If you're like me, you see a new bogus cure-all product every day – guaranteed to cure all of your ills. I think that the only ill that they cure is a wallet with money in it!
However, among all the dirt of snake oil products are high quality products that work! If you can figure out which products are the gold, you can enjoy much better health without spending inordinate amounts of money. Following are several things that you should check on a product to see if it is "for real".
First, check out what the product is. What nutrients or ingredients are in the product that make it work? You can not do a good job analyzing the product unless you know what it is.
Second, check out the science on the product and / or ingredients. If the product is supposed to do xyz, are their scientific studies done to prove it? Do the active ingredients in the product have research done on them?
Next, you need to find out if the product is still effective when you take it. There are many products out there that are made from ingredients that are great, but for one reason or another, the finished product is useless. This is often due to improper processing. Obviously, it is very hard for you to know if the product is processed correctly. However, you can find out such basic as what quality control procedures are in place and if there is evidence that the finished product works.
Finally, you should check on testimonials. Testimonies are a great way to validate the efficiency of a product, but they are also easily fabricated. Verify the testimonials, preferably by talking to a few of them. That way, you are at least assured that they are real people.