Find every claim
Sentences with a verb doing something: supports, helps, promotes, maintains, improves. Note which panel each is on, and whether any names a condition.
An Asterisk, A Dagger And A Footnote
Two symbols appear on almost every supplement in the shop. They do different jobs, they live in different places, and most people have never been told which is which.
Quick answer
On a supplement pack an asterisk conventionally links a structure and function claim to the required FDA disclaimer, which under 21 CFR 101.93 must appear on each panel carrying such a claim, either adjacent to it or linked by a symbol. A dagger does something different: it marks a dietary ingredient for which no Daily Value has been established, and it is explained in a footnote at the bottom of the Supplement Facts panel. They are not interchangeable, and a mark with no destination is worth noticing.
They are not decoration
Ask most people what the little star on a supplement bottle means and you get one of three answers: it is the small print, it means they are not really promising anything, or it is lawyers.
All three are wrong in the same way. They treat a reference mark as a tone when it is a piece of structure. A footnote marker exists to connect a statement to the sentence that qualifies it, and the interesting question is never whether one is present but where it lands.
Two marks do almost all the work in this category, and they are not the same mark doing the same job in two fonts. They belong to different parts of the label and they answer different questions.
Once you know which is which, a surprising amount of supplement packaging starts reading differently.
The two marks, and where each one lives
Same size, same position at the end of a phrase, completely different meanings.
| Mark | What it marks | Where its explanation lives | Governed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| * Asterisk | A structure and function claim: supports, helps maintain, promotes | The FDA disclaimer, on the same panel, often in a box | 21 CFR 101.93 |
| † Dagger | A dietary ingredient with no established Daily Value | A footnote at the foot of the Supplement Facts panel | 21 CFR 101.36 |
| ‡ Double dagger | A second footnote, where a label needs more than one | The same footnote area | 21 CFR 101.36 |
| ** Double asterisk | A second disclaimer-linked note, or a percentage-column note | Varies; usually beside the footnote | Convention |
The row that matters most is the second one. A dagger belongs on the Supplement Facts panel. It is not a general-purpose footnote marker and it is not an alternative to an asterisk.
About the product behind this blog
Livpure is a liver supplement in 60-capsule bottles with no Supplement Facts panel in anything supplied to us. Six ingredients are named and not one carries an amount. We publish the gap rather than filling it.
Order NowRead the label firstWhat the asterisk is actually for
A dietary supplement may say that an ingredient affects the normal structure or function of the body. Supports immune health. Helps maintain healthy joints. It may say these things without asking the FDA first, which is a genuine liberty and the reason the category exists in its present form.
The price of that liberty is a sentence: these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
21 CFR 101.93 sets out where that sentence has to sit. It must appear on each panel or page carrying such a statement, either adjacent to the claim with no intervening material, or linked to it by a symbol at the end of each claim referring to the same symbol beside the disclaimer. Where it is not adjacent, it must be set off in a box.
So the asterisk is doing structural work. Look at the front of a pack, find the sentences that promise something, and check whether each carries a mark. Then find the disclaimer and check it is on the same panel. If a claim is on one face and the disclaimer on another with nothing connecting them, that is a gap worth having noticed.
Noticing is not accusing
Whether a given phrase counts as a statement of nutritional support is a judgement, packaging changes between print runs, and a photograph cannot show you a carton or an insert. The honest position is narrow: here is the rule, here is what is on the label, here is the question that raises.
And what the dagger is for
Something entirely different, and this is the part almost nobody has been told.
The Supplement Facts panel carries a percent Daily Value column. Many ingredients have no Daily Value at all — most botanicals, most amino acids, a good many compounds the body makes itself. For those, the percentage column cannot be filled, so the panel puts a dagger in it and explains at the foot of the panel: Daily Value not established.
That is its whole job. It is an ingredient-level mark, it lives inside the panel, and its footnote is part of the panel's own furniture.
Which is why a dagger on the front of a bottle, after a phrase that makes no claim about the body, is a strange thing to find. There is no ingredient it could be marking and no panel footnote for it to reach.
The product this site sells carries exactly that: Powered by Nature followed by a dagger, on a product with no Supplement Facts panel at all. We mention it on the product pages and it is the reason this post exists.
Why a misplaced mark is worth two minutes
Not because anybody is harmed by a symbol in the wrong place. Nobody is.
It is worth noticing because reference marks are the cheapest available test of whether a label was assembled by somebody who understood what each part was for. Getting them right costs nothing and requires only that the person laying out the pack knew the convention.
On a product whose contents you can verify, that signal is a curiosity. On a product whose contents you cannot verify, it is one of the very few things left to read.
The general lesson is the useful one: the small, cheap, low-stakes details of a label are often the most informative, precisely because there is no reason to get them wrong.
Three checks, in order
Find the disclaimer
The sentence beginning “These statements have not been evaluated”. Note which panel it is on and whether it is set off in a box.
Follow every mark
Each claim should carry a mark that lands on the disclaimer. Each dagger should land on a footnote inside the Supplement Facts panel. A mark with no destination is the thing to have noticed.
The two-minute version
An asterisk points at the FDA disclaimer and belongs beside a claim. A dagger points at a footnote inside the Supplement Facts panel and belongs beside an ingredient with no Daily Value. If you find a mark on a pack, follow it. If it has nowhere to go, you have learned something about how carefully the label was put together.
The per-panel rule is the interesting one
Most summaries of 21 CFR 101.93 stop at the wording of the disclaimer. The requirement that matters more in practice is where it has to appear.
The rule is per panel: the disclaimer must appear on each panel or page carrying a statement of nutritional support, either adjacent to the claim with no intervening material, or linked to it by a symbol appearing at the end of each claim and repeated beside the disclaimer.
That is stronger than most people assume, and it has a practical consequence. A perfectly compliant disclaimer on the back of a bottle does not automatically cover a claim printed on the front.
So when you look at a pack, do not simply confirm that a disclaimer exists somewhere. Look at the panel carrying the most prominent claim, and ask what on that panel connects the claim to the disclaimer.
Three things the disclaimer does not mean
That the company is hedging. It is a legal requirement rather than a tone. A compliant label carries it wherever it carries a claim, and its presence is evidence of care rather than of doubt.
That the claim is false. The sentence says the FDA has not evaluated it, which is a statement about process rather than about truth. Plenty of asterisked claims are perfectly well supported.
That the product is unregulated. Dietary supplements are regulated, including for manufacturing practice, labelling and safety reporting. What is absent is pre-market approval of the formula and the claims, which is a narrower thing than the internet usually implies.
When a page says a product supports liver health, the studies behind the sentence usually report a blood enzyme. ALT And AST explains what that number is and is not.