The Citizens Protein Project 2: The first publicly crowd-funded observational study on exhaustive analysis of popular whey protein supplements in India reveal poor quality and deceptive marketing claims of medical pharmaceutical- compared to nutraceutical- industry powders.

Abstract

This uniquely original, crowd‑funded laboratory study compared 18 medical‑pharmaceutical and 16 nutraceutical whey protein powders sold in India by analyzing macronutrients, amino‑acid profiles, sugars, heavy metals, mycotoxins, hormones, pesticides and undeclared additives. Nutraceutical products supplied a mean (± SD) 75.6 ± 7.3 g protein/100 g and showed tight agreement with label claims. Ninety‑four per cent met the ≥ 60 g/100 g threshold and exhibited high essential‑amino‑acid densit2y (up to 8.5 g leucine/100 g) with negligible added sugars. By contrast, pharmaceutical powders averaged 29.1 ± 15.4 g protein/100 g; 83% were mis‑labeled beyond ± 5%, and only one product reached the quality benchmark. None exceeded 5 g leucine/100 g, while 44% contained ≥ 2 g sucrose or fructose/100 g, often unlabeled. Heavy‑metal outliers (cadmium, arsenic, copper), aflatoxin, and progesterone appeared more frequently in pharmaceutical brands, and taurine‑based nitrogen spiking was detected in 89% of them versus 12.5% of nutraceuticals. No product contained detectable pesticides or mercury. Overall, nutraceutical powders consistently met compositional expectations, whereas medical‑pharmaceutical formulations delivered lower‑quality protein, higher sugar loads and unreliable labeling, questioning their suitability for therapeutic use.