personalized for your goals and preferences.

• Vegan? Only use vegan powders. 

• Don’t want stimulants? Leave out caffeine. 

• Don’t like creatine? Don’t add it!

Once you make your own blend exactly the way you want, you’ll question why you hadn’t done it sooner. 

Reason 4: Making Your Own Supplements is Easier in 2024 than Ever Before

It’s not nearly as hard as you’d think to make your own supplements.

While it’s true that both making capsules and pressing tablets can be difficult and time-consuming.. there are newer ways to take our supplements now in 2024.

Don’t worry.. we aren't about to suggest you use another orifice!

We’re only referring to oral powder delivery systems! We’ll go over each of the ways to take our custom supplements and the deep-industry secret hacks to do so properly!

That includes a super convenient method that’s even quicker than using capsule-filling machines.

And we’ll compare those to the other ways to take your supplements later in this article

How to Make Your Own Supplements in 2024

Step 1: Choose what supplement you want to take

This may seem too obvious to be a step, but it is a very important one. When making your own supplements, you must first know what your desired results are. Then you work backwards to learn which supplements can help you reach those results.

Here are a few examples of goals that determine what type of supplement mix you might make:

• Lose weight – Weight loss aid, fat burner

• Build muscle – Muscle-building aid, testosterone booster, recovery aid

• Performance enhancement – Pre-workout aids

• Rehydrate/restore - Electrolytes, carb loaders, vitamins/minerals, post workouts

• Energy – Stimulants, vitamins/minerals

• Gut health – Fiber, prebiotics, probiotics

• Reduce pain – Pain reliever, inflammation reducers

• Improve health – Antioxidants, multi-vitamins, general health supplements

• Skin health – Collagen, collagen-synthesis aid, vitamins/minerals, moisture retainer

• Improve mental performance – Nootropics, vitamins/minerals, electrolytes

• Spiritual enlightenment – Psychedelics

That last one was a little for fun.. but also to show that the possibilities are vast. There are natural remedies all over this planet that have been used for thousands of years.

Oh and interesting fact, 2000 new species of plants are being discovered by scientists every year! (Christenhusz and Byng)¹

Step 2: Choose how much you’ll need to take

This is important. Everyone is different, and may need more or less amounts based on their body. But it is not difficult. 

Our preferred method is to search the web for current research on the best dosages for each product. For example, if we want to know how much turmeric to take, we can type “turmeric dosage for inflammation.”

By the way, this makes a useful dosage searching template:

“[insert supplement] dosage for [insert ailment]”

Studies are excellent resources. They’re controlled scientific experiments that test a specific function of an ingredient. You can use websites that cite studies too. But it's good practice to skim through the original studies to ensure the dosages are correct.

Over time, you'll develop an intuitive awareness that helps too.

But intuition aside, you should never take a product without learning the safe and recommended dosages. These may differ based on what results you want, so pay attention to what’s right for your preferred outcome.

With AI advancing as fast as it is, the right AI prompting with can work just as well, if not better, to find those precise dosages you’re looking for.

Understanding Dosages

When considering how much to take, be aware of whether you will be taking a whole powder or an extract.

Extraction is the process of reducing whole powder into a smaller amount, while retaining the main ingredient of interest. When using an extract, you can take less powder whilst still getting the benefits of a higher dose.

Example: Choosing the right Turmeric Dosage

Turmeric, or Curcuma longa, is a root that’s dried and ground into a whole powder to be used as a common cooking spice.

Yet, it’s also studied to be a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory*. But the active alkaloid (ingredient of interest) within the root that is believed to contribute to its health benefits is called curcumin.

*Turmeric absolutely must be combined with piperin, the active alkaloid found within black pepper, to facilitate proper absorption. (Hewlings and Kalman)⁴

If you purchase plain turmeric powder, as in the spice at the grocery store, it comes with a natural percentage of between 3-5% curcumin. Hence, it’s common practice that turmeric supplements be extracted to create stronger dosages. 

Most turmeric extracts have a curcumin content of 95% of the total powder contents.

The following are the different turmeric dosages used in 3 separate studies. (Meixner)⁷

POWDER DOSAGE:

• To treat osteoarthritis: 500 mg of turmeric extract twice daily for 2–3 months.

• To treat high cholesterol: 700 mg of turmeric extract twice daily for 3 months.

• To treat itchy skin: 500 mg of turmeric three times daily for 2 months.

Notice, the 3rd study used whole turmeric powder, but the 1st and 2nd studies used an extract. Here are the true dosages of the active alkaloid below.

ACTIVE ALKALOID DOSAGE:

• To treat osteoarthritis: 500 mg of turmeric extract = 475mg curcumin

• To treat high cholesterol: 700 mg of turmeric extract = 665mg curcumin

• To treat itchy skin: 500 mg of turmeric = 20mg curcumin

This is a big difference to be aware of. Always know whether you’re buying an extract or whole powder!

If it doesn't say on the package or label, then it most likely is a whole powder.*

*This is another way some companies choose to trick people. They include insignificant amounts of whole herbs on their ingredient panel.. while effective dosages may only be achieved through extraction.

Don’t worry if this seems like a lot of information! It is becomes second-nature in very short time.

Step 3: Obtain the Product(s) in single-ingredient form

Once you know how much and for how long you'll take the supplement for, you can determine how much of the powder you need.

Calculate Amount of Powder Required in Weight

We will use the same turmeric dosage for itchy skin, 500mg three times a day for 2 months:

• That is, 500mg x 3 doses/day x 62 days = 93,000mg. 

  • 93,000mg = 93 grams. (If you don't know conversions, Google has automatic converters).

• Therefore, you need 93 grams total weight in plain turmeric.

You can use this type of calculation for any supplement you wish to take. 

Powder Weight Units of Measurement

Supplement powders will come in weights of:

• US Imperial units: Ounces (oz) and Pounds (lbs); and/or

• Metric units: Milligrams (mg), Grams (g) and Kilograms (kg).*

*Metric is the best measuring system.. and all ingredient labels use metric anyway. All you need to know for making your own supplements is that 1 kilogram = 1000 grams and 1 gram = 1000 milligrams.

So for 93 grams, you’d most likely buy one of the following amounts:

• 100 g or 3.52 oz in US

• 0.5 kg (500g) or 1.1 lb in US

• 1 kg (1000g) or 2.2 lb in US

The more powder you buy at one time, the cheaper it will be per gram.

Where you buy from is up to you, but there are many great sources on the internet. For example, Amazon has many different brands all in one place. Just make sure you trust the brands and the companies you buy from!

Step 4: Mix the supplements together

This is a very important step that people often don’t consider. But it is key to making the entire process easier.

For example, we assemble two products every year or so and take them most days. The first is our basic pre-workout mix, which was listed earlier in this article. The second is a “general health” mix. We’ve listed the current contents below, as we tend to change the ingredients here and there based on our goals.

Our general health mix

• Turmeric

• Black Pepper

• Matcha

• Reishi Mushroom

• Lion’s Mane Mushroom

• Cacao

• Magnesium

• Himalayan Pink Salt

By mixing them together for a single purpose (i.e., for a daily health supplement) it makes STEP 5 infinitely easier. Of course if you’re only planning to take one supplement powder, you can move right to STEP 5. 

But if you plan to take more than one supplement daily, this should be mandatory. Otherwise, you end up with an absurd amount of different powders to keep track of and take separately.

How To Do It

It’s a very simple process. This is a 53-second example of how to calculate and mix a basic supplement recipe.

This video applies to all kinds of powder mixes.

*Note: For our latest pre-workout recipes, follow us on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

To give a written example of how to mix powders together, we'll use turmeric and matcha.*

*Matcha is finely ground green tea leaves that's said to have many health benefits.

• TURMERIC DOSAGE: we'll again use 500mg 3 times a day for 2 months.

  • That’s 93 grams, and a total of 186 servings of turmeric powder.

• MATCHA DOSAGE: For simplicity let’s use the same amount, 500mg 3 times a day for 2 months.

  • So again, that's 93 grams, and 186 servings.

First - weigh out the total amount of each powder

That’s 93 g turmeric and 93 g matcha. A normal food scale works fine for this. If you’re weighing out milligrams, you’ll need a more precise scale.

Second - Mix them together evenly

For most powder ratios, this is very simple. Just use your preferred mixing method and mix them together.

common Home mixing tools:

• Blender - Vitamix is a personal favorite

• Food processor

• Kitchen Mixer

• Mortar and Pestle - For pulvarizing if necessary

• Bowl and Whisk - Like mixing dry powders before baking

*Note: Don’t put your powders into a bag or jug and shake them together. This doesn’t work well and causes uneven settling due to the difference in mass of the different powders (imagine shaking a box of popcorn with M&Ms and notice where the M&Ms end up).

The three Basic Powder-Mixing Rules

1. Particle Size - When mixing powders with different particle sizes (such as granular salt with fine powder), reduce each powder separately to fine particles before mixing. (Pharmapproach)⁹

   • Depending on the powder, you could use a mortar and pestle or something more like an electric coffee grinder. But it’s likely that most supplements you’ll mix will already be fine, free-flowing powders.

2. Particle Weight - When mixing two powders together, put the lighter powder in the bowl first, then pour the heavier one over top of it.⁹ This will help combat settling.

3. Particle Quantity - When mixing a very small amount of one powder with a very large amount of another, use the geometric dilution method described below in STEP 4.5.⁹

After mixing thoroughly, we’d have 186 grams of 50% turmeric and 50% matcha powder.ju

So 1 gram (1000mg) of this powder will give you 1 serving of turmeric (500mg) and 1 serving of matcha (500mg).

Third (optional) - Add a moisture desiccant

A moisture desiccant is keeps your powder from accumulating moisture, which is what causes supplement powders to clump together over time.

Many powders already come with independent moisture packets. You can bury one or two of these into your final mixture to achieve the same result. But if your powder didn’t come with those, you can also use dry rice.

If you’ve ever seen rice in a salt shaker at a restaurant, that’s how they keep the humidity from causing the salt to clump together. It's natural and low-cost.

This step isn’t required, but it can be useful if you live in high-humidity climates such as Florida.

We like to grind up the dry rice right just enough to ensure it is rounded, but not too fine.

HOW MUCH - 2% of the total powder weight in dry rice works well.

PROCEDURE - Weigh out 2% of the total weight of the supplement powder in dry rice, and grind it up coarsely. It’s okay to mix this in without worrying too much about even distribution. 

• In this example, that’s 2% of 186 grams, which is:

  • 0.02 x 186 grams = 3.72 grams of dry rice.

Because it's only 2% dry rice, you likely wouldn't have to recalculate your dosages. It would only vary a few milligrams. In most cases, a few milligrams isn’t going to make difference.

For example's purposes, the exact final ratio would be 49.02% turmeric to 49.02% matcha to 1.96% dry rice, or a ratio of about 49:49:2. But excluding the rice, the main ingredients are still 1:1 

HOW TO STORE THE POWDER - This could vary based on your STEP 5. But if using our preferred method of edible films, pour the mix into a container and put it in your fridge or pantry. 

We use large, wide-mouth mason jars, but any container that you can fit your hand into works well. That’s because scooping out the powder from a nearly-empty container requires putting your whole hand in.

STEP 4.5: Mixing large amounts of powder with Tiny Amounts: Geometric Dilution

There is a different mixing technique if the amounts of each powder vary too much. What’s too much? Well, I’ll give you two examples. 

Example 1: Turmeric and Black Pepper

Again, we will use the turmeric dose of 500mg 3x a day for 2 months. But now let’s say you want to take 50mg of black pepper with every turmeric dose.

That’s a ratio of 500:50, which means 10 times more turmeric (93,000mg) than black pepper (9,300mg). Because the difference in the dosage is larger, you might mix the powders slightly uneven.

But this isn’t a big deal with powders like black pepper and turmeric. A ratio difference of 10 times isn’t going to mix that uneven.

Also, black pepper likely won't do anything to you if you take a tiny bit more than intended.

But it matters much more if the powder you’re taking has an extremely low and exact dosage. For these types of precise dosages, there is a simple procedure to ensure an even mixture. 

Example 2: Noopept with Turmeric as the Diluting Powder

Noopept is a popular nootropic (smart drug) that has a dosage of only a few milligrams (mg), or 1/1000th of a gram. Because 2-3mg is such a small amount, if it wasn’t mixed evenly, you’d risk taking much more than 2-3mg at a time.

Noopept dosage: I've chosen a noopept dosage of 3mg x 3 servings per day x 2 months. *Note: this is not a recommended dosage, it is only for this example's sake. 

Turmeric dosage: We will again use 500mg x 3 servings per day x 2 months. 

The goal is to get to the final mixture to have an evenly-dispersed ratio of 3mg noopept to 500mg of turmeric. 

This is called using a carrier or diluting powder. In this case, turmeric is the carrier/diluting powder, because every 500 mg dose of turmeric will carry 3 mg of noopept.

You can get a near-perfect mixture by weighing out both powders just one time, and then visually judging each addition of the diluting powder. This principal is how supplement and drug companies ensure each tablet or pill has precisely the same amount of ingredients.

Adding the two together, the powder should have 93,558mg total. That's 93,000 milligrams of turmeric and 558 milligrams of noopept (3mg noopept x 3 servings x 62 days = 558mg).

How To Do It

1. Weigh out 558mg of noopept

2. Weigh out 93,000mg (93 grams) of turmeric 

3. Take a spoonful of turmeric from the 93 grams that’s roughly the same amount of powder as the 558mg of noopept, and mix it together thoroughly with the 558mg of noopept

4. Once mixed thoroughly, take another spoonful of turmeric that’s roughly the same size as the new noopept/turmeric mixture, and mix them together again

5. Repeat this process until the entire 93 grams of turmeric has been mixed with the 558mg of noopept

Done!

Now, every 503mg of powder has 3mg of noopept and 500mg of turmeric. This makes it much easier to take 3mg of powder.

Instead of weighing out the tiny dosage of 3mg using an expensive and very sensitive digital milligram scale, you can simply take a half gram of this powdered mixture!

Again, in the case of very tiny powder dosages, this method comes in handy.

This way, you can use a measuring spoon to take the mixed powder instead of a specialty measuring device, all without worrying about taking too much or too little.

This method is important when precise dosages are critical to the efficacy of the supplement... or an error in dosage could impact your health.

But most do-it-yourself supplement users won’t have to worry about small precise dosages like this. It's mostly used for taking specialty supplements such as nootropics.

As long as the ratios of powder don’t vary too much, just mixing them all together at once may work fine. Again, it’s just like mixing dry ingredients when baking. That’s not too difficult, right?

Step 5: Take the Supplements

This step is the easiest.. but it wasn’t always like that. When most people think of taking dietary supplements, they often think of swallowing capsules or tablets.

That’s understandable.. but when making supplements yourself, that’s a lot more work than you need to do. Even with capsule-filling devices or tablet presses. Both of these take an unnecessary amount of time and effort. 

Here’s an overview of the current supplement ingestion tools:

Filling Capsules to Take Supplements

For this, you have to buy empty gelatin, HPMC (vegetarian), or pullalan gum (vegan) capsules. Yo'u’ll also want a capsule-filling machine. You can do it by hand too, but that takes even longer. The most common ones have 100 holes for capsules. 

The procedure generally looks like this, but different machines may require more or less steps:

1. Separate the empty capsules one by one (or use pre-separated capsules like these)

2. Put the capsule tops in the top holes

3. Put the capsule bodies in the bottom holes

4. Pour in your powder mixture

5. Sweep the powder in

6. Pack them down

7. Repeat until fully-packed

8. Press the top and bottom of the device together. 

9. Pour out the caps

10. Brush them off

11. Wash your tools

12. Put your capsules in a air-tight container

Depending on what type of capsule-filling machine you used, you’d end up with 100 capsules or more capsules! It usually takes ~15 minutes to use the 100-cap machine.

For more detailed instructions, watch our How to Fill Your Own Capsules with a Capsule-Filler video.

For a quality capsule-filler, you can find an excellent machine here.

Tablet-pressing

Tablet-pressing is even more time-consuming, requiring expensive machinery and sometimes manual pressing. The average cost of these machines range from $1,500 to $12,500.

Making tablets like this also requires binding agents and/or coatings to be added into the supplement to hold the tablets together. These binding agents contain many of the additive chemicals discussed earlier.

But including these means that they’ll have to be consumed. And of course, the "healthier" binders cost more. Hmm.. which binders do most supplement companies choose?

Also interesting, although it’s a violation to purchase a tablet-press machine without notifying the DEA, it’s not illegal to own one. (NAPB)⁸

Mixing in liquid

You can take the powders mixed together in a water, juice or smoothies.. but many of the powders taste so jaw-droppingly horrid that no amount of juice can cover them up. 

Hence companies choose to add strong-tasting chemicals such as artificial sweeteners and flavors.

They also love to add artificial colors to make the supplements look prettier.

Do you demand that your health supplements look pretty?

Using Edible Gel Films

It’s our opinion that most people benefit more from using edible gel films than any other method.

Gel film pouches and squares let you scoop and swallow up to 5 grams of powder at once. This depends on powder type and density, of course. But even the largest capsule only holds about 1 gram of powder, and takes more time to fill.

Edible gel films..

1. Don’t make a mess

2. Require no tools

3. Take the least amount of time

4. Need no sweeteners or flavors

5. Are easy to swallow

6. Keep you from tasting anything

7. Contain just one, vegan ingredient

How to use gel films to take your supplements

The method you choose will depend on what type of powder you take. In this sense, there are only two types of powder you’ll be taking:

Slow or non-dissolving powder

This type of powder tends to float atop water.
Examples include: turmeric, kratom, mushrooms, matcha

How to do it:

i. Add powder
ii. Fold the top closed
iii. Dip in water
iv. Put in mouth
v. Swallow

Quick-dissolving powder 

This type of powder sinks and dissolves rapidly in water. Examples include: pre workout powders, BCAAs, creatine

How to do it:

i. Add powder
ii. Seal shut with a little moisture and a pinch
iii. Put in mouth
iv. Take a sip of water and let soak for 2 seconds
v. Swallow

Video example:

With these, you only need about 15 seconds to take multiple grams of your supplement powder. That’s a far-cry from the old days!

Of course, that’s not to say filling capsules is dead. Depending on your goals, you might even want to use both powder delivery methods in your routine.

We recommend trying both and seeing how each one works for you.

If you have any questions, we’re happy to discuss! And we’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions. What are you currently taking now and how are you taking it? How’s that work for you? We want to know!

WORKS CITED

1. CHRISTENHUSZ, MAARTEN, and JAMES BYNG. “The Number of Known Plants Species in the World and Its Annual Increase.” Phytotaxa, 2016, doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.261.3.1.

2. FDA. “CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21.” US Food & Drug Administration, 1 Oct. 2021, www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm?fr=101.22.

3. FSANZ. “Additives.” Food Standards Australia New Zealand, www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/additiveoverview/Pages/default.aspx. Accessed 10 Jan. 2022.

4. Hewlings, Susan, and Douglas Kalman. “Curcumin: A Review of Its’ Effects on Human Health.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2017. NIH, https://doi.org/10.3390/foods6100092.

5. Kerley, David. “Meth-Like Substance Found in ‘Craze’ Workout Supplement: Report.” ABC News, 15 Oct. 2013, abcnews.go.com/Health/meth-substance-found-craze-workout-supplement-report/story?id=20572095.

6. Manchikanti, Laxmaiah Manchikanti, and Angelie Singh. “Therapeutic Opioids: A Ten-Year Perspective on the Complexities and Complications of the Escalating Use, Abuse, and Nonmedical Use of Opioids.” National Library of Medicine, 2008. PubMed, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18443641.

7. Meixner, Makayla. “Turmeric Dosage: How Much Should You Take Per Day?” Healthline, 11 June 2018, www.healthline.com/nutrition/turmeric-dosage.

8. NAPB. “ILLEGAL PILL PRESSES: AN OVERLOOKED THREAT TO AMERICAN PATIENTS.” National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, Mar. 2019, nabp.pharmacy/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PillPress-WhitePaper-March2019.pdf.

9. Pharmapproach. “Mixing of Pharmaceutical Powders in Small-Scale Operations.” Pharmapproach.Com, 13 Nov. 2020, www.pharmapproach.com/mixing-of-pharmaceutical-powders-in-small-scale-operations.

10. “Summary of Studies on Food Dyes.” Center for Science in the Public Interest, cspinet.org/sites/default/files/attachment/dyes-problem-table.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan. 2022.

11. Tikkanen, Roosa, and Melinda Abrams. “U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2019: Higher Spending, Worse Outcomes?” The Commonwealth Fund, 30 Jan. 2020, www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019.

12. United Health Foundation. “America’s Health Rankings.” United Health Foundation, 1 Dec. 2014, assets.americashealthrankings.org/app/uploads/americas-health-rankings-2014-edition.pdf.