Comment · Sat, August 1, 2020 · ND Owner
Shoden Ashwagandha
Original post in this thread
Berengersbottle · 37 points
I noticed y’all have a new ashwagandha and it looks exciting. For context, I’ve been taking ksm 66 for the better part of two years. It has phenomenal stress-reducing effects.
Would shoden be better? Has anybody on here given it a shot? There’s not a lot of info on this extract.
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Ohh damn, I didn't realize we had it up publicly yet. We've literally been working with the patent holders on this one for over a year. I can't express to you just how much chemistry we have done on this. It's been a fucking wild ride, that's for sure. So I will start at the beginning.
A long time back, a customer of ours wrote me a private message on Reddit about a new ashwagandha he had heard about. He said it was supposed to be the most potent in the world, so naturally my bullshit meter went off. I told him that I would look into it, and set off on that path to do so. Well that path essentially became one of the most complex projects we have taken on so far. So what we do these days for all ingredients, patented ones included, is that we pre-screen and analyze them to make sure what they are claiming is true. We don't trust anyone anymore, even patented and trademarked ingredients. If I am going to put my name behind something, I am going to make damn sure what is being claimed is valid and based in sound science. So when you have someone claiming to be the world's most potent ashwagandha, that's a big claim. Me being me, I immediately say it's total bullshit and say "prove it!" Many times these patent holders get all squirmy when I do that, and hit me with BS marketing speech. I cut through that bullshit straight off. If we are going to put the ND name behind your product, you better convince me. Well I fully expected the people behind Shoden to be wishy washy BS salesmen. However, they responded to me head on, and were fully committed to proving to me their claims. We had long calls with their scientific team and my scientific team where we went over the science and analytical chemistry of it all. This was some cool shit! Not only were they standardizing to 35% withanolides (KSM-66 is 5% and Sensoril is 10%), they were using very advanced analytical techniques to not just prove that number, but elucidate the chemical structures of each of these withanolides! They were using advanced chromatographic separation on them, then using 2D NMR to verify their exact chemical structures. If you guys don't know, that's insane! These are very advanced and EXPENSIVE methodologies that nobody else is doing in the ashwagandha space. Moreover, they were completely open with us, and shared ALL their scientific data with my team and I. This is not just uncommon, it's unheard of. They wanted us to work closely with them to validate and verify all of this science in our lab. So that is what we have been doing for the last year.
So my scientific team has been working closely with the scientific team behind Shoden, and a couple other labs around the world, to get all this science figured out. With their help, we have created completely new UPLC methods for ashwagandha that have never been done before. We are looking at withanolides that have never been structurally elucidated, and validating that with advanced NMR techniques. It's been a long hard road on it, and has taken a lot of time, effort, and work. We even had one of the scientists working on the project die partway through... It's been a rollercoaster. However, we have finally perfected and validated everything! So I can unequivocally now say that Shoden is the ashwagandha with the highest withanolides in the world. Moreover, because the team behind Shoden was so open and forthcoming with us, we now have better methods and tools to analyze other ashwagandhas to compare them! So not only do we have an insanely cool new extract, but we have advanced the science behind properly analytically testing ashwagandha as a whole! Our partnership with the team behind Shoden is now the gold standard for what I want with our other partners for patented ingredients. It took FOREVER, and cost a lot of time and money. However, we actually got good science out of it that just did not exist before. The level of openness they showed, and willingness to have us critique and question every little bit of their science, is truly unmatched in this industry. Most of the time these patent holders keep all their methods and standards private. They don't want us poking around and trying to prove their science wrong. The guys behind Shoden were the exact opposite. They worked with us every step of the way to prove to us that the science was sound to the level that we felt was rigorous enough for us to put our name behind it.
So that's the story behind Shoden. It's been a long time coming, but we really put the effort into making sure the science was 100% sound on this. We could have been selling this a long time ago, but I wanted to be 100% sure it was up to our standards. I think not only will customers be better off for it, but in doing this project we have drastically improved our ability to analyze the quality of ashwagandha as a whole. Shoden is a better product because of the efforts put into it, and we are better scientists for it as well.