Deciphering OLE Supplement Labels

So, you’re at the local hippie store trying to find some OLE, and this looks good, right? It says 18% right there in black and white! This is what you’re going to see on the store brand OLE labels.

At first glance, you’d think you’re holding some quality OLE in your hot little hands, but look again at that label. See how it’s split into olive leaf extract, and olive leaf?
Those are 400 mg capsules, and they have 215 mg of olive leaf extract with 18% oleuropein, and 185 mg of olive leaf, which is basically useless filler.

What you’re really holding is about 9% oleuropein, total. Those 400 mg capsules have 38.7 mg of active ingredient. To contrast, Vitacost OLE, my favorite, has 90 mg of oleuropein in a 500 mg capsule, for a true 18% active ingredient.

Many health food stores carry Gaia brand in addition to a store brand, and guess what % of active ingredient that has?

No really, you’ll have to guess, because they don’t tell you.

 

 

If you read the Product Description online, you’ll find:

Each serving of Gaia Herbs Olive Leaf provides a guaranteed 50 mg of active Oleuropeins to support the body’s natural defenses and neutralize free radicals.

Got that? 50 mg of oleuropein in 2 capsules. That’s a whole 6% active ingredient, and they want $15+ dollars for 60 of them.

You can get 300 Vitacost capsules for $28 and free shipping from www.vitacost.com.

In short, Vitacost really is the best deal as well as the best quality….and I wish I got a cut of all the sales they’ve made from my comments about them. LOL

Another thing that can be confusing: Nature’s Way sells both effective (but overpriced) OLE with 20% oleuropein, AND useless Olive Leaf. Don’t ever buy anything that just says “olive leaf”, no matter what brand it is. As you can see with this Nature’s Way Olive Leaf label, its levels of oleuropein are so low they just say “contains oleuropein” on the front of the bottle, but don’t list it on the back..

See? Olive leaf. Not olive leaf extract. Buyer beware. I had a lady who accidentally took this and wondered why she didn’t feel like she was taking anything. Same with Gaia, a number of women took that and didn’t improve at all on it.
Another example, Vitacost sells an olive leaf extract in liquid form: it has 1% oleuropein. Needless to say, don’t buy it.

One more thing I was just reminded of..on the label it will tell you that 2 capsules a day is a daily dose, but what they don’t say is that recommendation is for a perfectly healthy person taking OLE for general health maintenance, like to prevent colds. When you have an active bladder infection, or any kind of infection, you have to take much more than that, so follow the basic guidelines I laid out in the posts on killing UTI’s.

Buying a quality brand with a high percentage of oleuropein is imperative.