I take supplements myself. Every day. On a schedule. So I'm the last person to tell you capsules are the devil's work.
But at some point I started doing the maths. And since then I can't stop.
Because I realised that for years I'd been paying for something that was one quarter what it said on the label. And three quarters what the machine needs.
There's a sum nobody does. It takes ten seconds — and it might explain why your expensive supplement never did what the packet said it would.
Pick up the tub. The front tells you how many tablets are inside, and somewhere it tells you the net weight. Divide one by the other. Then turn it over and add up the active ingredients listed.
72 g net weight ÷ 60 tablets = 1200 mg per tablet
Active ingredients on the label, all added up = 300 mg
That's on there too. Further down, smaller, in a language that sounds like it's none of your business. Release agent. Bulking agent. Glazing agent. Anti-caking agent. And that's exactly the point — it very much is your business. You're the one swallowing it.
Not one of these substances is in there for you.
Every single one is in there for the machine, for the shelf or for the price. That's not a conspiracy. That's business economics. And you can read it on every label.
The file
I looked up every one of these substances — and for each one I'll tell you how good the evidence is. Not because I'm cautious, but so you're not left standing there naked the first time someone contradicts you. What's here holds up. Tap to open.
Magnesium stearateHalf true+
Why it's in there: So the powder doesn't stick in the machine. A tablet press makes up to 10,000 tablets an hour. Without a lubricant, it can't.
In the lab, magnesium stearate slows down how quickly a tablet dissolves. Slows down — doesn't stop. Studies in humans show no relevant drop in absorption.
And the story about the wrecked immune system that's all over the internet? It goes back to a study from 1990, on isolated mouse cells, using stearic acid — a different substance. The researchers themselves wrote that it proved no connection.
It's not poison. It's the most honest substance on this list, because it shows what this is really about: it's there because the machine has to run. Not because your body needs it. Anyone who says it's an oily film on your gut wall is exaggerating. Anyone who says it doesn't matter is leaving out that it takes up space you paid for.
Proven: machine function · Refuted: immune damage · Overstated: blocked absorption
Titanium dioxide · E 171Proven+
Why it's in there: So the tablet looks nice and white. That's all. It does nothing, it's good for nothing, it just looks.
In 2021 the European Food Safety Authority concluded that damage to genetic material cannot be ruled out. Since 2022, E 171 has been banned as a food additive in the EU.
And now the part where you put your coffee down: in medicines it's still permitted. Same substance. Same mouth. Different clause.
This is the hardest point on this page, and I don't even have to sharpen it. A substance too unsafe for chewing gum is safe enough for the tablet you take because you're ill.
Proven. Fully. Check it yourself in Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63
Silicon dioxide · E 551Data gap+
Why it's in there: So powder flows and doesn't clump. Again: the machine.
This is where it gets interesting, but not the way you think. EFSA re-evaluated E 551 in 2024 and concluded: no safety concern, for any population group.
But the same document also says: the particles are nano-sized, 2 to 28 nanometres. And information was missing on what proportion is actually present in food as individual nanoparticles — studies on their possible effects were only limited.
I'm not claiming it poisons you. I'm just showing you what the authority itself writes: no concern and we're missing the data — in the same text, on the same pages. You decide how reassuring that is.
Cleared by the authority. The authority itself named the data gap on nanoparticles.
Artificial sweetenersProven in humans+
Why they're in there: So powder that tastes of dirt actually sells. And because sweetener is cheaper per kilo than any alternative.
Here the evidence is the best of all five. In 2022 a team publishing in Cell had 120 healthy people take saccharin, sucralose, aspartame or stevia for two weeks. Result: all four changed the microbiome in the gut and in the mouth. With saccharin and sucralose, the blood sugar response got measurably worse. And when the altered microbiome was transferred to mice, they showed the same patterns as their human donors.
Since 2023 the WHO has advised against using sweeteners for weight control. In 2023 the cancer research agency IARC classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic, Group 2B. That's the weakest of the three levels of suspicion, and the acceptable daily intake was not changed. But classified is classified.
Anyone who sells you a supplement meant to build up your gut flora, and sweetens it with a substance proven to change your gut flora — either didn't think, or bet on you not thinking.
Proven in humans. Controlled study, 120 participants, Cell 2022
Emulsifiers · E 407 & E 466Suspected+
Why they're in there: So stuff binds that doesn't want to bind. And so liquids don't separate. Carrageenan and carboxymethylcellulose.
In mice the picture is clear: carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate 80 changed the gut flora, disrupted the gut barrier and led to low-grade inflammation and metabolic problems. In humans the data is young and the studies are small. There is one controlled feeding study that points in the same direction. A final verdict is still pending. In 2026 there was a controlled trial with 60 people and five emulsifiers. Result: no differences in the inflammation markers.
I'm explicitly not telling you this is proven. It's a suspicion with substance. But remember one thing: all of these substances were approved decades ago, when nobody knew there was such a thing as a microbiome. What was tested back then: will it kill you? Not: what does it do to the hundred trillion bacteria inside you that we had no idea about yet.
Animal studies clear. Human studies small and contradictory. Suspicion, not proof.
Microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium salts of fatty acids, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, silicon dioxide, magnesium oxide, vitamin C, zinc oxide, colour: titanium dioxide, sweetener: sucralose, flavouring, talc.
Tablet weight 1200 mg · declared active ingredients: 300 mg
Why the shelf is full of it
Now the part nobody tells you, because it's unromantic. A tub on the chemist's shelf has to pay a lot of people before it pays you: the shelf space, the retail margin, the advertising, the packaging that jumps out at you. What's left over for the contents at the end is a remainder. And in that remainder there are two kinds of ingredients.
Active ingredients cost money
A high-quality magnesium, a well-absorbed B12, a genuine plant extract — those are the most expensive lines in the whole formula.
The rest costs next to nothing
Bulking agent, release agent, coating. Cents per kilo. And they fill the same tablet, the same tub, the same price tag.
Work out for yourself which way a company optimises when it has to build a 1200-milligram tablet that sells for €6.99. Then there's the machine: if you want to press ten thousand tablets an hour, you need lubricants and flow agents. If you want to work cleaner, you have to work slower. Slower means more expensive. More expensive means: doesn't fit on the shelf.
No cartel. No conspiracy. Just a shelf that needs cheap bulk for the sums to add up — and small print that isn't small by accident.
How to see through any tub in three seconds is in the 3-second check.
From me
These days I only buy what I can defend with this sum. Fewer substances on the list. No white that's only there to look pretty. No sweetener in something that's supposed to support my gut.
And I'll be honest with you: that stuff costs more. But then I'm paying for what's on the label. And not for what the machine needs.
Don't believe me. Look it up.
Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63: ban on titanium dioxide (E 171) as a food additive · EFSA re-evaluation of silicon dioxide (E 551), 2024 · Suez et al., Cell 2022: sweeteners and the microbiome, 120 participants · WHO guideline on sweeteners, 2023 · IARC classification of aspartame, Group 2B, 2023
The long version of this sum, with every source to look up, is in Volume 3, Das Echo meiner Intuition (The Echo of My Intuition).