Despite recent changes to Amazon’s seller policy for dietary supplements and previous findings of quality and potency issues in SAM-e products sold on the platform, follow-up testing conducted by NOW has revealed that the same group of SAM-e supplements on Amazon still suffer from quality and labeling deficiencies. NOW has shared these results with Amazon and the FDA in hopes of addressing these practices.
In a previous survey, NOW found that all 11 tested SAM-e products purchased from Amazon had low potency and two brands did not contain any of the listed ingredients. NOW conducted a second round of testing to investigate SAM-e due to its high cost and the targeting of expensive products for economic adulteration. In this round, NOW purchased samples from additional brands and checked if any of the brands from the first round had corrected their false labeling claims.
The testing results showed that five brands with low potency were still widely available on Amazon, with nearly half of the failing samples coming from Florida-based brands. Out of the 23 samples tested, 20 failed the potency testing, and six brands had no detectable SAM-e. The five brands that failed testing in 2020 also failed again, with one brand having zero potency and three brands containing less than 20% of the claimed SAM-e on the label. Additionally, there were instances of identical lot numbers indicating likely manufacturing by the same company, and false potency claims were made by some brands.
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