Labdoor independently tested 37 probiotic supplements for effective ingredients and safety

Fish oil. Protein shakes. Vitamin D pills. The packages look alike. Does it matter which you buy? It certainly does, according to Labdoor, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that tests about 50 supplements and energy drinks each month that it buys off retail shelves, then ranks for consumers.

The firm Labdoor, which has been labeled the “consumer reports of the supplement world” by the internet business publication Serious Startups, works to bring a bit of clarity to the supplement industry and in this case those used for weight loss. Added to this are trends that Labdoor has noted as possibly causing great harm and even death.

A new company called LabDoor buys dietary supplements and energy drinks off retail shelves and sites. Then, they send each product to an FDA-registered laboratory for a detailed chemical analysis. Their technical team then collects the laboratory results and builds algorithms to translate this data into simple grades and rankings.

Labdoor, the supplement testing and rating service, announces its Magnesium Rankings today designed to help consumers find the highest quality magnesium supplements on the market.

In recent testing, the supplement testing company LabDoor looked at 45 popular preworkout supplements and found that many contained extremely high doses of caffeine.

Another testing company is LabDoor. On its website, you can find reports and rankings of protein powders, fish oil,probiotics, vitamin D and multivitamins. Both websites charge a fee for access to their reports.

The new research, carried out by a testing company called LabDoor, analyzed 30 top-selling fish oil supplements for levels of omega-3 fatty acids, a group of compounds with anti-inflammatory effects. It found that six of those products contained levels of omega-3s that were, on average, 30 percent less than stated on their labels.

LabDoor, a startup in the latest class of health tech acceleratorRock Health, is attempting to shed some light on the market with a website and app that grades these unregulated products based on ingredients, efficacy, and safety. Think of it as the GoodGuide for supplements, though LabDoor is less focused on environmental issues.

To determine whether that jug of protein power is really worth the cash, Neil Thanedar just launched LabDoor. LabDoor tests a wide variety of energy-granting, and muscle-building concoctions and grades them on safety, clinical efficacy, and the presence of potentially unhealthy ingredients including heavy metals, pesticides, and other unsavory trace elements. Thanedar dreamed up the idea for the startup when, while running a product-testing lab, his friends would regularly ask his professional chemist’s opinion on the latest energy drink, muscle-building concoction or weight loss pill.

Neil Thanedar wants to change that. A 24-year-old with an undergraduate degree in chemistry, he co-founded LabDoor in May 2012, and launched an online and iPhone application that rates from A to F (F being worst) the safety and efficacy of vitamins, energy drinks, and herbal supplements. LabDoor has chemically taken apart 200 products culled from the National Institutes of Health’s Dietary Supplements Labels Database which lists more than 7,000 brands.