Optimum Nutrition Whey Isolate: Citizens Protein Project 1 finding (2024)

Optimum Nutrition's whey isolate was one of the 36 products bought, coded and blinded for the first Citizens Protein Project, a self-funded study published in Medicine in April 2024. The one thing recorded for it is a trace detection of aflatoxin, unusual in a whey product since aflatoxin normally enters through plant ingredients or flavourings. The study treated it as minor. Its Table 1 code has not been matched through the master chart, so no protein figure is quoted here and the aflatoxin figure is still to be read off the paper.

An earlier version of this page said the isolate was among the best in the study for protein matching the label, alongside One Science, Ultimate Nutrition, Dymatize, MuscleBlaze, MuscleTech and MyProtein. That list does not survive a check against the paper. Table 1, read with the study's master chart, puts One Science Nutrition 100% Whey at 68.37 g protein per 100 g against 83.00 g claimed, 14.6 points short, and Ultimate Nutrition Prostar 100% Whey at 71.71 g against the same 83.00 g claim, 11.3 points short. Both were mislabelled on protein rather than accurate. Optimum Nutrition's Gold Standard 100% Whey, tested separately in the same study, measured 75.80 g against 79.00 g on the label, a gap of about 4 percent.

The paper itself reports results by product code and does not name top performers. This page is kept for completeness rather than as a warning, and no FSSAI action on the product is on record.