Reading a label
A 100:1 extract is not a 1,000 mg dose
A ratio is not a dose. A label that says “100:1 extract, equivalent to 1,000 mg” is telling you how concentrated the material is, not how much of the active compound is in it. This post is about the difference, why printing the ratio is nonetheless better practice than most of this aisle manages, and the one number that would settle the question and almost never appears.
What an extract ratio actually describes
When a label says 10:1, it means ten parts of the starting plant material were processed down to one part of finished extract. A 100:1 extract means a hundred parts became one. The ratio is a manufacturing statistic: a record of how much water, fibre and inert plant matter was removed on the way to the powder in the capsule.
That is genuinely useful information. It tells you the material in the capsule is concentrated rather than ground leaf, and it lets you compare two products of the same herb against each other if both print a ratio. Most supplement labels print neither the ratio nor anything else, so a label that prints one is ahead.
What the ratio cannot tell you is what came through the process. Extraction is selective by design: a water extract and an ethanol extract of the same plant at the same ratio contain different compounds in different proportions, because different solvents pull out different things. Two 100:1 extracts of the same root, made by different manufacturers, can differ several-fold in the constituent the research measures.
| What the label says | What it tells you | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| 500 mg of root powder | A weight of ground plant | Nothing about potency |
| 50 mg, 10:1 extract | Concentrated from about 500 mg of plant | Which compounds survived |
| 50 mg, 10:1, standardised to 2% icariin | 1 mg of the measured compound | Very little — this is the useful one |
Why the dry-equivalent figure is not a dose
Some labels do the multiplication for you: “10 mg from a 100:1 extract, equivalent to approximately 1,000 mg of dry powder”. That is a real courtesy and it is also the sentence most likely to be misread, because the number a reader takes from it is 1,000 mg and the material in the capsule weighs 10 mg.
The equivalence is a weight equivalence. It says: this much extract came from that much plant. It does not say the capsule performs like a gram of root, because a gram of root contains water, fibre, cellulose and a great many compounds that the extraction step was designed to leave behind — and, depending on the solvent, some it was not designed to leave behind but did.
Where a trial has been run on a standardised extract, the comparison that matters is with the extract, not with the raw plant. A study using 200 mg of an extract standardised to 2% of a marker compound delivered 4 mg of that compound. A label offering 10 mg of an unstandardised extract of the same herb may be delivering anything from a comparable amount to almost none, and nothing printed on it lets you tell.
This is not an accusation
Unstandardised extracts are legal, ordinary and sold in enormous quantities. Standardisation costs money, requires analytical testing per batch, and locks a manufacturer into a specification they then have to hit. The point is not that a label without it is dishonest. The point is that a label without it cannot be compared with a study, by anybody, including the manufacturer.
The number that would settle it
For each of the herbs in this category there is one compound the research generally measures, and one number that would let a buyer line a bottle up against a trial.
| Herb | Marker compound | Typical standardisation in research |
|---|---|---|
| Saw palmetto | Fatty acids and sterols | 85-95% fatty acids |
| Horny goat weed | Icariin | Commonly 10-20% |
| Tongkat ali | Eurycomanone | Stated as a percentage where declared |
| Nettle root | Lignans and sterols | Varies by preparation |
| Tribulus | Saponins | Commonly 40-95% |
| Maca | Not standardised in most research | — |
A label printing “standardised to 10% icariin” beside an 8 mg amount is telling you there is 0.8 mg of icariin in a serving. You can then find what the research used and divide. A label printing only “10:1” leaves you with an arithmetic problem that has no solution.
Why standardisation is rare on a label
- It costs money. Standardisation means analytical testing on every batch of raw material, and rejecting the batches that miss the specification.
- It creates liability. A number on a label is a number a regulator or a competitor can test against. A ratio is a statement about a process that happened somewhere else.
- It is not required. US labelling rules require the ingredient, the part of the plant and the quantity. They do not require a marker compound.
- The ratio looks better anyway. “100:1” and “equivalent to 1,000 mg” are more persuasive to a shopper than “2% eurycomanone”, and cost nothing to print.
The fourth of those is the uncomfortable one. The information that would be most useful to a buyer is also the information least likely to impress one, which is a reliable way of predicting what ends up on a package.
How to read a ratio in thirty seconds
Find the printed weight, not the equivalence
The milligrams of extract in a serving. That is the material you are swallowing.
Look for a percentage
A marker compound with a percentage beside it. If it is there, multiply and you have a comparable number.
If there is no percentage, stop comparing
You can compare this product with itself over time. You cannot compare it with a study, because nobody knows what is in it at that level.
Check the plant part
Root, leaf, berry, seed. Research on one part does not transfer to another, and labels get this wrong more often than you would expect.
Then look at the raw weight anyway
Even unstandardised, a 20 mg extract and a 320 mg extract of the same herb are not the same proposition.
What this means for the product we sell
Vapofil prints its ratios. Tongkat ali at 10 mg from a 100:1 extract, stated as about 1,000 mg of dry powder. Horny goat weed at 8 mg from a 10:1 extract, stated as about 80 mg. That is more disclosure than the majority of this aisle offers and it should be credited before anything else.
Neither row carries a standardisation figure. No eurycomanone percentage for the tongkat ali; no icariin percentage for the epimedium. So the two ingredients this product leads with are the two that cannot be compared with anything, and the dry-equivalent figures — which are the most striking numbers on the panel — are weight equivalences rather than doses.
There is a further problem specific to these two, which is covered on the ingredients page: we could not find a monograph for tongkat ali at the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, at NCCIH or at Memorial Sloan Kettering. So even a standardisation figure would have nothing to be compared against.
That is the honest summary. A label doing better than its neighbours, on ingredients where better is not yet enough.
A worked example, with real numbers
Take epimedium, because the research on it at least names a compound. Suppose two products on the same shelf.
- Product A: “Horny Goat Weed Extract 10:1 — 8 mg (equivalent to 80 mg dry)”.
- Product B: “Horny Goat Weed Extract — 500 mg, standardised to 10% icariin”.
Product A sounds specific. It prints a ratio and does the multiplication. But nothing in it tells you how much icariin is present, and a 10:1 extract can be made in ways that concentrate icariin, ways that do not, and ways that lose most of it — all of which are honestly described as 10:1.
Product B tells you there is 50 mg of icariin in a serving. That number can be set against whatever the research used, by anybody, with a calculator. It is the only one of the two labels that permits a comparison at all.
Product A may be an excellent extract. The point is that its label makes the question unanswerable, and the more impressive-looking number on it — the 80 mg dry equivalent — is the one that carries the least information.
Read the panel first, then decide
Sixty capsules, two a day, seven actives itemised and two extract ratios printed — better label work than most of this aisle. What is missing is standardisation, and two of the seven ingredients have no monograph anywhere we looked. The live price and the 60-day return terms are both on the seller’s checkout screen.
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