ClearFormulas Quercetin 1000mg Per Serving with Bromelain and Zinc Supplement 240 Capsules Quercetin Dihydrate

Have been using this brand for a while and made a mistake on my last purchase (my fault). They helped make it right...great company!

Quercetin is an important dietary supplement, and I am happy to review the Clear Formulas Quercetin 1000mg product.Capsules do not look like a typical commercially manufactured capsule dosage form, but something manually compounded. Some powder was adhered to the surface of some capsules-typical of manual procedures.First item of note is that the plastic bottle used is clear with no light protection. Quercetin is light sensitive and should be packaged “protected from light” according to credible scientific sources.After the initial opening of the bottle, I found that 3 capsules at the top were “stuck” to the adhesive of the seal of the bottle. This is not what we call “pharmaceutically elegant.” The sealing glue had melted the capsule “gelatin” on several and deformed them to an extent. This is when I noticed the powder on the outside of the capsules.The expiration date and the lot number were printed on the bottom of the bottle-well done! This is very important for the consumer and the supplier is doing the responsible thing here. A well-worn auxiliary label was placed over information on the original label and the auxiliary label contained a bar code, the name of the product and a number, which could be a product code.There is information on the main label about “FDA-Inspected Facility” and “GMP-Certified facility” which are all important for dietary supplement manufacturing. It is not stated where the capsules were manufactured, apparently NOT in the USA (although there is a claim that they are “formulated in the USA”).The company website was lacking in any substantive information on their quality systems, where manufactured, etc. Mostly consumer marketing materials with the company information lacking (e.g. “about us”).Bottom Line: Safe to consume and other than the lack of light protection and packaging issue with the capsules stuck to the seal, this could be a great product with the noted improvements taken care of. I would recommend that the company provide more information on the bottle and particularly on their website regarding all the things they are doing to assure the consumer of the quality of their product. If they are going to apply an auxiliary label, ensure there is space for it, and it does not cover other information. Store the bottle in a dark place as the contents are in a clear plastic bottle and are sensitive to light exposure.

Value for money

Good choice: it's what I need.

This seems to be a quality supplement made in a CGMP facility. The product description states that this is made in the USA and the label on the bottle says it is formulated in the USA and manufactured for Clear Formulas at an FDA inspected facility. The product description also mentions that this product is lab tested, but there is no information on whether this is in-house testing or through an independent party and there is no link to results. The product description states that this is the dihydrate form of quercetin, but the ingredient list shows it as 20% quercetin so this is apparently a synthetic form. I tried to find a bit more information on the brand's website, but wasn't able to find anything. Clear Formulas does seem like a large, well-regarded company that includes many brands, although I have to say that the website isn't as informative as I would have liked.Quercetin has many potential benefits, but there are also some drawbacks to its use, especially if taken over the long term. It is always important to research a supplement before considering its use, but it seems doubly important in this case. Just a note: the bottle does have a caution printed on the side to not take more than the suggested dose. The recommended dose of 2 capsules contains 1000 mg of quercetin (as well as bromelain and zinc) which is a bit higher than I want to take so I simply just take one capsule instead. The bottle contains 240 capsules, so this is a four-month supply, if taken as suggested. The capsules are fairly large but easy to take and I have experienced no ill effects from using this supplement. The current price of $26.00 seems very reasonable and the bottle arrived sealed, as expected.

I ordered these because my doctor's trying to get me off of prednisone except during flareups of my autoimmune issues; this has been an ongoing challenge because of a nasty systemic response to NSAIDs (which would be the first choice for anti-inflammatory drugs) that has made prednisone the safer choice for a decade (despite prednisone's risks of weight gain and calcium depletion leading to osteoporosis). But quercetin isn't an NSAID, so I decided to give it a try the last time I sprained an ankle; between this for the inflammation, Tylenol for the pain, and an elastic bandage, I managed to get through without needing to touch the prednisone. It's helped when I've pinched nerves in my back, too--something that used to require 800mg ibuprofen every 8 hours to cope with, or 10mg of prednisone plus an opioid painkiller after I developed the adverse reaction to NSAIDs.It's great to have an option again between "suffer" and "take the steroids"; my rheumatologist is also pretty happy that this is letting me stay off the prednisone most of the time now.As far as the capsules go, they're pretty ordinary capsules--no problem swallowing them, no real flavor or scent.