Excipients
The other ingredients.
Excipients are everything in a supplement that isn’t the active ingredient: the fillers, binders, flow agents, coatings, colours, sweeteners and preservatives that turn a powder into a tablet, capsule or gummy. They sit under “Other ingredients” on the label, and almost nobody reads them.
Why excipients are worth a look
Some carry real concerns
Titanium dioxide, a whitening agent, has been banned as a food additive in the EU since 2022 because a genotoxicity risk couldn’t be ruled out, yet it’s still allowed in US supplements. Talc, a flow agent, was classed as probably carcinogenic to humans by the WHO’s cancer agency in 2024 and can be contaminated with asbestos.
374 graded products contain titanium dioxide; 155 contain talc.
Supplements are lightly regulated
In the US, supplements don’t need FDA approval before they go on sale. Manufacturers are responsible for the safety of their own products, excipients included.
Not every label shows them
In Australia, labels only have to declare certain excipients, so even a product from a reputable brand can carry inactive ingredients you never see listed.
Where they are listed, a typical label has 4. More than 1,000 graded products list 10 or more.
They add up
Most excipients are considered safe at the amounts in one product. Take five supplements a day, though, and that can mean around 20 inactive ingredients, every day, for years. That cumulative load is rarely considered.
Look up an excipient
Search 30 excipient and additive entries drawn from 16,097 Suppie product analyses (snapshot 2026-07-30). Open one for what it does, its risk rating and the products that use it.
30 published pages · 30 in snapshot
- Magnesium Stearate3,775 products
- Silicon Dioxide3,442 products
- Microcrystalline Cellulose2,458 products
- Hypromellose2,259 products
- Purified Water2,251 products
- Glycerin1,941 products
- Cellulose1,738 products
- Gelatin1,600 products
- Citric Acid1,408 products
- Rice Flour1,077 products
- Natural Flavors1,071 products
- Stearic Acid878 products
- Maltodextrin610 products
- Croscarmellose Sodium473 products
- Vegetable Capsule402 products
- Sucralose389 products
- Pectin385 products
- Sunflower Lecithin359 products
- Xanthan Gum334 products
- Titanium Dioxide307 products
- Dicalcium Phosphate298 products
- Capsule Shell296 products
- Potassium Sorbate295 products
- Vegetarian Capsule294 products
- Sugar279 products
- Medium Chain Triglycerides277 products
- Malic Acid266 products
- Xylitol262 products
- Calcium Carbonate244 products
- Soy Lecithin181 products
Suppie evaluates declared formulations against published research; it doesn’t lab-test physical bottle contents. See how we score.