Comment · Mon, November 1, 2021 · ND Owner
Reddit AMA | In-House Lab Edition
Original post in this thread
NootropicsDepotGuru · 77 points
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We are very excited to announce that Nootropics Depot will be conducting its first-ever Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), which is a semi-live Q&A session, about our In-House Analytical Laboratory and we would love for you to join us! See below for full details and get your question(s) ready. We hope to see you there!
WHEN
STARTS: October 20th | 9am AZ MST
ENDS: October 22nd | 9am AZ M…
What they were answering
sebovarli · 1 points
okay so oriveda got back to me, the difference between the triterpenes percentage and the ganorderic acid percentage was in fact explained on their website right next to their COA. I quote
"Oriveda is currently the only vendor specifying the unique Reishi ganoderic acids, using an ISO 17025 accredited test method / laboratory to ensure the numbers are accurate.
Vendors specifying just 'triterpenes' tend to rely on an inaccurate test method (UV-VIS). UV-VIS will always return a way too high percentage. The margin of error is ± 50-70% with this method."
I read about vendors using these inaccurate tests before, it's being used to push the specs on all kinds of products like bacopa as well, what is your take on it ?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Sorry for the delay. I went to Supply Side West in Las Vegas last week. I actually sat down with Alkemist there to discuss this very issue. They said a ton of customers have been getting failing results, then trying to convince them to reissue the COA with lower specs after they fail. They have refused to do that, which is why some customers are posting results that show fail. The results did fail for what the customer was expecting. Alkemist just refused to reissue the COA when the customers changed the spec after the fact and pleaded with them to make the numbers match. This is why you are seeing failing results.
Also, they said that they stated the methods were not validated for the customer sample because most customers don't want to pay for that testing. That's an expensive step, and they said that some customers just don't want to add that cost in. This is why those methods are not validated for the sample. They could be, but Oriveda doesn't want to pay for it. Oriveda's explanation is BS, as it usually is. Ganoderic acids are the triterpenes in reishi. Using more accurate methods to get a lower number makes sense. So they are claiming they were using inaccurate methods when they claimed 9% and 6% for years? THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING TO THEM FOR YEARS! At least they are admitting it now. Using inaccurate and misleading methods and data to sell things to customers is wrong. If you can't validate the number before selling to consumers, you either don't sell it, or you don't make that claim till you can validate it. Period. For them to try and play it off as if they are doing something special now, when they literally failed their testing, is just silly.
To the larger point about UV-VIS, that's right. Using UV-VIS to quantitate groupings of things inside a complex sample will always give inaccurate results. That's because there is no chromatographic separation happening. HPLC results are still UV-VIS results. That's the detector on an HPLC/UPLC. It's just that the HPLC uses a column to separate the compounds before measuring them. The same goes for HP-TLC, which we use a lot as well. That uses a special plate to separate the compounds. It still uses a UV detector, though. You can claim total triperpenes using an HPLC. They are just trying to obfuscate the fact that they massively overstated the standardization of their reishi for years, and only after a failing result from Alkemist decided to alter it. That alteration was done to just below the result they got. That's NOT how you do proper science and set standardizations. Alkemist agrees, and says it is a big problem right now.