One number on this bottle isn’t published. Here is every number that is.
Gluconil is chromium plus five plants. We print the chromium to the microgram, the blend to the milligram, and all five plants by name. What we don’t print is how those 1,255 mg divide between them. This page is mostly about that.
Printed on the label
8 thingsyou can check against the bottle
- Chromium, as glycinate500 mcg
- Chromium, as % Daily Value416%
- Botanical blend, total weight1,255 mg
- White mulberry extractnamed · 1%
- Grape seed, bitter melon, gymnemanamed
- Black pepper extractnamed
- Everything else in the capsuleall four listed
- Capsules per bottle · serving size60 · 2
Eight things you can hold the bottle up against. Every number on this page is one you can check for yourself.
What a proprietary blend actually hides, and what it doesn’t
A proprietary blend is a single line on a Supplement Facts panel: a list of plants and one combined weight. It hides the ratio. It does not hide the plants, and it does not hide the total. Here is ours, drawn exactly as honestly as we can draw it.
Gluconil Proprietary Blend
1,255 mg per 2-capsule servingThose five sections are drawn evenly, and they are almost certainly not even. We’ve dashed the dividers rather than solidified them, because a solid line would be a number we haven’t given you. This is the most accurate picture of the blend that exists outside the formulation sheet.
Which plants are in it
All five, named on the panel. Nothing is grouped under a category word like “herbal complex”.
How much botanical, in total
1,255 mg per two-capsule serving, printed. You can compare that total against any other bottle.
Exactly how much chromium
500 mcg, and its % Daily Value. Chromium sits outside the blend, on its own line, to the microgram.
The five, one at a time
Every one of these has a long record of traditional use, which is a statement about history, not about outcomes. Where the modern research is thin, we say so rather than borrowing the language of a clinical trial.
White Mulberry
Morus alba
Leaves used for centuries in East Asian herbal practice. The only member of the blend the label standardises, printed at 1%.
Traditional useGrape Seed
Vitis vinifera
A by-product of winemaking, dried and extracted. Best known as a source of proanthocyanidins, a family of plant polyphenols.
PolyphenolsBitter Melon
Momordica charantia
Not an exotic. A gourd eaten as an everyday vegetable across South and Southeast Asia, and bitter enough to be memorable.
Food plantGymnema
Gymnema sylvestre
Ayurvedic. Its Hindi name, gurmar, means “sugar destroyer”: chew a leaf and sweetness genuinely stops registering for a while.
Traditional useBlack Pepper
Piper nigrum
The one that isn’t here for itself. Pepper extract is a standard inclusion in botanical formulas, added to support absorption of the rest.
Absorption
Five plants. Every one of them named.
The exact number
Chromium is the smallest thing in the bottle, and the only one we can print to the microgram
Chromium is an essential trace mineral: the body needs it, can’t make it, and needs it in almost comically small amounts. It’s regulated as a nutrient rather than a botanical, so it sits on its own line of the panel with a Daily Value beside it, which is exactly why we can be this precise about it.
416% of Daily ValueThat hairline is drawn to scale. Chromium is about 1/2,510th of the blend by weight: 500 micrograms against 1,255 milligrams. “Trace mineral” is a literal description, not a modest one.
And the four things nobody puts on the front of a bottle
Every capsule contains more than its actives. Most brands leave that to the small print at the bottom of the panel. It’s four ingredients, they all have a job, and none of them is interesting enough to hide.
Illustrative proportions, not a scale drawing.
- HypromelloseThe capsule itself: plant cellulose, not gelatin. This is the reason the bottle can say vegan.
- Rice flourBulking agent. Fills the rest of the capsule so the dose is consistent from one to the next.
- Vegetable magnesium stearateFlow agent, so the powder meters evenly on the line. The word vegetable is the part that matters, because the animal-derived version is common.
- SilicaKeeps the powder dry and free-running. Two-tenths of nothing, and on the label regardless.
One bottle.
One month.
60 veggie capsules · 30-day supply
- Chromium 500 mcg as glycinate, printed outside the blend
- Blend 1,255 mg across five named botanicals
- Dose One capsule with breakfast, one with dinner
- Capsule Hypromellose. Vegan, no gelatin
- Tested Mérieux NutriSciences, third party
One with breakfast. One with dinner.
The whole routine, in two moments you already have
The label’s suggested use is one capsule twice a day. Attaching each one to a meal you were going to eat anyway is the only part of this that takes any discipline.
Morning
One capsule with breakfast
With food, with a glass of water. Nothing to time, nothing to measure.
Evening
One capsule with dinner
The second half of the serving, alongside your other main meal of the day.
Then repeat
Daily, and unremarkably
Botanicals are a consistency product. Two a day for a month is the unit that matters, not any single capsule.
- 2Capsules a day
- 60Per bottle
- 30Servings
- 0Measuring, mixing or timing
Plainly
What this is not
Blood sugar is the one area of this catalogue where the temptation to overclaim is strongest, and where overclaiming does the most damage. So, flatly:
Not a medicine
It doesn’t treat, prevent, manage or cure diabetes or any other condition. No dietary supplement does, and any that says otherwise is breaking the law as well as your trust.
Not a substitute for one
If you’ve been prescribed something for blood sugar, keep taking it, and talk to the person who prescribed it before you add anything, including this.
Not a way to know your numbers
Nothing in a capsule tells you where your blood sugar actually is. Only testing does that, and it’s worth asking your doctor for.
Straight off the bottle
If you are pregnant, nursing, allergic, have a medical condition, or are taking any medications, consult a doctor before using this or any other dietary supplement. Keep out of reach of children.
What it is: a chromium and botanical formula that supports healthy blood sugar levels in healthy adults.*
What to check on any blood-sugar supplement label
Including the row where we don’t win. If a per-plant breakdown is your deal-breaker, this table should send you elsewhere, and that’s the correct outcome.
| What to check | Drugstore glucose formula | Plain chromium pill | Nutri Apex Gluconil |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every botanical named on the panel | Sometimes | – | All five |
| Blend total weight printed | Sometimes | – | 1,255 mg |
| Exact chromium amount printed | Sometimes | ✓ | 500 mcg |
| Chelated chromium (glycinate) | Sometimes | Sometimes | ✓ |
| Vegan capsule shell | × | Sometimes | ✓ |
| Non-GMO, soy-free, GMP | Sometimes | Sometimes | ✓ |
| Named third-party lab | × | × | Mérieux |
| Milligrams per individual plant | × | – | Not published |
One bottle. One month.
60 veggie capsules · 30-day supply