Third-Party Tested NMN: Only 3 of 22 Met Label Claim

In October 2021 a laboratory bought one bottle of each of the twenty-two best-selling NMN supplements on Amazon and measured what was inside them. Three contained the amount on the label. Fourteen contained less than one percent of it, and in three of those, no NMN could be detected at all.

That result is the most quoted statistic in this category. It is also more complicated than the pages quoting it let on, in two ways that change what you should do about it.

Who ran that test, and why it matters

The lab was ChromaDex's own, in Longmont, Colorado. ChromaDex sells nicotinamide riboside, marketed as Tru Niagen, which is the directly competing NAD precursor to NMN. The company also publicly campaigned for the FDA position that removed NMN from the supplement market in 2022. The document itself is not peer reviewed and was published on an investor relations server.

None of that makes the numbers wrong. HPLC is HPLC, the method validation is described in the document, and the trade press reported it at the time. It does mean the framing was chosen by a competitor, and every consumer page repeating the figure omits that. Two do describe it as "a commercial study" or attribute it to "researchers." Neither says what the company sells.

The detail in that document nobody reports

Ten of the twenty-two products listed the same distributor. Same company, same address in Keizer, Oregon. ChromaDex noted that those ten shared similar packaging components, a similar lot coding format and similar label design, and that their chromatograms looked alike and all contained the same prominent unidentified peak. All ten came back below the reporting limit.

So the failure rate is not twenty-two companies independently failing. It is closer to one white-label operation running ten storefronts, plus four other failures. That is a smaller story about the industry and a much more useful one for a buyer, because it tells you what to look for rather than simply telling you to be afraid.

The document records one substitution directly. A product labeled 500mg of NMN contained no detectable NMN and over 200mg per serving of nicotinamide, where every other product tested had less than 1mg. Nicotinamide is vitamin B3. It is cheap, legal, and as it happens, it is also what NMN turns into when it breaks down.

What a disinterested lab found three years later

In October 2024 a team from the National University of Singapore and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam published the same kind of measurement in GeroScience. Sandalova and colleagues bought NMN supplements internationally, from online retailers and from pharmacies, and assayed them against label claim. The authors are academic gerontologists who sell nothing, and the paper carries an explicit declaration of no competing financial interests.

Their picture is less alarming. Measured NMN content ran from nothing detectable up to close to the full labeled amount, and two products that claimed to contain NMN had none in them. Most of the rest were reasonably near what they claimed.

Why the gap between those two datasets is the actual finding

Three years separate them. The first sampled Amazon best sellers, which is where a white-label operation running ten storefronts would show up. The second sampled globally, including pharmacies. Both are real measurements and neither is obviously wrong.

What follows from that is not reassuring, exactly, but it is more actionable than panic. The category does contain products with nothing in them, and it is possible to avoid them, because the failures cluster rather than being evenly spread.

The thing that turns a COA from paperwork into evidence

NMN degrades. Its principal breakdown product is nicotinamide, which brings us back to that adulterated product with 200mg of the stuff in it. A capsule made correctly, then shipped warm and stored on a shelf for a year, drifts in the same direction as a capsule that was cut on purpose. Nobody has to act dishonestly for the label to stop being true.

That is why the useful question is narrower than "is it third-party tested." A certificate of analysis is a record of what one laboratory measured, on one batch, on one day. If it carries no lot number, or a lot number that does not match the bottle in your hand, it is telling you about a batch you did not buy.

Two more distinctions worth holding onto. A purity percentage on a raw ingredient describes the powder a manufacturer bought, and an assay of a finished capsule describes what is in the capsule you take. Those are separate documents and only the second one answers your question. And as Sandalova and colleagues put it in that paper, government safety authorities verify the absence of prohibited compounds, not the accuracy of what is written on the label.

What to look for, in order

The last row is the one that separates a claim from a practice. A brand willing to publish the certificate for the batch you bought has committed to a number that can be checked against it.

A note on what we sell

We make an NMN supplement. So this is the interested party talking, and you should check it rather than take it.

Every batch of NMN360 gets tested for how much NMN is actually in the capsule, by HPLC, which is the same method that caught those twenty-two products coming up short. Lot NMN251218 came back at 533.28mg against a 500mg label. There is a code on the bottle. Scan it and you are reading that certificate, for your bottle.

That is the whole claim, and it is deliberately a small one. It tells you what you are taking. It does not tell you what NMN will do for you, because nobody has established that yet, and we would rather you heard it from us than worked it out later. If you want the honest version of that evidence, including the trial that looked at muscle and found no change, it is in NMN vs NAD+.

Both articles sit under the Healthspan Guide, which collects what the research does and does not support on aging, energy and the NAD pathway.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell if my NMN supplement is real?

Ask for the certificate of analysis for the lot number printed on your bottle, and check that it reports NMN content in milligrams for the finished capsule rather than purity of the raw ingredient. If the certificate has no lot number, does not match your bottle, or is not dated, it is describing a different batch than the one you bought.

Do most NMN supplements contain no NMN?

The most quoted figure, that fourteen of twenty-two products contained under one percent of their label claim, comes from testing run in October 2021 by ChromaDex, a company selling the competing ingredient. Ten of those twenty-two shared a single distributor. Independent academic testing published in GeroScience in October 2024 found a much milder picture, with most products reasonably close to label and two containing none.

What does third-party tested actually mean?

Less than it sounds. It does not mean a government body verified anything, that every batch was tested, that the tested batch is the one in your bottle, or that the result met specification. Sandalova and colleagues noted in October 2024 that safety authorities verify the absence of prohibited compounds, not the accuracy of label claims. The brand still chooses and pays the laboratory.

What is HPLC and what can it prove?

High performance liquid chromatography pushes a dissolved sample through a column so that different molecules come out at different times. The exit time identifies a compound and the size of the signal quantifies it against a known standard. It can tell you how many milligrams of NMN are in a capsule. It cannot tell you that the rest of the capsule is safe, and it says nothing about any batch other than the one tested.

Can NMN go bad in the bottle?

NMN degrades over time, and its main breakdown product is nicotinamide. That means a certificate dated at manufacture certifies the moment of manufacture and nothing after it. Sandalova and colleagues raised this from both directions in October 2024, suggesting low results may reflect degradation and unusually high results may reflect overages added deliberately to offset it.

Why do some products show 99 percent purity but fail a content test?

Because those two numbers describe different things. A purity figure characterizes the raw ingredient a manufacturer purchased. A content assay measures what ended up in the finished capsule. A product can hold a genuine purity certificate for its ingredient and still contain far less of it than the label promises, which is why the finished-capsule assay is the document worth asking for.

Is a certificate of analysis the same as a lab test?

A certificate of analysis is the report of a lab test, tied to a specific batch. The distinction that matters is not certificate versus test, it is whether the number on it belongs to the bottle in your hand. A generic certificate with no lot number tells you what a manufacturer achieved on an unspecified occasion.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is general information, not medical advice. Talk to your healthcare provider before starting any supplement, particularly if you are pregnant, nursing, managing a medical condition, or taking medication.