WHY I’M NO LONGER RECOMMENDING THORNE SUPPLEMENTS AS A PRACTITIONER

That is a much bigger endorsement than it probably sounds…

I am incredibly particular about supplements because there is an enormous difference between something having the right nutrient written on the front of the bottle and being a product I would actually use therapeutically with a client.

The form matters, the dose matters, the sourcing matters, the manufacturing matters, and the quality-control testing matters, especially when I am expecting that supplement to play a genuine role in someone's hormones, digestion, energy, fertility or metabolic health.

Thorne has been one of the very few supplement brands I have confidently recommended when a client cannot access the practitioner-only products I would usually prescribe.

They have spent more than 40 years building a reputation around quality, scientific rigour and practitioner trust, which meant that when I needed an accessible alternative, there were products in their range I could recommend without feeling like I was compromising the standard of someone's protocol.

Then, on August 4, Procter & Gamble announced an agreement to acquire Thorne for $3.8 billion in cash. Once that announcement landed, I knew I would be changing the way I recommend the brand going forward (and I was not the only one in the functional medicine space with the same opinion… this blew up all over the gram)!

Not because every bottle of Thorne suddenly became inferior overnight, and certainly not because I have evidence that P&G has already changed a single ingredient. They haven't.

I am changing my recommendation because supplement quality matters enormously to me as a practitioner, and when ownership, incentives and decision-making at that scale change, I am no longer willing to give a brand the same automatic trust I gave it before.

That distinction matters, so let me explain.

$3.8 billion buys more than a supplement company

When P&G announced the acquisition, its own language around the deal was revealing. The company described Thorne as a highly trusted brand with credibility among consumers, healthcare practitioners and professional partners, specifically highlighting its reputation for scientific rigour, product quality and innovation.

That trust has extraordinary commercial value.

Thorne has been around since 1984, and over those four decades it has built the kind of reputation most supplement companies would kill for. Practitioners recommend it, athletes use it, health-conscious consumers recognise it, and people who know enough about supplements to care about quality have learned to associate the Thorne name with a higher standard..

None of that automatically means P&G will destroy it. I want to be really clear about that, because I have no interest in turning reasonable practitioner scrutiny into an internet conspiracy theory.

It does mean the incentives surrounding the company have changed, and when we are talking about products my clients are putting into their bodies every single day, incentives matter to me.

This is exactly why I am so particular about supplements

There is a tendency to treat supplements like commodities, where 300 mg of magnesium is 300 mg of magnesium, vitamin B6 is vitamin B6, and the bottle selling for $18 is essentially doing the same job as the bottle selling for $60.

As a practitioner, I wish it were that simple.

Magnesium alone is a perfect example. You can buy magnesium citrate, glycinate, oxide, chloride, malate, threonate and several other forms, and the form changes how that magnesium behaves and how well it is absorbed. Research consistently shows differences in bioavailability between magnesium compounds, with forms such as glycinate generally absorbed more effectively than magnesium oxide, and citrate is known to have a laxative effect.

The front of both bottles can still say MAGNESIUM in enormous letters.

Then we need to look at the actual amount of elemental magnesium, the therapeutic dose required for the person in front of me, the other ingredients in the formula, excipients, sourcing, manufacturing practices, contamination testing, batch consistency and whether the finished product reliably contains what the label says it contains.

Suddenly the $18 bottle and the $60 bottle are not necessarily comparable at all.

This becomes even more important when you understand how supplements are regulated. Whilst pharmaceutical companies require vigorous testing for their products, dietary supplements do not go through the same pre-market approval for safety and effectiveness. This can result in fillers being added to what you thought was 100% what it was on the bottle. Not to mention, different countries hold different standards for what is considered ‘safe’.

I’ve seen first hand how the lack of regulation around these can result in supplements causing more harm than good.

Most of my clients use practitioner-only products because I have already done the work behind the recommendation. I care about the form. I care about the dose. I care about manufacturing and quality control. I care about what else is in the capsule, and I care whether I can confidently use that product as part of a therapeutic protocol rather than simply hoping that the pretty label is telling me enough.

One of my favourite practitioner only brands - Metagenics batch tests every ingredient, herb, mineral, vitamin, you name it. And if they cannot get the quality required to uphold it their standard then a supplement or 5 might go temporarily missing from their shelves. This is because they aren’t willing to compromise on their values, or product.

This is the level of integrity I knew I could trust Thorne to uphold. Now I am not so sure. As soon as a different company, with different values is involved, one cannot assume the original company values will stay intact.

Thorne had earned a place on the very short list of mainstream brands I felt comfortable using when those practitioner products were unavailable. Sometimes even in favour over those practitioner only products because the formulations were just that good!

P&G says the things we would hope they would say

Both companies have been very clear about their intentions.

Thorne says the acquisition will allow it to continue its mission while building on its legacy of science, quality, innovation and trust. P&G has similarly said it intends to build on the quality and credibility that made Thorne successful in the first place.

I genuinely hope they do.

I would love to write a follow-up to this article in 5 years saying that I was unnecessarily cautious and Thorne's quality remained exceptional under P&G.

The problem is that my responsibility as a practitioner is based on what I can confidently recommend now, rather than what I hope a multinational corporation chooses to preserve later.

Corporate acquisitions create different commercial pressures, and P&G itself publicly talks about productivity, cost savings, growth and shareholder value because, as a publicly traded company, those things are quite literally part of its job.

My job is different.

My responsibility is to the woman sitting in front of me whose hormones, digestion, energy, fertility, metabolism or performance I am supporting, which means I need to evaluate a supplement according to the quality of that supplement rather than the familiarity of the logo printed on it.

We’ve seen time and time again big companies buy out high quality trusted brands and change the ingredients. This happened just last year with Siete. Over the course of the year ingredients started being swapped out, fillers added in, and numbers appearing where there never used to be on an ingredient list. I don’t say it to be pessimistic, it’s just where the priorities of the company change.

When you are making toothpaste or shampoo, consumers may barely notice some of them. When I am using a product therapeutically as part of someone's health protocol, I care enormously.

So, should you throw away your Thorne supplements?

Absolutely not. I am not throwing away mine either.

The Thorne supplements sitting in your cupboard haven’t suddenly changed because an acquisition agreement was signed.

However, I am removing Thorne from my automatic recommendation list and treating it the way I would treat any supplement brand whose ownership or manufacturing circumstances have materially changed.

Your supplement should have to earn its place in your cupboard

We have created an enormous supplement industry while teaching consumers remarkably little about how to evaluate what they are actually buying. Women can spend hundreds of dollars every month on magnesium, adaptogens, probiotics, hormone support, greens powders, electrolytes and whatever supplement TikTok has decided we all desperately need this week, while knowing almost nothing about formulation or quality.

A familiar logo does not tell you the form of the nutrient.

A beautiful label does not tell you whether the dose is therapeutically meaningful.

A long ingredient list does not tell you whether the formula is intelligently designed.

A celebrity endorsement certainly does not tell you whether the product has undergone meaningful quality control.

Even price alone tells you very little.

This is why I want women to become more discerning rather than simply more interested in supplements.

I have spent years teaching women that health decisions deserve more nuance than “good” and “bad,” and I am applying exactly the same principle here.

I am not declaring that Thorne has suddenly become a bad supplement company. There is currently no evidence to support that statement.

I am saying that the conditions under which I built my trust in Thorne have changed, so my recommendation changes with them.

P&G has just placed a $3.8 billion value on a company built in large part on science, quality and trust.

Now I want to see what they do with it.

Until then, my clients' protocols will not be the experiment.