Evening EditionAt Nine in the Evening I Balanced a Supplement Label the Way I Balance the Day's Receipts. Three Lines Came Out Even. The Folate Line Says 7.5 Milligrams and 50 Percent, and Those Two Figures Can't Both Be Right.
Neurologic is a 32-ounce amber bottle of berry-flavored liquid from Liquid Health of Mesquite, Nevada, poured two tablespoons at a time from the refrigerator door. I did the arithmetic on its four measured lines after supper, set the one that doesn't balance beside the three that do, and wrote down the question worth putting to the company before anyone orders.
This is a paid advertisement. Sponsored by Liquid Health, Inc.
Clarence Whitford is the pen name of this desk, and the reader whose letter started this page is a composite drawn from several letters, with names and details changed.
Everything about the product, from the amounts and the label wording to the policies and the reviews, comes from the seller's own pages and label photographs.
Most nights I close the day the same way.
The receipts come out of my wallet and go on the kitchen table, under the lamp.
I add them up.
I check the total against the bank's number, and I don't go to bed until the two agree.
A column you haven't checked isn't a total, it's a guess.
I've believed that for as long as I've had a checkbook.
A total that doesn't balance isn't a scandal. It's a question, and questions have phone numbers.
That habit is the whole reason this page exists.
A reader sent me a photograph of his refrigerator door this spring.
Milk, orange juice, a jar of jam, and a 32-ounce amber bottle with a red name on it.
He'd been pouring two tablespoons from it every morning for months, and he wanted to know one thing: does the label add up?
So one evening, after my own receipts were put away, I put his label on the table instead.
I read the back before the front, and I did the arithmetic line by line, the way I would with any column somebody asked me to trust.
Three lines balanced to the penny, one line didn't, and two blends had no numbers in them at all.
One more thing before the arithmetic, because most of you reached this page from one of our own advertisements.
Those ads mention a boxed cereal, three foods, three drinks, and three words or phrases a man is supposed to be able to say.
None of that is in this bottle, and I won't pretend it is.
It's on this page anyway, in a section of its own called the bowl and the cup, and the honest version of every headline we run is in the guide linked at the foot.
Nine o'clockThe Bottle on My Kitchen Table
The thing is heavy.
Amber glass, a metal cap, about the size of a bottle of maple syrup.
Thirty-two fluid ounces, which is thirty-two mornings at two tablespoons.
The flavor is berry pomegranate, and it goes in the refrigerator once it's open.
It's called Neurologic.
It's made by Liquid Health, a company in Mesquite, Nevada, that has sold liquid vitamins for years.
Before any number, I note who stands behind the column.
This company publishes a street address, a phone number you can call or text, an email, and its customer-service hours.
It also prints its whole Supplement Facts panel on its own product page, at a size you can read.
That matters tonight, because every number below comes off that panel, and because a company that prints its phone number is a company you can ask.
The front of the bottle carries one sentence about what it's for.
A powerful blend to promote mental acuity in everyday life & brain health over time.
— Liquid Health, front label of the bottle
"Promote" is a soft verb, and it's the right one for a supplement.
The label is more careful than the website. It usually is.
The columnTwo Tablespoons, Entered Line by Line
Here's the whole panel for one serving, two tablespoons, the way I copied it into my notebook.
- Vitamin E, 7.5 mg, printed as 50 percent of the Daily Value
- Folate, printed as 7.5 mg and as 50 percent of the Daily Value
- Vitamin B12, 400 mcg, printed as 16,667 percent
- Choline, 100 mg, printed as 18 percent
- A "Memory and Focus Blend" of 815 mg: aloe vera juice, acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha GPC, phosphatidylserine, L-theanine, alpha lipoic acid
- A second blend of 655 mg, named on the label for alertness: L-tyrosine, DMAE, rhodiola root extract, ginkgo leaf extract, huperzine A
Five calories, one gram of carbohydrate, zero sugar.
The label also says vegan, non-GMO, cold processed, third-party lab tested and made in the USA.
Four lines on that panel carry a number and a percentage side by side.
Those are the four I can check, because the percentage is the label's own arithmetic against a public table.
The Daily Value table is set by the FDA and printed on every American supplement.
If a label says 50 percent, you can take the amount, divide it by the table, and see whether the label did its sums.
Four lines with a number: three that balance, and one that doesn't.
First entryVitamin E: 7.5 Milligrams, 50 Percent
The Daily Value for vitamin E on a US label is 15 milligrams.
Half of 15 is 7.5.
Balanced.
Nothing exciting about vitamin E here, and nothing wrong either.
It's an ordinary amount of an ordinary nutrient, printed correctly.
Second entryVitamin B12: 400 Micrograms, 16,667 Percent
The Daily Value for B12 is 2.4 micrograms.
Divide 400 by 2.4 and you get 166.67, which is 16,667 percent.
Balanced, to the last digit.
That figure looks like a gift, and it's closer to plumbing.
B12 is absorbed through a two-step process in the stomach and gut, and that process gets less efficient with age.
When it isn't working, only about one or two percent of a big oral dose gets through by simple diffusion.
That's why supplement doses of B12 are printed in the thousands of percent.
Now the sentence most pages leave out.
A Cochrane review looked at fourteen trials in 27,882 adults with normal thinking. [1]
It found that B-vitamin supplements probably do little or nothing for overall thinking over five years.
That review is about people who are not short of these vitamins, and it says nothing at all about people who are.
A real shortfall of B12 gets more common with age, and it looks a great deal like tiredness and reading the same line twice.
So if the column has been refusing to add for a year, do the dull thing first and ask your clinician for a blood test.
A laboratory answers that question in a week, and a bottle takes a month and still doesn't answer it.
Third entryCholine: 100 Milligrams, 18 Percent
The Daily Value for choline is 550 milligrams.
One hundred divided by 550 is a little over 18 percent.
Balanced, and honestly small.
Eighteen percent is not a number a marketing department chooses.
It's a number an accountant leaves in because it's true.
Choline is the raw material for acetylcholine, one of the messenger chemicals nerves use.
It's in eggs, meat, fish, peanuts and the cabbage family, and a lot of us don't reach the full 550 milligrams a day.
In 1,391 adults aged 36 to 83, the ones who ate more choline scored better on verbal and visual memory tests. [2]
That's food, not a supplement, and it's an association, not a trial.
Eating more eggs is not the same as pouring a supplement, and nobody has shown the second does what the first is linked to.
Fourth entryFolate: 7.5 Milligrams, 50 Percent
Then I got to the line that made me put the pencil down.
The folate line reads "7.5 mg" and, beside it, "50 %."
The Daily Value for folate on a US label is 400 micrograms.
Fifty percent of that is 200 micrograms.
And 7.5 milligrams is 7,500 micrograms.
Against the same table, that would be 1,875 percent.
200 micrograms or 7,500. The label prints both.
Those two figures can't both be right.
One of them is a misprint, either the amount or the percentage.
I'm going to be careful here, because this is exactly the kind of detail pages like mine blow up into a story.
I don't know which figure is wrong, and I'm not going to guess in print.
A misprint on one line doesn't tell you the other lines are wrong.
The other three balanced exactly, and that's worth saying as plainly as the error.
What it does tell you is that nobody caught this line before the label went to print.
In my trade, one line that doesn't balance is a reason to ask, not a reason to throw the book out.
Before bedWhat I Do With a Line That Doesn't Balance
When a receipt and the bank disagree, I don't sit up guessing.
I write the question down and I call in the morning.
That's the whole method, and it works on a label too.
This company prints a phone number on the bottle and on its site, and it answers weekdays during business hours on the East Coast.
Here's what I'd put to them, written the way I'd write it on the back of an envelope.
- On the folate line, which figure is right: 7.5 milligrams, or 50 percent of the Daily Value?
- The product description names vitamin B6 as a key ingredient, and the panel doesn't list it: is there B6 in the bottle or not?
- The store's tag says the bottle has no soy, and the panel says the phosphatidylserine comes from non-GMO soy: which one should a man with a soy allergy believe?
Three questions, a couple of minutes, and it costs you nothing to ask.
If you'd rather write, the company publishes an email too, and a written answer is one you can keep in a folder.
If soy matters to you, believe the panel, not the tag, until someone at the company tells you otherwise in writing.
I'd ask before the first order, not after.
The company's policy is an exchange or a store credit, not a cash refund, so the first bottle is a real decision.
The blends1,470 Milligrams, Eleven Ingredients, No Amounts
Now the part of the label where the arithmetic stops.
Two "proprietary blends," one of 815 milligrams with six ingredients and one of 655 milligrams with five.
Eleven ingredients, and not one of them has a number next to it.
That's legal, and plenty of labels do it.
I can tell you what the studies used. I can't tell you what the bottle gives you.
Ginkgo leaf extract is the famous one.
The biggest trial ever run on it gave 3,069 adults aged 72 to 96 a standard extract, 120 milligrams twice a day, for about six years. [3]
They lost ground at the same rate as the people on placebo, in memory and in everything else the trial measured.
The National Institutes of Health says there's no conclusive evidence that ginkgo helps with any health condition. [4]
Phosphatidylserine has one decent trial in the right age group.
Seventy-eight Japanese adults aged 50 to 69 who complained about their memory took 100 or 300 milligrams a day for six months. [5]
Scores went up in every group, including the placebo group.
Only the people who started lowest improved against their own baseline.
L-theanine is the amino acid in green tea.
In men and women aged 50 to 69, a single dose came with faster reaction times on an attention task. [6]
The summary doesn't state the dose, and neither does this label.
Rhodiola has one small study, in fifty-six young physicians on night duty who did better on tests of mental tiredness after two weeks. [7]
Young physicians on night shift, not a man with a column of receipts at nine in the evening.
Tyrosine seems to help in short, demanding spurts, and mostly in younger people under pressure. [8]
And then there are the ones with no useful evidence in healthy adults at all.
Acetyl-L-carnitine, alpha GPC, alpha lipoic acid, DMAE, and aloe vera juice, which is probably part of the liquid base.
Huperzine A deserves its own line.
It's a purified compound from a Chinese club moss that slows the enzyme that clears acetylcholine, which is a reason to mention it at the pharmacy counter, not a reason to be impressed.
Real ingredients, real research on a few of them, and no way to tell how much of any of them you're getting.
The claim I couldn't checkDoes a Liquid Absorb Better? Nobody Has Shown It Here.
The seller's page says the liquid's absorbability is "vastly better" than tablets, capsules and chewables.
Then it adds this.
This means your body will readily take in all the vitamins we've sourced and formulated for you.
— Liquid Health, from the seller's own product page
I went looking for something to hold that up against: a published comparison of this liquid with a capsule, or anything measuring how much of it reaches the blood.
I didn't find one, and the company doesn't publish one either.
So here's what I think is true.
The advantage of a liquid isn't chemistry. It's behavior.
It lives in the fridge door, and it doesn't need to be swallowed dry.
You taste it, so you notice when you've skipped it, and a product you use beats a product you meant to use.
The bowl and the cupThe Cereal, the Three Drinks, the Three Foods and the Word Test From Our Own Advertisements
Our advertisements have been saying, in one version or another, that a boxed cereal, three foods and three drinks have something to do with memory, and that there are three words or phrases a man ought to be able to say.
You're owed the honest version, in one section, so here it is.
Start with the bowl.
A frosted, honey-coated or chocolate cereal is mostly refined starch and added sugar, and a serving can carry more sugar than a cookie.
No cereal "ages the brain faster than time."
Nobody has measured any such thing, and that phrase was written to be clicked.
What the studies do say is duller, and worth more.
In the Framingham Heart Study, adults who drank more sugary beverages scored lower on tests of memory, and daily fruit juice went the same way. [9]
In a Brazilian study of 10,775 adults followed for eight years, the ones who ate the most ultra-processed food lost ground on tests of thinking about a quarter faster than the ones who ate the least. [10]
Both are associations across a population, not a sentence on your bowl.
The three drinks.
The "evening drink" in our advertisement is alcohol, and it has the strongest case behind it: in 550 British civil servants followed for thirty years, the more a person drank, the faster their scores fell on a word-fluency test. [11]
Light drinkers in that study had no edge over those who didn't drink at all.
That's worth knowing at nine in the evening, when the receipts are done and the glass is within reach.
The second is sugar in a glass: soda, sweetened tea, and the tall flavored coffee from the counter, which is a soft drink with coffee in it.
The Framingham finding above is about sugary drinks, and those are sugary drinks. [9]
The third, in one of our headlines, was coffee.
That was our worst headline.
Plain black coffee and plain tea aren't the drinks any of those studies were about. Keep your coffee.
The three foods: processed meat, fried food, and the white-flour shelf of pastries, packaged cakes and white bread.
Our advertisement says "just stop eating these three," and the research says something slower.
In 960 older adults followed for nearly five years, the ones whose meals looked most like the MIND pattern of vegetables, berries, nuts, whole grains, beans, fish and olive oil held their thinking scores better. [12]
The gap between the top and bottom thirds worked out to about seven and a half years of age, and that's a pattern over years, not a list of three.
Less sugar in the bowl and the glass, and less alcohol in the evening.
Keep the coffee, and eat more like the Mediterranean shelf than the vending machine.
Every one of those costs nothing, and none of them is in the bottle.
The choline line above is the one place where this label and that shelf overlap, and the shelf has eggs on it.
The three words, or the three phrases.
There's no such list.
What our advertisement borrowed from is the short, scored mental-status test clinicians give in person: a few words to hold in mind and give back a minute later, a sum, naming, repeating a sentence.
It's read against your age and your schooling by someone trained to do it, and a low score is a reason for a proper look, not a verdict.
Stumbling on a word when you're tired or being timed means nothing on its own.
If the worry behind the click is real, that's fifteen minutes with your own clinician.
And the advertisement about the things some men take every day.
That one sits closest to real research, and it's the one an advertisement has no business acting on.
Some kinds of daily medicine, including a few sold over the counter for allergies and for the night, are on the lists pharmacists check for people over 65.
Don't stop or change any of it because of an advertisement, ours included.
Put everything you take in one bag, this bottle included, take it to the pharmacist, and ask whether anything in it is a poor choice at your age.
Name the huperzine A in this bottle at that counter, and the guide at the foot of this page has that section written out, with the studies.
What it isn'tSix Things This Bottle Will Not Do
- It will not give you back the head you had at forty. Nothing sold in a bottle does.
- It will not act on any condition a clinician has named. It's a dietary supplement, and that's all it is.
- It will not make up for four hours of sleep. Nothing does.
- It will not tell you how much ginkgo, or theanine, or anything else in the two blends you're actually getting. The label doesn't say.
- It will not tell you which folate figure is right. Only the company can.
- It will not tell you whether you're short of B12. Only a blood test does that.
If that list annoys you, I'd rather you were annoyed now than in a month.
The reviewsEighteen Reviews, Entered Like Receipts
The seller's own page carries eighteen reviews: thirteen at five stars, four at four and one at three.
Fourteen carry the review platform's buyer mark.
I read all eighteen.
One five-star review says the writer never received the product, which tells you how much a star count is worth on its own.
Two mention a family member's health, and I've left those out on purpose.
I've kept four below, including the lukewarm ones, and all four carry the buyer mark on the seller's site.
The portraits are illustrations, not the reviewers.
NeuroLogic is one of my go-to brain health supports. I will always have it in my health cupboard. I've tried many supplements - most I wouldn't buy again. This one I've bought several times, 3 or 4 bottles each time.
Taste is very tolerable. We have almost finished the bottle. Have not seen a difference that we can tell.
This is a great combination. Unfortunately, I am having a bit of trouble getting used to the taste. I do appreciate that they have tried to give this a good flavor; I am just not into it.
The product I purchased seems to be effective and works. So far so good. But need more time to feel how effective it actually is. But would buy this product again.
The most useful entry on that page is the three-star review.
A whole bottle, finished, taste fine, and no difference the writer could point to.
That's what an honest account of a supplement usually sounds like.
Some people notice something, some don't, and nobody can tell you in advance which one you'll be.
How it's usedShake, Pour Two Tablespoons, Back in the Door
The reader keeps his in the refrigerator door, between the milk and the juice.
That's why he never forgets it.
Shake it, pour two tablespoons into a small glass, drink it cold, cap back on, door shut.
About twelve seconds, which is the point.
He takes it before the coffee, with a slice of toast.
That last part was his wife's rule, not the label's, and he keeps it.
- A real breakfast before the books, on the days he knows the invoices will be thick.
- Water on the table, refilled when the first column is done.
- Two tablespoons with the toast, every day.
- A hard stop at sixty minutes, then five minutes at the back door doing nothing.
Three of those four things cost nothing.
The fourth is the one he pays for, and he'd tell you that's the right way round.
He says he can't separate the bottle from the toast, the water and the sixty-minute rule.
That's not a testimonial. That's a grown man refusing to overclaim on his own behalf.
Who it's forWho It Suits, and Who It Doesn't
This is worth a look if:
- You've failed at capsules before, for reasons of habit rather than belief.
- You want something you'll see every time you open the fridge.
- You read labels, and you can hold two ideas at once: real ingredients, undisclosed amounts.
- You're content to ask the company one question about the folate line before you order.
- You're in the United States, because the seller ships nowhere else.
Give it a miss if:
- You want something that acts on a condition a clinician has named.
- You want to know exactly how much of each botanical you're getting. This label won't tell you.
- You have a soy allergy and haven't had a written answer from the company. The panel says the phosphatidylserine comes from soy.
- You dislike berry flavors. One of the eighteen reviewers took a star off for exactly that.
- You're pregnant or nursing, or under a clinician's care and haven't asked first.
Where to get itSold Direct, With Store Credit Rather Than a Refund
The bottle is sold direct, on Liquid Health's own site, and that's the only place this page links to.
The seller says it's also in a couple of big retailers, but its return policy only covers the direct purchase.
The current price is shown there rather than here, because prices change.
I'm not going to print a number that goes stale.
Read the small print on the policy and it's an exchange or a store credit within thirty days.
Not a refund, which is one more reason to make the phone call first.
See the current price on Liquid Health's site
A liquid blend of vitamins, choline and eleven botanical and amino-acid ingredients, poured out two tablespoons at a time from an amber glass bottle.
CHECK AVAILABILITYSold and shipped by Liquid Health, Inc., Mesquite, Nevada · Ships within the United States only · 30-day exchange or store credit, not a cash refund
Every line on the panel is written out in the ingredient and advertising guide linked at the foot of this page: what each ingredient is, what the research does and doesn't show, and which of our own headlines the bottle does and doesn't support.
Print it and take it to the pharmacy counter if you take anything daily, with the folate question written at the top.
QuestionsWhat Readers Ask Me Before Their First Bottle
Questions readers ask
Is this medicine?
No. It's a dietary supplement sold in the United States.
No regulator has approved it for any health condition, and the label says so.
How long does a bottle last?
Thirty-two fluid ounces at two tablespoons a day is thirty-two mornings. Call it a month.
Why does the folate line say 7.5 mg and 50 percent when those don't match?
I don't know, and I won't guess. Fifty percent of the 400-microgram Daily Value is 200 micrograms, and 7.5 milligrams would be 1,875 percent.
The other three lines balance exactly. Call or email the company and ask which figure is right.
Does one misprint mean the rest of the label is wrong?
Not by itself. Vitamin E, B12 and choline all check out against the Daily Value table to the last digit.
It means one line wasn't checked before printing, and that's worth one question.
Does it have to stay in the fridge?
Once it's open, yes. The seller says so, and it's also the whole point: you see it every time you open the door.
Will it help my memory?
I can't tell you that, and you should be wary of any page that does. A few of the ingredients have some evidence behind them at amounts this label doesn't disclose.
What it reliably gives you is a twelve-second daily habit you're likely to keep.
Can I take it alongside what I already take?
Ask your clinician or pharmacist, and take the ingredient guide with you so they can see everything in the bottle.
One ingredient, huperzine A, acts on the nervous system, so that conversation matters more than usual.
What if I don't like the taste?
One of the eighteen reviewers didn't. The seller will exchange it or give you store credit within thirty days, but not your money back.
Where does it ship?
Within the United States only, at the time of writing.
Your advertisement was about a cereal, or three foods, or three drinks. Where is that on this page?
In the section called the bowl and the cup, in full, with the studies. The short version: less sugar in the bowl and the glass, less alcohol in the evening, keep your plain coffee, and eat more like the Mediterranean shelf.
None of it is in the bottle, and the ingredient and advertising guide at the foot goes through every headline we run and says which ones overstate.
Your advertisement said something about three phrases, or spelling three words. Is there a test I can take?
Not on a screen. The words and phrases come from the short mental-status test clinicians give in person, read against your age and schooling by someone trained to do it.
Nothing begins at a word. If the worry behind the click is real, ask your clinician for the proper test.
The closing balanceEverything Above, in Sixty Seconds
- A 32-ounce liquid from Liquid Health, a Nevada company that publishes an address, a phone number, an email and its full label.
- Two tablespoons a day, thirty-two mornings a bottle; five calories, no sugar, refrigerated once open.
- Four lines with numbers: vitamin E at 50 percent, B12 at 16,667 percent and choline at 18 percent all balance against the Daily Value table.
- The folate line prints 7.5 mg and 50 percent, which would be 7,500 or 200 micrograms; one figure is a misprint, and the company is the one to ask.
- Two more questions for the same call: the B6 the description mentions and the panel doesn't list, and the soy the panel lists and the tag denies.
- Two proprietary blends, 1,470 mg, eleven ingredients, no amounts for any of them.
- B vitamins probably do little for thinking in people who aren't short of them. [1] A blood test tells you whether you are.
- Ginkgo failed the biggest trial ever run on it. [3] Phosphatidylserine has one modest trial in the right age group. [5]
- The cereal, three drinks, three foods and word test from our own advertisements are answered in the bowl and the cup: less sugar, less alcohol, keep the coffee, more like the Mediterranean shelf, and no test on a screen.
- Eighteen reviews, fourteen with the buyer mark; the three-star one says "no difference that we can tell."
- A thirty-day exchange or store credit, not a refund; ships within the United States only.
The last lineThree Lines That Balance and One Phone Call
Here's the evening in one breath.
A real bottle from a company that prints its phone number, three vitamin lines that balance to the last digit, one that doesn't, and two blends with no numbers to check.
That's not a scandal.
It's a column with one entry flagged, and the way to clear a flagged entry has always been the same.
You ask the people who wrote it.
If you're a man who wants a small, cold, twelve-second habit in the refrigerator door, who knows the blends are undisclosed, and who'll make one call about the folate line first, that's worth one bottle.
Not because of the reviews, but because you'll know exactly what you bought.
Check the current price and availability
A liquid blend of vitamins, choline and eleven botanical and amino-acid ingredients, poured out two tablespoons at a time from an amber glass bottle.
CHECK AVAILABILITYSold and shipped by Liquid Health, Inc., Mesquite, Nevada · Ships within the United States only · 30-day exchange or store credit, not a cash refund
P.S. If you take one thing from this page, take the arithmetic.
Three lines that balance, one that doesn't, and two blends that don't add up to anything you can check.
P.P.S. If reading the same line twice has been with you for a year, book the blood test before you buy anything. [1]
A liquid is a small, pleasant habit, and it was never going to answer a question a laboratory answers in a week.
P.P.P.S. And if you do order it, keep the company's answer about the folate line in a folder with the receipt.
That's how every column worth signing gets kept.