Comment · Sun, January 27, 2019 · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
Something about these percentages seem off (Bacopa)
What they were answering
Macallac · 2 points
The reason is that your Bacopa was measured in saponins, not bacosides. They are two different ways of measuring the same Bacopa.
For example, most Bacognize bacopa shows 55% bacosides on the label. If you look at Nootropics Depot Bacognize (which is standardized to 55% bacosides, it shows 12.6% saponin glycosides on the cutsheet) I forget the whole explanation, but I believe it's more accurate to measure in saponins than bacosides or something.
But essentially, 12% saponins equals 55% bacosides or something like that.
What brand is that?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
Bacopa saponins are the same thing as bacosides. The difference in 45% to 12.6% is the testing methodology. The 45-55% has always used UV-VIS. The thing with UV-VIS is that it groups similar compounds together into bands. So it overstates the amounts because it can't separate them. The 12.6% number is an HPLC result. HPLC uses a column to actually separate the compounds into individual peaks. Then you can add them all up and ignore the ones that muddy the waters in a UV-VIS. UV-VIS is a dry technique, whereas HPLC is a wet technique. Wet techniques can actually use solvents to separate compounds from each other. Those will always be more accurate than dry techniques that group things together.
Bacosides are tetracyclic triterpene saponins. They were just given the more common name of bacosides so you didn't have to say bacopa saponins every time. It's the same thing as ginsenosides. Those are ginseng saponins, but everyone calls them ginsenosides.