Please help regarding B6/P5P labeling

[nosher!]

Hello everyone! I'm very confused about the labels on some P5P products.
The Life Extension product's label says "Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal-5'-phosphate) 100 mg".
The Source Naturals product's label says "Vitamin B6 60 mg (from 100 mg pyridoxal-5'-phosphate)."
Both products are advertised as 100 mg P5P products. Do both of these products contain the same amount of P5P (100 mg P5P)? I attached the labels. The blue label is the Life Extension product and the white label is Source Naturals. I'm so confused. Thanks!

 

[Eastman]

Vitamin B6 normally refers to pyridoxine. Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate and pyridoxine can interconvert into each other but they have different weights.

As the Source Naturals label indicates, 100 mg of P5P converts into approximately 60 mg of vitamin B6/pyridoxine.

According to the label, the Life Extension product gives you 100 mg of vitamin B6/pyridoxine, so it would give you somewhat more than 100 mg of P5P.

 

[nosher!]

Thank you! So I would gather that the Life Extension product probably contains around 150 mg of P5P per capsule, right? Seems like their product is mislabeled as the front of the bottle appears to say it contains 100 mg of P5P, right? I even called Life Extension to ask them about it and their representative told me it contains 100 mg of P5P per capsule. But I really don't believe them because the nutritional information on the label appears to say otherwise.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Here's the source of the confusion:

Vitamin B6 is pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (P5P). So 100mg of P5P is 100mg of vitamin B6.

However, the U.S. laws that govern the labeling of nutritional supplements were written in the 1960's, when people mistakenly believed that pyridoxine was vitamin B6, before it was widely known that the true form of vitamin B6 in the body is P5P. (pyridoxine does not naturally occur in human metabolism)

So, older supplement companies like Source Naturals try to adhere to the old laws on how to label supplements by calling pyridoxine vitamin B6. But the Life Extension company tends to ignore the outdated laws and simply refers to P5P as vitamin B6.

Hope this clarifies.

 

[nosher!]

I am still wondering about it because if you look at the nutritional facts, the RDA percentages are totally different for the two products. Life Extension says 5882% and Source Naturals says 3500%. How can two products have the exact same active ingredient and dosage and have totally different RDA percentages? Additionally, I was taking the Source Naturals product and switched to the Life Extension product, and I started to have side effects (I felt like I was overdosing a bit). Could totally be unrelated/coincidence or could even be because Source Naturals one is a tablet so maybe not absorbing as well as the Life Extensions capsule.
Additionally, I did more research and found two other products that have labels exactly like Life Extension's, using "Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal-5'-phosphate)". Country Life labels their P5P product that way, and the front of the bottle says 50 mg of P5P. The nutritional facts say:

So, it's saying that 50 mg P5P is equivalent to 34 mg of "Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal 5' phosphate)".
And there is this Thorne P5P product:

The front of the bottle doesn't show a dose. The nutritional facts say it contains 33.8 mg of "Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal 5' phosphate)". I called Thorne customer service and asked them for more details and they told me this product contains 50 mg of P5P.
So, based on what Country Life and Thorne put on their labels, I'm still thinking that Life Extension's product might contain around 150 mg of P5P per capsule. I have not yet found another product that writes "Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal 5' phosphate)" on the label where it means it's the amount of P5P.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I'm still thinking that Life Extension's product might contain around 150 mg of P5P per capsule.

Possibly, but Life Extension has a history of doing things differently from other brands.

For example, Life Extension is a non-profit organization, but the US government tried unsuccessfully to challenge the non-profit status of Life Extension due to their extensive advertising. Life Extension fought the US government and won the right to be considered a non-profit organization, despite their heavy advertising.