Seventeen dietary ingredients. Four of them are quantified. Here is what sits under the other number.
Each Metaglucent capsule holds four nutrients with printed amounts and a 528 mg blend of thirteen botanicals.
The four are vitamin C 90 mg, vitamin D 25 mcg, magnesium 20 mg and chromium 100 mcg. The blend includes turmeric, cocoa bean extract, berberine HCL, gymnema, cassia cinnamon and bitter melon, with no single amount listed.
See the full Supplement Facts panel.
Four rows with numbers, then one row with a number and thirteen names under it.
| What the panel prints | Amount per capsule | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|
| Vitamin C (as Ascorbic Acid) | 90 mg | 100% |
| Vitamin D (as Cholecalciferol) | 25 mcg | 125% |
| Magnesium (as Magnesium Oxide) | 20 mg | 5% |
| Chromium (as Chromium Picolinate) | 100 mcg | 286% |
| Proprietary Blend | 528 mg | Daily Value not established |
Under 21 CFR 101.36(c) a proprietary blend declares one total weight and lists its ingredients in descending order of predominance by weight. Individual amounts are not required. So turmeric weighs the most and guggul the least, and that is the entire quantitative disclosure for 528 of the 638 milligrams in this capsule.
Other ingredientsHypromellose (Vegetable Capsule), Microcrystalline Cellulose, Magnesium Stearate, Stearic Acid, Silicon Dioxide.
Three with printed amounts and three without, chosen because they are the ones that change how you should read the rest.
286% of the Daily Value, and the only mineral here at a meaningful multiple of one. It is also the ingredient the NIH singles out: chromium supplements might have an additive effect with metformin or other antidiabetes medications, and thus might increase the risk of hypoglycemia.
Third by weight in the blend, so its hard ceiling is 176 mg. Sloan Kettering reports that repeated oral berberine significantly decreased CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity in human studies, and that the benefit evidence is of limited quality.
Fourth by weight, ceiling 132 mg. One of the older botanicals studied for blood sugar, and one of six ingredients on this panel pointing in the same direction as a diabetes prescription.
Fifth by weight, ceiling about 106 mg. NCCIH notes reported interactions between coumarin, found in cassia cinnamon, and the liver, and says it is unclear whether cinnamon helps with diabetes at all.
1,000 IU, printed as 125% of the Daily Value, which is arithmetically right. Well under the 100 mcg upper intake level on its own — worth adding up if you already take a separate vitamin D.
5% of the Daily Value, in the form the NIH lists as less bioavailable than the aspartate, citrate, lactate and chloride forms. A small amount of the least absorbable common option.
See the full Supplement Facts panel for every line on the label.
In printed order, which under federal rules is descending order by weight. Scroll or use the arrows.
Heaviest in the blend
First in the printed order. NCCIH says conventionally formulated turmeric is likely safe for up to two or three months, and that curcumin is poorly absorbed without piperine. There is no piperine on this panel.
No established dose here
Second by weight. Cocoa flavanols have cardiovascular literature at doses far above anything a 528 mg thirteen-way blend could carry, and nothing tying them to blood sugar.
The one to ask about
Third by weight and the ingredient with the most serious interaction profile. Human studies found repeated oral berberine significantly decreased CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity — three enzymes that clear a great many prescription medicines.
Studied for blood sugar
Traditional use for blood sugar, with limited modern trial evidence. Like most of this blend, its amount is not published, so no study dose can be compared against it.
Coumarin, and a liver note
Cassia is the coumarin-containing cinnamon. NCCIH notes interactions between coumarin and the liver have been reported, that some cassia products contain high levels, and that prolonged use could be an issue for people with liver disease.
No established dose here
Oleuropein has cardiovascular and metabolic literature. Sixth of thirteen inside an undisclosed blend, so the ceiling is 88 mg and the real figure is unknown.
Adaptogen, not a glucose herb
Sometimes called Siberian ginseng. Studied mainly for fatigue and performance rather than blood sugar, and included here without explanation.
No established dose here
Traditional use as a diuretic and digestive bitter. No modern evidence base for blood glucose that we could find, and no amount published.
No established dose here
Maritime pine bark proanthocyanidins have circulation literature. Ninth of thirteen, so its arithmetic ceiling is 59 mg.
Studied for blood sugar
One of the most-studied traditional blood sugar plants, and NCCIH lists it among supplements studied for diabetes without making an effectiveness claim for it.
Studied for blood sugar
Corosolic acid is the compound of interest and it is studied for glucose uptake. Eleventh of thirteen, so its ceiling is 48 mg.
No established dose here
A circulation herb, normally sold for vein and leg symptoms. Twelfth of thirteen and the least explicable inclusion on a glucose label.
Lightest in the blend
Last in the printed order, so the smallest weight of all thirteen. Its ceiling is 41 mg and the real amount will be at or under that.
Under 21 CFR 101.36(c), a proprietary blend declares the total weight of all its dietary ingredients and lists those ingredients in descending order of predominance by weight. Individual amounts are not required.
That is the entire disclosure you get for thirteen of the seventeen things in this capsule. Turmeric weighs more than cocoa, which weighs more than berberine, and so on down to guggul. You never learn by how much, and the gaps between them could be enormous or negligible.
The rule exists to protect a real commercial interest: a formula that took work to arrive at should not be copyable off the back of the bottle. The side effect is that the buyer cannot evaluate the product either, and the buyer is the one paying and the one swallowing it.
What makes it sting more here than on most labels is the contrast. This manufacturer clearly knows how to print a panel properly — four amounts, four correct percentages, binomials and plant parts throughout. The same care stopped at the blend line.
Descending order is a mathematical statement rather than a stylistic one: the ingredient in position n cannot exceed the blend total divided by n. That single fact makes the ceiling table below possible, and it is the only quantitative work this part of the label permits.
Blend total divided by position in the printed list. Every figure is an upper bound, not an amount.
| Ingredient | Position | Ceiling | What the evidence says about a dose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turmeric (Curcuma longa) Rhizome | 1st | 528 mg | NCCIH: conventionally formulated turmeric is likely safe for up to 2 or 3 months. Also: curcumin is poorly absorbed without piperine, and there is no piperine here. |
| Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) Bean Extract | 2nd | 264 mg | Studied mostly for flavanol content and vascular function. No flavanol percentage is printed, so nothing can be compared. |
| Berberine HCL | 3rd | 176 mg | Sloan Kettering: human studies used doses that significantly decreased CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity. Benefit evidence: of limited quality. |
| Gymnema (Gymnema sylvestre) Leaf | 4th | 132 mg | An old botanical in this space. No standardisation to gymnemic acids is stated. |
| Cinnamon (Cinnamomum cassia) Bark | 5th | 106 mg | NCCIH: coumarin–liver interactions have been reported, and it is unclear whether cinnamon helps with diabetes. |
| Olive (Olea europaea L.) Leaf Extract | 6th | 88 mg | Oleuropein is the compound of interest. No oleuropein percentage is printed. |
| Eleuthero (Eleutherococcus senticosus) Root Extract | 7th | 75 mg | An adaptogen, not a glucose botanical. Its presence here is not explained anywhere on the pack. |
| Juniper (Juniperus communis) Berry | 8th | 66 mg | Traditional use is diuretic. No established dose for anything on this label's subject. |
| Pine (Pinus pinaster) Bark Extract | 9th | 59 mg | Maritime pine bark, studied for proanthocyanidins. No standardisation stated. |
| Bitter Melon (Momordica charantia) Fruit Extract | 10th | 53 mg | Traditionally used for blood sugar, which is why the interaction warnings on this site are firm. |
| Banaba (Lagerstremia speciosa) Leaf Extract | 11th | 48 mg | Corosolic acid is the compound of interest. Not standardised on this label. |
| Butcher's Broom (Ruscus aculeatus) Root Extract | 12th | 44 mg | Studied for venous circulation rather than glucose. Another ingredient the pack does not explain. |
| Guggul (Commiphora mukul) Resin Extract | 13th | 41 mg | Studied mostly for lipids. Last in the order, so it cannot be more than about 41 mg and may be far less. |
Read that last column honestly. Six of the thirteen have a plausible reason to be in a blood sugar formula. Four have literatures about something else entirely. And every ceiling in the third column assumes everything below it is vanishingly small, which cannot be true for more than one or two of them at once.
This is the second disclosure gap, and it compounds the first rather than sitting beside it.
A standardised extract states what proportion of it is the compound the research is actually about — so much per cent curcuminoids, so much per cent corosolic acid, so much per cent oleuropein. That figure is what lets a buyer convert a milligram number into a meaningful dose.
Not one extract on this label carries one. Not the cocoa, not the olive leaf, not the pine bark, not the banaba, not the bitter melon, not the guggul. Several of them are explicitly called an extract, which tells you a concentration step happened and then declines to say how much.
The consequence is worth spelling out. If the manufacturer published every individual milligram tomorrow, you still could not compare them against the trials, because the trials used standardised material and this label does not say what is inside its extracts.
Plenty of products hide their amounts inside a blend and still print standardisations. This one does neither, on any of the thirteen.
Read as groups rather than as a list of thirteen, the formula makes considerably more sense.
Berberine, gymnema, cinnamon, bitter melon, banaba and arguably olive leaf. These are the reason the product exists, the reason the front of the bottle says what it says, and the reason the safety page is as firm as it is.
Turmeric and cocoa lead the blend by weight and are studied mostly for inflammation and vascular function. Being first and second, they may well be most of the 528 mg.
Eleuthero, juniper, pine bark, butcher's broom and guggul. Each has a literature; none of those literatures is about blood glucose in a way that explains the position. The pack offers no rationale for any of them.
The non-dietary line reads: hypromellose (vegetable capsule), microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, stearic acid, silicon dioxide.
Hypromellose is hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, a plant-derived capsule shell. Microcrystalline cellulose is a filler. Magnesium stearate and stearic acid stop powder sticking to machinery. Silicon dioxide keeps it flowing. Four of the five are in almost every capsule made anywhere.
The first one is the interesting one. A hypromellose shell is what makes the vegetarian badge on this listing the single badge here the panel actually supports — no gelatin, and nothing else on the line is animal-derived. In a category where gelatin is close to universal, it is a real point in the product's favour.
One footnote worth making: magnesium stearate appears on this line as an excipient, and magnesium oxide appears in the panel as the declared mineral. They are different materials doing different jobs, and the stearate is not part of the 20 mg.
Every ingredient name, amount and percentage on this page is read off the printed Supplement Facts panel supplied with the product images. Every claim about evidence is attributed to a named source in the reference list, and every one of those sources is a page we opened ourselves.
Seventeen dietary ingredients. Four are printed with a weight: vitamin C 90 mg, vitamin D 25 mcg, magnesium 20 mg and chromium 100 mcg. Thirteen sit inside the blend, in this printed order: turmeric, cocoa bean extract, berberine HCL, gymnema, cassia cinnamon, olive leaf extract, eleuthero root extract, juniper berry, maritime pine bark extract, bitter melon fruit extract, banaba leaf extract, butcher’s broom root extract and guggul resin extract. The other ingredients are a hypromellose capsule shell, microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, stearic acid and silicon dioxide.
Because the label uses a proprietary blend. Under 21 CFR 101.36(c) a blend declares the total weight of all its dietary ingredients and lists them in descending order of predominance by weight, and individual amounts are not required. It is legal and it is common. It is also why no dose in that 528 mg can be checked against any study.
Ceilings and nothing more. Descending order of weight means the ingredient in position n cannot exceed the total divided by n. Turmeric could be anything up to 528 mg; cocoa up to 264 mg; berberine up to 176 mg; gymnema up to 132 mg; guggul, last of the thirteen, cannot exceed about 41 mg. Those are hard upper bounds, not amounts, and every one of them is consistent with the ingredient being present in a trace.
Not that we can see. Several ingredients are called an extract, which tells you a concentration step happened, but no percentage of any marker compound is printed for any of them. Without both an amount and a standardisation, even a published milligram figure could not be matched to a trial.
It is third by weight in the blend, and it is the ingredient with the widest interaction profile on the panel. Memorial Sloan Kettering’s About Herbs monograph reports that in human studies, repeated oral intake of berberine at a dose used in some studies significantly decreased CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity — three enzyme systems that clear a great many common prescription medicines. The same monograph says the benefit studies are of limited quality and that more studies are needed.
It is cassia cinnamon, named on the panel as <i>Cinnamomum cassia</i>. NCCIH notes that interactions between coumarin, a chemical found in cassia cinnamon, and the liver have been reported, and that it is unclear whether cinnamon supplementation is helpful for diabetes or weight loss. With no amount published, there is no way to say how much coumarin a daily capsule delivers.
Unknown, and two things work against it. NCCIH says combining curcumin with piperine is one way to improve the bioavailability of curcumin, and there is no piperine anywhere on this panel. And turmeric heads the blend, so its ceiling is 528 mg — but a ceiling is not an amount, and no standardisation percentage is printed either.
One bottle is 30 capsules: thirty days at one a day, finishing with half the 60-day guarantee still to run. The price is shown at checkout.
Order NowRead the label firstNo price was published to us. We print no figure we have not seen ourselves. · 60-day guarantee from purchase · Not for under 18, pregnancy or nursing