What does glandular mean on a label

Pick up a bottle of organ capsules and the label will often say glandular somewhere on it, usually in small print under the organ name. It sounds technical, and it sounds like a claim, but it is neither. Glandular is just the trade word for a powder made from a dried animal gland or organ. Liver, heart, kidney, spleen, adrenal, thyroid: when one of these is dried, ground, and put in a capsule, the maker calls it a glandular.

Where the word comes from

A gland is an organ that makes or stores something the body uses. The word stuck because the old glandular makers sold dried thyroid and adrenal long before liver capsules were on health shop shelves. These days the word covers the whole shelf: a beef heart capsule is a glandular, and so is a beef liver one, even though neither heart nor liver is what most people picture when they hear the word gland. The label is telling you the source of the powder. It is not telling you how strong it is, how it was dried, or what it will do for you.

Glandular is not the same as extract

This is the mix-up that costs people money. A glandular is usually the whole dried organ, ground to powder. An extract is made by soaking the organ and pulling part of it out, then drying what comes out, so the powder in the capsule is only a fraction of the organ it started from. Beef liver extract explained walks through the extract side in full. If a label says glandular and also says extract, read both words and believe the extract part: something was taken out and something was left behind.

What to check before you buy

Three things, all on the label. First, the organ named: a glandular that says liver should say beef liver, not just glandular blend. Second, the grams per serving, which is the only number that lets you compare one bottle with another. Third, whether it says desiccated or freeze-dried, which tells you how the organ was dried. The ingredients guide in organ supplement ingredients explained shows how those words sit on a real label, and how to read an organ supplement label covers the rest of the panel. If the organ is unnamed, or the amount is buried in a blend with no grams, the label is not telling you enough, whatever the front of the bottle says.

The plain version

Glandular means dried organ, ground up. That is all it means. Judge the bottle on the named organ and the grams per serving, take capsules with food at a consistent time, and give it a month at a steady dose before deciding anything. A food is not a drug, and starting point and diet differ.

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Nothing on this site is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Talk to a qualified professional before changing your diet or starting a supplement.