H-PROOF Reviews

Having a drink to celebrate, socialize, or just wind down is a normal thing for an adult to do. After all, in a 2018 write-up, the World Health Organization reported that 2.3 billion people around the world, or about 30% of the global population, were current drinkers.1 Sometimes, though, we go overboard and deal with the consequences the following day. What's the saying? Drinking is just borrowing happiness from tomorrow.

With H-PROOF, you may not have to repay your happiness debt. The company's Anytime You Drink Vitamin is intended as a chewable hangover cure. The idea is to take two tablets after drinking and lay to rest any concerns about headache, nausea, and malaise in the morning.

In this review, based on science and firsthand experience, we determine whether H-PROOF can truly do as it claims and evaluate how it stands up to competitors.

H-PROOF's Anytime You Drink Vitamin is a fairly tasty supplement that's easy to take. Its ingredients are supported by scientific studies to help the body metabolize alcohol, reduce hangover severity, and protect the liver. Although the health and quality-of-life benefits come with a fairly high price tag, the expense can likely be stretched across many months or even years, given that most customers will use the product only periodically. H-PROOF also produces an Energy Vitamin that users may find to be a convenient alternative to caffeinated beverages.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions involving staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

Like everything we write, our H-PROOF review entailed a two-pronged approach. One was the research. We examined over 70 scientific studies, reviews, meta-analyses, and other sources so that we could base our assessments on a foundation of fact. The other prong was immersive. We ordered from the website and tried the products under different conditions so we could speak about them from a personal perspective. Having spent more than 40 hours with our heads down and hands on, we're able to present our findings based on both theoretical and practical knowledge.

Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

We want the products we review to work as intended, with few to no adverse health effects, which is why effectiveness and safety were our leading evaluative criteria for H-PROOF. Cost and convenience were important, too, because we like supplements to be easy to access and easy to use. Finally, because H-PROOF is a chewable vitamin whose flavor can influence your experience, taste played a considerable part in our assessment.

Here's how H-PROOF’s Drink Vitamin performed in each of the key categories:

Effectiveness

A look at Drink Vitamin's ingredient list reveals a promising formulation. It contains several B vitamins in large quantities, key minerals and electrolytes, and a proprietary blend that comprises powerful components for liver protection and alcohol metabolism:

• B vitamins: Consuming alcohol affects your body's ability to absorb B vitamins.2 A supplementary source like H-PROOF can help make up for the compromise and prevent the onset of associated problems.
• Zinc and magnesium: Alcohol can induce oxidative stress that leads to liver damage and hangover symptoms. Zinc and magnesium can relieve those symptoms.3
• Potassium: You may already know that drinking dries you out, causing electrolyte loss.4 Adding potassium, a key electrolyte, helps stave off dehydration and the related hangover symptoms.
• Silymarin: The active ingredient in milk thistle is renowned for its liver-protective properties — very important, as drinking alcohol can cause critical liver damage.5
• Taurine: Taurine is an amino acid that increases the enzymatic activity responsible for metabolizing alcohol while also reducing biomarkers of liver injury.6
• Dihydromyricetin (DHM): A widely used ingredient in traditional East Asian hangover remedies, DHM is a robust flavonoid found to be capable of counteracting the effects of alcohol intoxication.7
• L-Glutathione: Your body naturally produces glutathione to metabolize alcohol and protect the liver against alcohol-related hepatic injury.8 A little supplemental glutathione from H-PROOF can bolster your ability to process and eliminate alcoholic toxins.

Some of the key ingredients in H-PROOF, like zinc (10mg) and magnesium (0.34mg), are on the low side of dosage, but they're likely sufficient to supplement the amounts you get from your diet. The silymarin, taurine, DHM, and glutathione are part of a proprietary blend, so we can't determine their exact quantities. Though that's a strike against H-PROOF, there's a fair chance the proprietary blend contains at least enough silymarin and DHM to mitigate hangover symptoms. We may not be able to say the same for competitors like Myrkl and Flyby Recovery.

Importantly, a product like H-PROOF lends itself well to hands-on testing, and our testers found significant hangover relief with it. Taking Drink Vitamin isn’t a guarantee against hangover, however. Some classic symptoms may present themselves even if you use the product as directed.

Read more about our experiences in the section titled "What it's like to use H-PROOF."

Safety

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't approve dietary supplements or otherwise regulate them before they go on the market.9 So, to evaluate the safety of a product, we have to study the ingredients and research the company's manufacturing practices. H-PROOF does well on both fronts.

The majority of H-PROOF's ingredients are generally safe for most people. Few of them exceed their tolerable upper intake levels (UL) or recommended daily allowances (RDA); the ones that do (the B vitamins) are considered to be safe even in excess amounts because your body can naturally expel whatever it doesn’t need.

The primary areas of concern relate to relatively small populations of potential users, owing to sensitivities or a lack of targeted research:

• Women who are breastfeeding
• People with allergies to certain ingredients (e.g., taurine)
• People at risk for interactions (e.g., those receiving chemotherapeutic agents)

On the operational side, H-PROOF produces its supplements in an FDA-registered facility that complies with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Such measures provide assurance that the company adheres to high quality standards and is capable of producing a consistent product.

So we consider the product quite safe, which accounts for the high safety rating here. But this is also one of those interesting cases in which, if you find yourself reaching for a safe product very frequently, you might be facing a different kind of safety issue separate from the product itself. Nobody should consider a hangover remedy to provide some kind of safety net for frequent overconsumption of alcohol. If you’re using H-PROOF or any other product to shield you from the longer-term ravages of routine excessive drinking, that would be unsafe.

Cost

H-PROOF isn't the most affordable hangover preventative on the market, at least in terms of up-front cost. Available in multiple package variations, Drink Vitamin will set you back $59-$79 for a one-time purchase and $50.15-$67.15 for a subscription. For per-serving costs, you're looking at $2.50 on the low end and $3.95 on the high. You can reduce the per-serving cost by buying bundles, but then you'd have to contend with higher up-front costs.

In comparison, competitors Myrkl, Omre, PartySmart, and Flyby Recovery all have lower up-front price tags. PartySmart is the lowest-cost competitor at $14.99 for its six-capsule option; Myrkl and Omre are the "expensive" alternatives at $35 each.

However, the per-serving cost breakdown shows a more balanced perspective. Myrkl and PartySmart range from $2.20 to $2.50 per serving (not so far off from H-PROOF), and Omre Afterdrink costs $4.38 per day of use (much higher than H-PROOF and other competitors). Only Flyby Recovery's per-serving cost is low enough to stand apart as a viable cost alternative, though its formulation may leave something to be desired (discussed in the Alternatives section near the end of this review).

Convenience

As a chewable vitamin, H-PROOF is generally easier to consume than any of its main competitors, which are all capsules. That’s especially true considering that a serving size is just two tablets. Compare that with the Omre Afterdrink and Flyby Recovery, both of which require six capsules overall.

The one downside that we see with H-PROOF’s dosing is that you’re supposed to take it after a night of drinking. With enough drinks flowing through your system, you may have a tough time recalling which pocket your keys are in, much less remembering to take two H-PROOF tablets before going to bed. Before- or during-the-fact dosing (as with Myrkl and PartySmart, respectively) is probably more convenient.

Taste

If you like sour candies (which our testers do), you’ll probably like H-PROOF’s Drink Vitamin. In one tester’s opinion, the Green Apple flavor we tested is similar to SweeTARTS. There’s no medicinal quality at all and only the slightest hint of sugar alcohol and sucralose on the finish.

Of course, the corollary is: If you don’t like sour candies, or you can’t tolerate any sugar alcohol aftertaste, then H-PROOF isn’t for you. A flavorless capsule, like those provided by competitors, would be the better option in that case.

H-PROOF is a Florida-based nutraceutical brand founded by the mother-daughter duo of Dr. Linda J. Kaplan and Rachel S. Kaplan, J.D., in 2019.

H-PROOF's Drink Vitamin is the company’s marquee product. It’s a reactive supplement, not a proactive one; you don't take it every day but rather after drinking what you feel to be an excessive amount of alcohol. That could be a downside for some users. Alcohol consumption can impair memory,10 so you could forget to take it altogether. Before- or during-the-fact dosing, as with competitors Myrkl or PartySmart, may be easier. On the other hand, H-PROOF's dosing instructions are simpler compared to Omre Afterdrink and Flyby Recovery, which have you take multiple capsules before and after a night of drinking.

An advantage that H-PROOF has over those competitors is that it's chewable, not a capsule. A full serving equals two tablets as soon as possible after your last drink. You can also take additional full servings if you drink more, as well as another full serving the morning after. People who struggle to swallow pills should have no difficulty chomping on the Drink Vitamin.

The chewable form factor means that its taste can greatly influence your experience, but we’re happy to report that Drink Vitamin tastes pretty good. And it’s available in multiple flavors:

• Black Cherry
• Green Apple
• Lemonade
• Tangerine
• Grape (limited edition as of August 2024)

Your choices go beyond flavors, too, since Anytime You Drink also comes in three package varieties. You have the bottle, a stout 40-tablet (20-serving) container; the tubes, which are slim 10-tablet (five-serving) containers sold in packs of three; and the packets, or portable two-tablet (one-serving) sachets sold in boxes of 20.

Though all of the package options deliver the same product, flavor availability varies between them. Only the bottle is available in all flavors; the tubes are divided evenly between Black Cherry, Tangerine, and Lemonade; and with the packets, your options are either Black Cherry or a mix of Tangerine and Lemonade.

Anytime You Need Energy

H-PROOF expanded its product line in 2024 with the addition of the Anytime You Need Energy Vitamin. Available exclusively in Mixed Berry flavor, Energy Vitamin is formulated to give users a boost of vigor in the afternoon, after lunch, when many people experience drowsiness and general lassitude.

Though Energy Vitamin isn’t the primary subject of our review, we think it's worth examining in some depth. Similar to the Drink Vitamin, whose formulation we discuss in the next section, many of Energy’s ingredients are those you can find in a high-quality multivitamin (e.g., calcium, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin). Others are less common and more specifically targeted for alertness and mental function — namely:

Back to Anytime You Drink, the subject of our review.

Now, you won't find the word "hangover" anywhere on the H-PROOF site, but that's essentially what alcohol metabolism means here. (It’s also likely what the “H” in “H-PROOF” stands for.) So, to understand how the Drink Vitamin works, we first have to discuss what a hangover is and how it develops.

What causes a hangover?

A hangover is a constellation of symptoms affecting both the body and the mind. Some of the most common symptoms are fatigue, headache, muscle aches, thirst, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and malaise. The number and severity of symptoms depend largely on how much you drink, what you drink, and your individual tolerance for alcohol.

Surprisingly, the science of the alcoholic hangover is somewhat of a mystery, but we do know that at least the following physiological factors are at play:

Alcohol consumption can do more than just cause a hangover. It also has lasting impacts on your bodily organs. In the liver, the principal site of alcohol metabolism, it can cause tissue scarring and increase your risk for fibrosis.26 And in the GI tract, where some of the metabolism takes place, it can negatively affect your microbiome and compromise your epithelial barrier, potentially contributing to irritable bowels and leaky gut.27

How does H-PROOF prevent hangovers?

The Drink Vitamin formulation consists of 16 key active ingredients. Not all of them (e.g., vitamin C, vitamin E) are scientifically supported to impart H-PROOF's intended outcomes, at least not at the doses provided, but several of them do show excellent potential to prevent hangovers, minimize symptoms, protect the liver, or all three.

Let's examine the most promising ingredients in depth:

The silymarin, taurine, DHM, and glutathione are part of Drink Vitamin's Proprietary Liver Support Blend, which measures 383.75mg in total per two-capsule serving. Because it's a proprietary blend, we can't know for sure how much of each ingredient is present in the formulation.

Considering that ingredient labels list components in descending order by weight, we can conclude that silymarin takes up the largest share of the blend and glutathione represents the smallest. The taurine and glutathione quantities are likely to be subclinical, but H-PROOF potentially contains sufficient silymarin to protect the liver and enough DHM to mitigate a hangover.

For most people, none of the ingredients in H-PROOF's Anytime You Drink Vitamin should pose a danger in the amounts provided. Some ingredients exceed the normal amount you should consume but are unlikely to produce adverse effects. See the table below for a comparison of H-PROOF's individual ingredient quantities and the amounts considered to be the tolerable upper intake levels (UL) for adults of drinking age. (Some ingredients don’t have ULs because no toxic levels have been observed; in those instances, we’ve provided the recommended daily allowance, denoted by the abbreviation “RDA.” For ingredients that lack either a UL or RDA, we provided clinical doses.)

The four unspecified ingredients are part of a proprietary blend that totals 383.75mg. Earlier, we mentioned the taurine and glutathione are probably under clinical doses, but the silymarin and DHM may be sufficient to provide their liver-protective and hangover-preventive properties.

As for the rest, you can see that three of the ingredients, all B vitamins, exceed their ULs or RDAs, but that's not a problem for most people. The large quantities help H-PROOF impart its hangover-preventive effects, and even high doses of the B vitamins are unlikely to be harmful. Here's what the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements says about excessive intake of each:

• Riboflavin: "no observable toxicity" even with "many times the RDA" (e.g., 400mg per day); some adverse effects are possible but not determined44
• Vitamin B12: "low potential for toxicity" and "generally considered safe" because the human body doesn't store excess amounts of B1245
• Pantothenic acid: "no reports of ... toxicity at high intakes"; amounts of 10g per day may cause GI symptoms46

To top things off, H-PROOF manufactures its vitamins in an FDA-registered facility under Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). FDA registration indicates the facility is aware of the regulations governing its operations, while GMP is an assurance that its products are produced consistently, in compliance with quality standards.52

H-PROOF's Anytime You Drink Vitamin is for adult drinkers looking to dampen or prevent their hangovers. It’s sugar-free, calorie-free, gluten-free, and vegan, so it’s suitable for people with corresponding dietary restrictions.

The company's website copy suggests that Drink Vitamin is primarily geared toward older users because the activity of alcohol-metabolizing enzymes tends to diminish with age.53 You may have seen online memes about drinking in your 20s versus drinking in your 30s and beyond — the latter crowd is more directly H-PROOF's audience.

That isn't to say that H-PROOF isn't for younger adults, too. Though youth corresponds with higher resilience to alcohol, drinkers in their 20s can certainly benefit from taking a prophylactic approach to consumption.

We've said that H-PROOF is generally safe for most people, but, as with virtually every supplement, it may not be suitable for everyone. The following populations of adult drinkers should exercise caution with the product:

Like most of the supplements we review, H-PROOF vitamins are available as either one-time purchases or auto-shipped subscriptions. A subscription knocks 15% off the base price — a substantial discount.

There are some differences in sticker price and considerable variability in terms of unit count, serving count, and per-serving cost across package varieties. See the following table for a complete breakdown of what we mean in the case of the Anytime You Drink Vitamin:

Pricing for the Anytime You Need Energy Vitamin is a simpler affair. It comes exclusively in a 60-count/30-serving bottle. A one-time purchase costs $59 and a subscription is $50.15. The per-serving breakdown is $1.96 and $1.67, respectively.

The delivery intervals are one, two, and three months regardless of the package variety you choose.

H-PROOF has an Amazon storefront, by the way. The base prices are identical to those offered on the H-PROOF website, but Amazon’s subscription prices are actually higher. The product selection isn't as vast, either, since the travel packets seem to be a direct-purchase exclusive. The one advantage you get with Amazon is a wider range of delivery intervals:

• 2-8 weeks
• 3-6 months

Shipping frequency aside, we wouldn’t recommend going the Amazon route unless you have a Prime membership, which includes free next-day shipping.

H-PROOF bundles

H-PROOF gives customers the opportunity to realize additional savings by bundling their purchases. The Anytime You Drink Vitamin is available in two bundle tiers that, respectively, amount to 10% and 20% cut rates, even on top of an existing subscription discount. Here's another table laying it all out:

H-PROOF also sells what it calls “Event Packets,” which differ from regular packets only in the bundle count. That is, Event Packets can be had in six-, 18-, and 36-box bundles — equivalent to 20%, 25%, and 30% discounts from the per-box base price, respectively. As you might guess, the Event Packets are aimed at customers who plan to offer them at large organized gatherings. Should you need an even larger bundle, you should reach out to H-PROOF directly.

Again, the choice is simpler with the Anytime You Need Energy Vitamin, for which the bundling option is limited to a three-bottle order. The bundle cuts 10% off the per-bottle base price, amounting to $159 for a one-timer and $135.15 for a subscription — $1.76 and $1.50 per serving, respectively.

H-PROOF payment, shipping, and returns

After you've selected the H-PROOF vitamins you want, here's what you can expect.

At checkout, you'll notice a small surcharge for "Shipping Protection by Route," the exact amount of which depends on your order's total. Shipping protection insures your package in case it's lost or stolen. It's added to your order by default, but you can remove it by clicking the "Protect Your Package With Route" radio button below the itemization on the right side of the checkout screen, as shown in the photo.

On the same screen, you'll also see that H-PROOF accepts multiple payment options, which we appreciate:

• Credit card
• PayPal
• Shop Pay (pay in installments)
• Google Pay
• Venmo

Standard shipping is free on all domestic orders whether you buy directly from H-PROOF or purchase through Amazon. It takes 3-5 business days and goes through USPS or DHL. We can attest to H-PROOF's delivery estimate, as our order arrived in five days.

Expedited shipping (2-3 days), through FedEx, is available for direct orders.

H-PROOF does not ship internationally.

If you aren't pleased with your order, H-PROOF is happy to accept a return for a full refund. The company's so-called Feel Good Guarantee allows you to initiate a return within 30 days from your order date. To start the return process, submit an inquiry form or contact H-PROOF via phone or email. Before you reach out, acquaint yourself with the specifics of H-PROOF's return policy:

The above-outlined return policy applies only to orders made directly through H-PROOF. Amazon orders aren't eligible for refunds because Amazon doesn't accept returns of dietary supplements.

We had the Anytime You Drink Vitamin in Green Apple. Its sweetness comes from sorbitol (a sugar alcohol) and sucralose, while the “green apple” component is due to citric acid and “natural flavor.” The closest confectionary parallel we can think of is SweetTARTS — a bit chalky, a little sour, and altogether pretty tasty. Only the faintest hint of sugar alcohol lingers on the finish.

The Energy Vitamin has an equally candy-like quality on the palate. It has stevia in addition to sorbitol and sucralose, but the finish is more medicinal than sweet. A tester likened it to ginseng — an herbal root sort of taste — which is odd considering the absence of ginseng in the formulation. It’s far from awful, however, and the finish becomes less noticeable the more often you take the vitamin.

At the time of this writing, we've gotten roughly two months' use out of our H-PROOF vitamins, so we can speak to the user experience based on firsthand knowledge.

Again, keep in mind that our testers' experiences are subjective. They weren't carried out under controlled conditions, for one thing. Those nights of drinking may not have led to hangovers at all, absent H-PROOF, and their boosts of energy may have been due to the placebo effect.

However, their accounts do give a sense of H-PROOF's limits. Drink Vitamin isn't a guarantee against all hangover symptoms, and there's likely an upper limit to how much you can drink before the vitamin provides no appreciable effects at all. As for the Energy Vitamin, it may give you the lift you need to make up for small sleep deficits — say, 30 minutes to an hour short of the recommended seven to nine58 — but it's no substitute for sound slumber.

Maybe H-PROOF's chewable tablet isn't what you want in a hangover cure. Fortunately, there's no scarcity of ready-made solutions for your consideration. According to Future Market Insights, a market research and consulting firm, the industry for hangover cure products is currently valued at $439.7 million and is expected to grow to $897.8 million by 2034.59 In other words, it's a sizable market, so H-PROOF has quite a bit of direct competition. Here are some of the key players in the space:

Myrkl

Myrkl is a capsule supplement that sells for $32.39-$35.99. The directions are to swallow two capsules before you drink, which is probably easier than remembering to take a supplement during or after the fact. A bottle contains 15 servings, so the per-serving cost is $2.16-$2.40 — significantly less than H-PROOF in its least expensive non-bundle form.

Myrkl's AB001 formulation revolves around L-cysteine, vitamin B12, and two probiotic species: Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans. We've already discussed the role B vitamins play in hangover prevention, so its presence here makes sense — although its 0.9mcg quantity is likely too low to make a difference. L-Cysteine's role in the formulation is to increase your body's levels of glutathione, which (as mentioned earlier) supports liver health and alcohol metabolism, but the 138.2mg dose is severely subclinical.60

As for the probiotics, they're supposed to help the body further metabolize alcohol into carbon dioxide and water, reducing their capacity for being resorbed as alcohol in the intestines. In a 2022 study, the researchers found the AB001 formulation to be successful toward its intended outcome, with supplementation resulting in "substantially lower update of alcohol into the blood and ... metabolism."61

Full disclosure: The study's funding came from DeFaire Medical AB, the company that makes Myrkl, introducing a potential for bias.

Omre Afterdrink

Omre Afterdrink is another capsule product that retails for $35 on the manufacturer's website. You're supposed to take three capsules before drinking and three capsules after, which is a pretty big ask. At eight servings per container, the cost amounts to a tremendous $4.38 per day of use.

Omre is similar to H-PROOF in its use of milk thistle, DHM (via Ampelopsis grossedentata), and vitamins, but it also includes L-cysteine (like Myrkl) and leans more heavily on botanical extracts, namely:

PartySmart

PartySmart capsules come in counts of six, ten, or 12. It's on the lower end of the cost spectrum in terms of up-front pricing ($14.99-$26.49), although the per-serving cost ($2.22-$2.50) is more in line with Myrkl's. A serving is just one capsule sometime during alcohol consumption.

There's also a gummy version for $15.99. It requires a two-piece dosage, so its per-serving cost is pricier at $3.19 — higher than H-PROOF.

A point of similarity that PartySmart has with H-PROOF is that it uses a proprietary blend, the components of which comprise:

• Chicory extract
• Andrographis extract
• Grape extract
• Date palm extract
• Phyllanthus extract
• Amla extract

A paper published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research in 2008 specifically examined PartySmart's formulation for efficacy and mechanisms of action and concluded that it mitigates hangover symptoms by enhancing the metabolism of acetaldehyde, one of the toxic by-products of alcohol consumption.65 The authors stated they had no conflicts of interest.

However, the total quantity of PartySmart’s proprietary blend is just 250mg, which doesn’t inspire optimism about its hangover-preventive potential. To illustrate, consider a 2021 rat study that found 10mg/kg of chicory to be the ideal dose for liver protection,66 which is equivalent to 112mg (nearly half the formulation) for a 70kg human. If PartySmart contains a clinical dose of chicory, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the other ingredients to be effective.

Flyby Recovery

Available in 90-capsule bottles for $26.75-$31.47, Flyby Recovery is roughly comparable to PartySmart in terms of up-front cost. It has a six-capsule serving size, like Omre, which equates to a per-serving cost of $2.09 — lower than H-PROOF and any of the alternatives. You’re supposed to take three capsules before drinking and another three afterward, also like Omre.

Think of Flyby Recovery's formulation as an amalgam of every hangover supplement we've discussed so far because it reflects bits and pieces of those other products:

• The DHM, taurine, milk thistle, and vitamins of H-PROOF — though fewer overall B vitamins
• The cysteine of Myrkl
• The ginseng and prickly pear (and six-capsule serving size) of Omre
• The chicory of PartySmart

It also has several other components that may prove helpful for turning the dial down on your next hangover and protecting your body against alcohol-associated damage:

Altogether, Flyby Recovery has 13 key active components, and they’re hidden behind a proprietary blend. The blend itself totals 1,551mg, but dividing it by more than a dozen ingredients leads us to some scant math. That is, the ingredients look good, but there’s no telling whether they’re available in effective doses.

Individual vitamins and supplements

If you wanted, you could forgo the niche pills and put together your own anti-hangover regimen out of individual vitamins and supplements. Doing so would entail combining at least a high-quality multivitamin or B vitamin complex with things like taurine, cysteine, milk thistle, and glutathione. You'd probably pay a higher up-front cost compared to H-PROOF or one of its competitors, but the per-serving cost could be significantly lower depending on your brand choices.

However, you'd have to contend with taking a comically large handful of capsules every time you over-imbibe — say, one multivitamin or B complex, two milk thistles, two taurines, and a glutathione. That's a lot to handle, not to mention to remember, when your physical and mental capacities may be compromised. With that in mind, we'd say this cobbled-together approach is suitable only for those who already take such supplements for other purposes and are serious about minimizing their per-serving cost.