Powder and ready-to-drink protein gross sales have exploded, achieving over US$32 billion globally from 2024 to 2025. Increasingly more, customers are the usage of those protein resources day-to-day.
A brand new find out about by way of Shopper Stories, revealed on Oct. 14, 2025, claims that some such protein merchandise include dangerously top ranges of lead, in addition to different heavy metals similar to cadmium and arsenic. At top ranges, those elements have severe, well-documented well being dangers.
I’m a medical pharmacologist who has evaluated the heavy steel content material of child meals, calcium dietary supplements and kratom merchandise. Lead and different heavy metals happen naturally in soil and water, so attaining zero-level publicity could be unattainable. Moreover, the extent of lead publicity that Shopper Stories deems protected is considerably not up to the ones set by way of the Meals and Drug Management.
Alternatively, irrespective of the protection cutoff, the find out about does display that a couple of merchandise are handing over a concerningly top dose of heavy metals according to serving.
How Shopper Stories did the find out about
The brand new find out about assessed 23 powder and ready-to-drink protein merchandise from fashionable manufacturers by way of sending 3 samples of every product to an unbiased industrial laboratory.
Shopper Stories regarded as anything else over 0.5 micrograms according to day from any unmarried supply to be above advisable most lead ranges. That quantity comes from the California Place of job of Environmental Well being Danger Review, which established advisable most ranges for quite a few elements that would motive most cancers or fetal hurt.
It’s considerably extra conservative than the protection same old for lead publicity utilized by the FDA for medication and dietary supplements. The discrepancy is pushed by way of Shopper Stories’ aspirational objectives of very low publicity as opposed to the extra practical however actionable necessities from the FDA.
Consistent with the FDA, the restrict for the quantity of lead that an individual must eat from any unmarried nutritional complement product is 5 micrograms according to day. That quantity is 10 instances upper than the Shopper Document restrict.
The FDA has some other same old for the entire day-to-day quantity of lead an individual can safely eat from meals, medication and dietary supplements mixed. This quantity, known as the Intervening time Reference Degree, or IRL, for lead is according to concentrations of lead within the blood which might be related to unfavorable well being results in numerous populations.
For individuals who may just turn into pregnant, that point is 8.8 micrograms according to day, and for kids it’s 2.2 micrograms according to day. For everybody else, it’s 12.5 micrograms according to day. Each and every meals, drug and nutritional complement that incorporates lead contributes to the entire day-to-day publicity, which must be not up to this quantity.
In assessing lead ranges, Shopper Stories used a extra conservative protection same old than the only utilized by the FDA for medication and dietary supplements.
lakshmiprasad S/iStock by the use of Getty Photographs Plus
What the document discovered
The nonprofit advocacy staff discovered that 16 of the 23 merchandise it examined exceeded 0.5 micrograms, the extent of lead in a regular serving that the group deems protected.
4 of the 23 merchandise exceeded 2.2 micrograms, the FDA’s cutoff for the entire day-to-day quantity of lead kids must eat. Two merchandise contained 72% and 88%, respectively, of the entire day-to-day quantity of lead that the FDA deems protected for pregnant girls.
As well as, Shopper Stories discovered that two of the 23 merchandise delivered greater than what it considers a protected quantity of cadmium according to serving, and one had extra arsenic than used to be advisable.
The group’s protection cutoff for cadmium is 4.1 micrograms according to day, and for arsenic it’s 7 micrograms according to day. Those numbers align reasonably carefully with the FDA’s advisable publicity restrict for cadmium and arsenic from a unmarried product. For cadmium, the FDA’s restrict is ready at 5 micrograms according to day for a given nutritional complement product and 15 micrograms according to day for arsenic.
The find out about discovered that the supply of protein used to be key: Plant-derived protein merchandise had 9 instances the lead present in dairy proteins like whey, and two times up to beef-based protein.
The place are those heavy metals coming from?
Lead and different heavy metals are found in top quantities in volcanic rock, which comes from molten rock known as magma underneath the Earth’s floor. When volcanic rock is eroded, the heavy metals contaminate the native soil and water provide. What’s extra, some crop vegetation are particularly environment friendly at extracting heavy metals from the soil and putting them within the portions of the vegetation that customers ingest.
Fossil fuels, which come from deep throughout the Earth, additionally billow heavy metals into the air when they’re burned. Those elements then settle out into the soil and water. After all, some fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides additionally include heavy metals that may additional contaminate soil and native water.
Prime ranges of heavy metals had been present in plant-based protein powder, spices like cinnamon, darkish chocolate, root greens like carrots and candy potatoes, rice, legumes similar to pea pods and plenty of natural dietary supplements.
Root greens similar to candy potatoes can soak up heavy metals from the soil.
Virginia State Parks, CC BY
Must customers be involved? And what can they do?
Once in a while exceeding the day-to-day advisable heavy steel doses is not likely to lead to severe well being problems.
Repeated, heavy publicity to heavy metals could cause hurt, then again. Once they gather within the blood, those elements can prolong or impair psychological functioning, harm nerves, melt bones and lift blood force – which in flip will increase the chance of strokes and middle assaults. Heavy metals too can build up the chance of growing most cancers.
It’s necessary to notice that all of the merchandise Shopper Stories flagged have lead ranges considerably not up to the utmost day-to-day publicity ranges established by way of the FDA.
Customers can restrict publicity by way of opting for dairy- or animal-based resources of protein merchandise, since they usually appeared to have much less heavy steel contamination than plant-based ones. Alternatively, some plant-based protein merchandise within the find out about didn’t have top ranges of heavy metals. Heavy steel ranges range broadly within the atmosphere, so the effects from the Shopper Stories find out about display a snapshot in time. They is probably not constantly correct throughout batches if, as an example, a producer adjustments the supply of its uncooked elements.
For protein merchandise that do display a particularly top heavy steel content material, the usage of them extra sporadically, quite than day-to-day, can cut back publicity. Research recommend that natural plant-based merchandise usually yield much less heavy steel content material than historically farmed ones.
After all, the Shopper Stories find out about measured heavy metals in one serving of protein merchandise, so it’s useful to grasp what constitutes a serving for particular merchandise and to steer clear of sharply expanding day-to-day intake.
General, the vast variation in lead ranges throughout other protein powders and ready-made protein merchandise highlights the will for producers to tighten product trying out and excellent production practices.
