Alani Nu Balance

Supplement company Alani Nu asks on its website, Why Supplements? i.e., Why Should You Take Supplements? But perhaps the question consumers should be asking is, Why Not Supplements?

One of the reasons to be suspicious of supplements is that marketing them as having the ability to treat or prevent disease is – to put it plainly – illegal. Which is to say, there are things that Alani Nu cannot say about its products.

For example, it cannot say that its Balance supplement “fights infertility,” which the World Health Organization describes as “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.” It cannot say that “Some may take this product to become fertile” (while stating in its FAQs that “Balance is not a fertility supplement”). And it cannot use reviews that say things like “I finally got pregnant … [a]fter seven years of being told I had PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) … Safe to say it does what it says.”

Yet all of the above appear in the company’s marketing of Balance, even after TINA.org alerted Alani Nu to the illegal disease-treatment claims after receiving a tip from a reader earlier this year. (The reader said at the time that Alani Nu was promoting “Balance babies,” i.e., children conceived with the help of the supplement. A recent review by TINA.org did not find the term in the company’s marketing.)

In addition to illegal disease-treatment claims, TINA.org’s inquiry into Alani Nu’s Balance supplement found the following issues:

• While Alani Nu suggests in its FAQs that the only possible side effect of Balance is “an initial headache,” Balance customers have complained in reviews on the Alani Nu website of experiencing muscle aches and night sweats, a complexion that gets worse before it gets any better and crying for the first week on the product. And in response to an April 2019 one-star review, a “Store Owner” said that around 13 percent of women who take Balance “will experience a change in their menstrual cycle at first when using DIM,” which is short for Diindolylmethane, a compound found in some vegetables and one of the ingredients in Balance.
• Speaking of reviews, Alani Nu touts Balance as its “5-star signature supplement.” But some reviews are undeserving of five stars. For example, a five-star review from just last week reads, in full: “I’ve been using this for 2 weeks now, hopefully it will work good! I will let you guys know soon.”
• Lastly, Alani Nu doesn’t offer refunds and gives only store credit for returns, citing safety risks.

So if you fall victim to the company’s deceptive health claims, your only option will be to order more products.

Find more of our coverage on products claiming to treat infertility here.