Guides
Guides: how to read a supplement label
Everything on this site starts in the same place: the ruled box on the back of a bottle. These two guides are written so that they work on any bottle rather than only on this one, and the seven-step method below is the one this desk runs before it writes a word about a product.
Three things live here. A guide to reading any prostate supplement label, a guide to reading botanical ingredient names, and the method both of them assume: how to read a supplement label in seven steps. None of the three is about buying anything. They are about telling a sales graphic apart from a regulated disclosure, and then doing the arithmetic the disclosure permits.
- Guides here
- Two, plus the method
- Steps in the method
- Seven
- Where to start
- The ruled box
- The figure that matters most
- A standardisation
- Panel rows on this product
- 9
- Rows with an amount
- 9 of 9
- Standardisations printed
- 2 of 6 botanicals
- Glossary terms
- Ten
The two guides
Both are reference pages rather than reviews. Both are written to be run on a bottle you are holding, and both use this product only as the worked example, because a worked example is the only way to show that a method survives contact with a real label.
Read the names guide first if you want to be able to read a single row, and the category guide first if you want to know what the rows add up to. The category guide is the more useful of the two for anybody about to buy a different product, which is most readers who arrive here.
How to read a supplement label in seven steps
Seven steps, in order, using nothing but the bottle and arithmetic you can do on a phone. They work on any supplement in any category. On most products in this series the first step ends the exercise. On this one it does not, which is why the fifth step matters so much here.
- 01Turn the bottle round and find the ruled boxThe front of a bottle is a sales document. The ruled box on the back or the side, headed Supplement Facts, is a declaration with rules attached to it, and everything a supplement is required to say numerically lives inside that box. Nothing printed outside it carries the same weight. A product with no box at all has told you the largest single thing about itself before you have read a word.
- 02Read the serving size before you read any numberEvery figure in a panel is per serving, so the serving size sets the scale of all of them. A panel declaring 300 mg of something per serving, where a serving is three capsules, is declaring 100 mg a capsule. Read the serving first or every figure beneath it is the wrong size. Then read the servings per container and turn it into days, because days are the only honest denominator for cost.
- 03Count the rows, then count the rows that carry an amountThose two numbers should be the same and often are not. A name with no figure beside it is a name rather than a disclosure, and a proprietary blend is a group of names sharing one total. A panel where the two counts match has done the one thing a panel exists to do. Write both numbers down before you read anything else, because every later judgement depends on them.
- 04Check the arithmetic on every row that carries a percentageA percentage in the right-hand column means a reference intake exists for that nutrient, and it is the one part of a panel you can audit unaided. Divide the declared amount by the Daily Value and see whether the label’s own percentage comes back. A wrong percentage is the cheapest warning sign on any label; a right one is a small credit, and it tells you the figure beside it means what you think it means.
- 05Multiply out every standardisation before you compare anythingThis is the step almost nobody does and the one that changes the most. A row reading 200 mg standardised to 3% of something delivers 6 mg of that something, and a row reading 10 mg of a 5% preparation delivers half a milligram. Both of those are multiplications of two printed numbers. Do them first, then compare, because the milligram figure on its own can point the wrong way.
- 06Read the plant part on every botanical rowRoot, rhizome, leaf, bark, fruit, seed, aerial parts. Different parts of one plant are studied separately and are not interchangeable: a root extract and a leaf extract of the same species are two materials with two literatures. A label that names the part has told you which published work applies to the row. A label that names only the plant has left you to assume.
- 07Read the Other Ingredients line, the caution block and the distributor blockThe Other Ingredients line is where the capsule shell, the flow agents and the fillers live, and it is the only way to learn whether a shell is gelatin or vegetarian. The caution block is what a manufacturer is prepared to put in writing about dose, age, pregnancy, nursing and medical conditions. The distributor block is the answer to who you can ask. All three sit outside the ruled box and all three are part of the label.
The method, run on this product
The same seven steps against the Prostacyl label, step by step, with nothing added and nothing softened. Unusually for this series, every step returns something.
| Step | What this label gives |
|---|---|
| 1. Find the ruled box | It is there, and it is complete. The supplied label wrap carries a full Supplement Facts panel. Step one usually ends the exercise on products in this series. Here it starts it. |
| 2. Read the serving size | 2 capsules, with 30 servings per container, both printed in the panel head. Sixty capsules at two a day is 30 days, and the two figures agree. |
| 3. Count the rows, then the amounts | 9 rows, 9 amounts. The counts match, there is no proprietary blend and nothing is hidden behind a total. This is the best result this step has returned in the series. |
| 4. Check the percentages | Two rows carry one. B6 at 13.8 mg against the 1.7 mg Daily Value is 811.8%, and the panel prints 812% — correct. Vitamin E prints 167%, which is 25 divided by 15; the form is synthetic and the printed figure is roughly double what it delivers. |
| 5. Multiply out the standardisations | Two rows print one. Pygeum: 200 × 0.03 = 6 mg of phytosterols. Lycopene: 10 × 0.05 = 0.5 mg of lycopene. Three botanical rows print no standardisation at all, so nothing can be multiplied out on them. |
| 6. Read the plant parts | Fruit, bark, seed, seed, leaf. Five parts on five rows, which is good practice and is exactly what makes the nettle row readable: the part is leaf, and the prostate literature is on the root. |
| 7. Read the three blocks outside the box | All three are present. Other Ingredients: Gelatin (capsule), Brown Rice Flour., so the capsule is not vegetarian. A complete caution block naming a dose limit and four groups. And a distributor block naming Nutrova, Tallmadge, OH 44278, USA with an email address. |
Six of the seven steps return a credit. That is worth stating plainly: this is the most transparent label this desk has read in the series, and the method finds almost nothing missing until step five. The label page sets the panel against what 21 CFR 101.36 requires, requirement by requirement.
Step five is where the work is. Multiplying out the two printed standardisations, and noticing the three botanical rows that print none, is what turns a good label into a readable formula — and what shows that four of the nine rows deliver substantially less of the measured constituent than the published work used. All nine rows are taken one at a time on the ingredients page.
The arithmetic the printed figures permit
When every amount on a panel is printed, a reader is not reduced to bounds and ceilings. Each figure is either printed or is a printed figure multiplied by a printed percentage, and the whole derivation can be laid out and checked. Seven steps, on this label, in order.
- 01Start from what is printedNine rows, nine amounts, a serving size of two capsules and thirty servings a container. No proprietary blend and nothing hidden behind a total. This is the whole input, and it is more than most labels in this series provide.
- 02Check the panel adds up25 + 13.8 + 300 + 200 + 100 + 100 + 50 + 10 + 10 = 808.8 mg a serving, which is 404.4 mg a capsule. A size 0 capsule holds roughly 400 to 500 mg of powder, so the fill is plausible and close to capacity, with the brown rice flour making up the rest. The panel is internally consistent.
- 03Convert the nutrient formsTwo rows carry a %DV. B6 at 13.8 mg against a 1.7 mg Daily Value is 812%, and the printed figure is correct. Vitamin E is the synthetic all rac form, which NIH converts at 2 mg synthetic to 1 mg alpha-tocopherol, so 25 mg supplies about 12.5 mg: roughly 83% of the Daily Value, not the 167% printed.
- 04Apply the standardisationsTwo rows print one. Pygeum at 200 mg standardised to 3% phytosterols delivers 6.0 mg of phytosterols. Lycopene 5% at 10 mg delivers 0.5 mg of lycopene. These are multiplications of two printed numbers and nothing else.
- 05Read the plant partsNettle is declared as leaf. The prostate literature is on nettle root. That is not an arithmetic step, but it changes what the 50 mg can be compared with, which is the same kind of correction.
- 06Set the results against the published doses6 mg of pygeum sterols against 13 mg in the trial standardisation. 0.5 mg of lycopene against 15 mg. 50 mg of leaf against 360 mg of root. 300 mg of unstandardised saw palmetto against a trial that found nothing at 320, 640 and 960 mg.
- 07State the limit of the readingNone of this says the product does not work, and none of it is a safety finding. It says that four of the nine rows deliver substantially less of the measured constituent than the published work used, and that a reader could only discover that by doing arithmetic the merchant did not do for them.
Green bars are this product. Grey bars are the dose used in the published work. Read the three pairs: the pygeum row prints 200 mg and delivers 6 mg of the measured constituent against the trial's 13 mg; the nettle row prints 50 mg of leaf against 360 mg of root; the lycopene row prints 10 mg of a 5% preparation, which is 0.5 mg of lycopene, against 15 mg. Every figure is printed on the label or is the printed figure multiplied by the printed standardisation.
The general lesson, which applies to any bottle
Read the pairs, not the single bars. Twice in that chart a larger printed milligram figure delivers less of the measured constituent than a smaller one, and both times the reason is a percentage printed in small type. This is the habit worth taking away from this site to whatever you buy next: multiply the standardisation out before you compare milligrams. The category guide works the pygeum pair through line by line.
Ten terms, in plain words
Every term below appears somewhere on this site, and each is defined here once so that the guides can use it without stopping. Four of the ten describe things this product has, which is why they are worth knowing before you read another label.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Supplement Facts panel | The ruled box a dietary supplement sold in the United States has to carry, giving the serving size, the servings per container, and the name and quantity of every dietary ingredient. The rule is 21 CFR 101.36. |
| Serving size | The amount customarily consumed at one time, in the unit the product comes in — two capsules, one scoop, one tablet. Every figure in a panel is stated per serving. |
| Percent Daily Value | An amount expressed as a share of a published reference intake. Only some nutrients have one; the rest carry a double asterisk and a footnote saying so, which is correct rather than evasive. |
| Other Ingredients | Everything that is not a dietary ingredient — capsule shell, flow agent, filler, colour — listed outside the panel in descending order of weight. This is where you learn what the shell is made of. |
| Proprietary blend | A group of dietary ingredients declared as one total weight, with the individual amounts withheld. The total is printed on the blend’s own line and the names are indented beneath it in descending order of weight. |
| Standardisation | A statement that an extract was manufactured to a fixed proportion of a measured constituent — 3% phytosterols, 5% lycopene, 13% total sterols. It is the single most informative thing a label can print about a botanical. |
| Extract ratio | A figure such as 4:1, meaning four parts of raw material produced one part of extract. It says how concentrated a material is, and without it a milligram of extract and a milligram of raw powder are not the same thing. |
| Tolerable Upper Intake Level | The highest daily intake of a nutrient judged unlikely to cause harm in the general population. It is a ceiling on exposure, not a target, and it is the figure to set a large percentage against. |
| Structure/function claim | A claim that a product supports a normal body structure or function rather than treating a disease. It triggers the requirement to print the FDA disclaimer, and it is the kind of claim supplements are allowed to make. |
| cGMP | Current Good Manufacturing Practice, the manufacturing rule for dietary supplements under 21 CFR Part 111. Every facility making supplements for the US market has to comply, so compliance is a legal requirement rather than a distinction. |
Two of those definitions do most of the work in this category. Standardisation is what turns a plant name into a figure you can compare with a trial. Tolerable Upper Intake Level is what turns a large percent Daily Value from an impressive number into a measurable one. This product supplies two of the first and runs into two of the second. The safety page sets both figures out.
What a reading method cannot do
It matters to be clear about what reading well does not deliver, because the gap is wide and no amount of care closes it.
What reading a label does tell you
- What is declared, in what quantity per serving, and whether the declared percentages check out against a published Daily Value.
- What the measured constituent actually comes to, wherever a standardisation percentage is printed, by one multiplication.
- Whether a botanical is named precisely enough to be looked up at all: species, plant part, standardised constituent.
- Whether a large percentage sits near an upper limit, once you know the limit.
- What the manufacturer is prepared to put in writing about dose, age, pregnancy, medication and medical conditions.
- Who the responsible company says it is, and where it says it is.
What it cannot tell you
- Whether the bottle contains what the panel says. Only laboratory testing of the lot settles that, and no certificate was supplied for the product this site documents.
- Whether any of it will do anything for you. A panel is a declaration of contents, not evidence of effect.
- Whether an ingredient is safe for you specifically, alongside your prescriptions and your conditions.
- What is causing your symptoms. Urinary symptoms have several possible causes and some of them need a clinician rather than a capsule.
- Whether a dose matches a trial, where no standardisation is printed. An unstandardised extract cannot be placed on the same axis as a standardised one.
The fourth item in the right-hand column is the one to take seriously. Nothing on this site is medical advice and nothing here is a verdict on whether a product works. Urinary symptoms have causes worth identifying, several of them have nothing to do with the prostate, and a label is not a diagnosis. The disclaimer says this in the place you are most likely to need it.
The short version, for an aisle
The seven-step method is written for a desk. This one is written for a shelf, or for a phone in front of a product page, and it is six moves rather than seven.
- 01Turn it roundIf there is no ruled box, put it down or accept that you are buying on the strength of the front panel. That decision takes four seconds and it is the most consequential one in the aisle.
- 02Serving size, then servings per containerTwo figures, five seconds. They set the scale of every other number on the box and tell you how long it lasts.
- 03Count names, count amountsIf the two counts match and there is no blend line, the label has done the main thing. If they do not, the gap is the part that was not disclosed.
- 04Find the percentage signs on the botanical rowsA standardisation on every botanical is excellent, on some of them is normal, on none of them means the names are the whole disclosure. Multiply each one out on your phone before comparing anything.
- 05Read the plant partsOne word per row, and it decides which published work applies. Root and leaf are not interchangeable, and neither are seed and fruit.
- 06Read the Other Ingredients line and the caution blockShell material, fillers, flow agents, and what the manufacturer will put in writing. This is where a vegetarian question and an allergy question are actually answered.
Nothing in that list says a bottle is the answer to anything. It is a method for finding out what a seller is prepared to tell you, which is a different question from whether a product works and a much easier one to settle.
References
12 sources are cited across this site and every one was opened and read. Every regulatory statement on these three guide pages points at the document linked here rather than at a summary of it.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2026). Dietary Supplement Labeling Guide: Chapter IV, Nutrition Labeling (21 CFR 101.36).
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements (2026). Vitamin E: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals.
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements (2026). Vitamin B6: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals.
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements (2026). Boron: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals.
- American Academy of Family Physicians (2012). Saw Palmetto Ineffective for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (Barry et al., JAMA 2011).
- PeaceHealth / Natural Medicines monograph (2026). Pygeum: dosage, standardisation to 13% total sterols, and evidence rating.
- Drugs.com natural products database (2026). Nettles (Urtica dioica): root doses used in BPH trials, and leaf uses.
- FoodNavigator, reporting Schwarz et al., Journal of Nutrition 138:49-53 (2008). Lycopene 15 mg a day for six months in 40 men with BPH.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library (2026). Lycopene content of tomato products, per household measure.
- U.S. Federal Trade Commission (2026). Complying with the Made in USA Standard, and the Made in USA Labeling Rule (16 CFR Part 323).
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2026). Structure/Function Claims for Dietary Supplements.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2026). Current Good Manufacturing Practice for Dietary Supplements (21 CFR Part 111).
The product pages carry the rest. The label page sets out the panel requirement and all 18 findings, and each of the nine rows has its own entry with what is printed, what the serving delivers and what the published work used.
Read the panel before you decide
Sixty capsules, two a day, thirty days a bottle. The Supplement Facts panel declares nine ingredients and nine amounts, with no proprietary blend — the most transparent label in this series. Four of those nine rows change meaning once the arithmetic is done, and all four sums are shown in full. One bottle is $69; six are $49 each. The refund window is printed as 60 days in one place and 90 in another.
- 60 or 90 days — the page prints both
- Nine ingredients, nine printed amounts, no blend
- Returns to 1370 Avenue of the Americas, Floor 4, New York, NY 10019, USA
Prices as printed on the sales page, as of October 12, 2026: one bottle $69, six bottles $49 each with free shipping. The three-bottle total is not published, so it is left blank rather than estimated. The refund window is printed as 60 days in one place and 90 in another — confirm it at the checkout. Questions first? Every published contact route is here.
Keep reading
Authorship and review
Who wrote and checked this page
What this page was checked against
- The label artwork, read at 2× and transcribed character for character. Where the label and the marketing disagree, the label is printed.
- The seller pack, quoted rather than paraphrased, and identified as marketing wherever it is used.
- The published sources listed in the references on this page. Every one was opened and read; none is cited from memory.
- The arithmetic, shown in full. Every amount on this panel is printed, so the figures here are conversions of printed amounts with the working given, never ceilings and never estimates.
- Nothing else. Any fact that was not supplied is recorded as not published rather than filled in.
Last updated October 12, 2026. A highlighted slot is a value no human has supplied yet. Who reviews these pages?