Hydrated Chemicals in Supplements
Paul Antonik Wakfer
Sulfate that we had received in a shipment from LEF.
See http://www.lef.org/newshop/items/item00213.html
On the ingredients portion of the label of this product which is
supposed to contain 7.5 mg vanadyl sulfate, she found the text
"providing 1.5 mg vanadium" which had not been on the labels of bottles
previously obtained from LEF (at least not prior to 6 months ago).
Since we had been figuring for years that one tablet of this product
was providing us with 2.3 mg of elemental vanadium and in fact have
that down in our online supplement regimen spreadsheet (see
http://morelife.org/personal/health/regimen_ingredients.xls ), she told
me immediately. The 2.3 mg figure was based on my own calculation of
many years ago when I was working on the LEF Product Directory - from
the formula for vanadyl sulfate (VOSO4) and verified by the
authoritative Merck Index as containing 31.25% vanadium by weight.
After some back and forth correspondence with LEF customer service, it
was determined that what LEF has been selling for years as vanadyl
sulfate is actually a vanadyl sulfate hydrate containing about 32%
water of hydration (likely a mixture of the two major hydrated forms,
the dihydrate and the pentahydrate). So that is why the 7.5 mg of
vanadyl sulfate hydrate in each tablet contains only about 1.5 mg of
elemental vanadium. Our point, however, was that it has then been
highly misleading for many years to label the product as 7.5 mg of
vanadyl sulfate - a chemical name which implies no water of hydration.
After copying Bill Faloon on our last email to LEF, he immediately
responded with orders (to his staff) to change the product description
accordingly.
Although like all companies LEF makes mistakes, to his credit Bill has
generally been quick to respond positively and to correct them.
As a result of this, I thought it might be worthwhile to make a
comparative investigation of a few other vendors and here is what I
found.
VRP
They do not sell the product as containing a certain amount of vanadyl
sulfate (ie the front label does not state any amount), but they still
misstate on the ingredients list that it contains 50 mg of vanadyl
sulfate followed by "(20% elemental vanadium, 10 mg)", which is correct
if it is the same hydrated form as LEF sells.
BAC
Their vanadyl sulfate product is described at:
http://www.easycart.net/BeyondACenturyInc./Athletic_Aids.html#5356
and the details at:
http://www.easycart.net/BeyondACenturyInc./images/5356.gif
give no indication whatsoever of whether or not the chemical (stated as
merely 10 mg of vanadyl sulfate) is hydrated nor any indication of how
much elemental vanadium each tablet contains.
Vitamin Shoppe
They have both their own vanadyl sulfate product and carry other
makers' products, but the details of the labeling and descriptions are
again misleading and confusing.
http://vitaminshoppe.com/ (search on vanadyl sulfate)
Product UL-1006, described as "Vanadyl Sulfate (10 MG)" (made by
Ultimate Nutrition), states exactly the same in the detailed
information.
Products VS-1338 and VS-1339, described as "Vanadyl Sulfate (2 MG)"
(Vitamin Shoppe's own brand with the second containing 3x as many tabs
as the first), states in the detailed information that it contains 2 mg
of vanadium and nothing about the amount of vanadyl sulfate contained.
This is an error in the opposite direction to all other vendors, and
could lead to overdoses by those who think that they are purchasing 2
mg of vanadyl sulfate, which from other sources they think only
contains 20% vanadium.
Product CF-1217, described as "Vanadyl Sulfate (5000 MCG)" (made by
Country Life), states in the detailed information that it contains 975
mcg of vanadium.
Product AM-1155, described as "Vanadyl Sulfate (7.5 MG)" (made by
Douglas Amni), states exactly the same in the detailed information
Thus it appears that all vendors are selling only vanadyl sulfate
hydrate even though they are all incorrectly and misleadingly labeling
it as vanadyl sulfate. Some of them are at least honestly supplying the
amount of elemental vanadium present in each tablet or capsule, but
many others are not doing that.
In future I will be watching more carefully to see if other products
are diluted by being hydrated.
Before completing this review, I decided to check a few PubMed
abstracts to see how they handled the situation of hydrated vanadyl
sulfate. Since every abstract that I found (except 4 old toxicity
studies specifically on vanadyl sulphate pentahydrate) used the simple
name vanadyl sulfate, I am not sure whether or not they were using the
pure chemical or a hydrated form. If some of them were using a hydrated
form then they should state this is the full paper and it would be
misleading to state the dosage in the abstract without making this
clear. I think that it might be a useful project for someone who has
access to more full papers than I, to investigate whether or not all
studies do use the pure, unhydrated form. Knowing this for certain is
that only way in which results can be compared and human dosages
decided.
--Paul Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
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Olafur Pall Olafsson
Paul Antonik Wakfer wrote:
> Before completing this review, I decided to check a few PubMed
> abstracts to see how they handled the situation of hydrated vanadyl
> sulfate. Since every abstract that I found (except 4 old toxicity
> studies specifically on vanadyl sulphate pentahydrate) used the simple
> name vanadyl sulfate, I am not sure whether or not they were using the
> pure chemical or a hydrated form. If some of them were using a hydrated
> form then they should state this is the full paper and it would be
> misleading to state the dosage in the abstract without making this
> clear. I think that it might be a useful project for someone who has
> access to more full papers than I, to investigate whether or not all
> studies do use the pure, unhydrated form. Knowing this for certain is
> that only way in which results can be compared and human dosages
> decided.
Putting "vanadyl sulfate" in the search string on pubmed yielded 205
hits. I quickly checked all the abstracts and had access to several of
the full text articles. For those I had access to the following
vanadium compound was used:
Type of compound Number of articles using this compound
Type not stated 12
VOSO4 9
VOSO4-3H2O 4
VOSO4-4H2O 2
VOSO4-5H2O 4
VOSO4-6H2O 2
VOSO4-XH2O 4
As you can see by viewing these results it appears that the majority of
the studies used hydrated vanadyl sulfate. Since hydrated vanadyl
sulfate also contains VOSO4 in the chemical formula some authors might
not bother to mention that the vanadium they used was hydrated and
simply call it VOSO4. For this reason I cannot say with certainty that
the 9 studies that simply mentioned using vanadyl sulfate (VOSO4)
necessarily used pure vanadyl sulfate.