Comment · Thu, April 7, 2022 · ND Owner
⚠️ NEW PRODUCTS ALERT | Horny Goat Weed 10% Icariin Capsules & Powder, Horny Goat Weed 50% Icariin Capsules, Celastrus paniculatus Capsules & Powder, & Caffeine + NALT Capsules⚠️
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NDSocialMedia · 59 points
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u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
To give everyone a bit of backstory and extra information on this release. We have been working for a long time on both the Horny Goat Weed and the Cellastrus. Both of these have been over a year of work. We tried LOTS of different extracts. I'll start with the Horny Goat Weed.
So this one is super interesting because of its wide-ranging effects. Everyone know about the main ones: the blood flow and testosterone effects. However, we have found that it is so much more than that. It's like Cistanche in that way. It can be a focused effect if you just have icariin, but there are other things in the plant that give it a more rounded one. We tried a bunch of extracts with different standardizations, and from multiple species of Epimedium. We tried 4 different 10% icariin extracts, in fact. Then you say: "Isn't 10% icariin all the same?" NOPE! Through our testing there was one extract from one supplier using a different species that felt much different than the rest. You see, a lot of the Horny Goat Weed on the market uses Epimedium grandiflorum. That's what you will find in most products out there. We tried extracts of that, and they were okay. They did the blood flow thing. However, we have one manufacturer we use for a lot of things now that does things differently. They are who makes our Tongkat ali extracts, in fact. They work directly with the farms growing it to get exactly what they are looking for in the raw plant, then they work with us to do the extractions the way we think they should be done. They do a really good job for us, and they wanted to us Epimedium brevicornum instead of Epimedium grandiflorum. We tested their 10% icariin extract next to 3 other 10% icariin extracts, and it was unanimous. There was something special about this one. It was much more pharmacologically complex than the others. You got the icariin effects, but you also got some other mood effects that were not present in the other extracts. Once we built out our UPLC methods, we figured out why that was. The chromatogram on this extract was much more busy than others. There were a ton more peaks from other flavonoids that were not present in extracts from Epimedium grandiflorum. These other flavonoids seem to really round out the effects. In fact, if you open up a jar of this one and smell it, you are greeted with a super pleasant and complex aroma that you don't get in other extracts. There are clearly other volatile organics in there that we are not even measuring on our UPLC methods for flavonoids. At some point we might try to use our headspace GC to figure out what those volatiles are. They are likely terpenes of some kind. So you get a bunch more flavonoids than other Horny Goat Weeds, and you get these interesting terpenes. This all plays into how nice this extract feels. So that is the 10%. It's super complex and balanced in effects. Then we did a 50% icariin extract of the same species. That one is mainly targeted at the blood flow and testosterone aspects. Because we wanted that one to be more focused, we double the dose in the capsules. So you are getting double the amount of icariin in the 50% capsules than the 10% capsules, but the effects are more focused on the icariin itself. If you are looking for the targeted effects that you expect from Horny Goat Weed, that's the extract for you. If you want a super balance and complex effect, the 10% is your ticket! So that is the Horny Goat Weed. Now onto the Cellastrus.
So we have literally been trying to do a Celastrus paniculatus for a long time. I think it goes back over 5 years we have been working on it. The issue with Cellastrus is that there are no standardized extracts out there. Also, different parts of the plant have different things. On top of that, the extraction solvents used massively affect the end result. We also tried a lot of extracts in our trials for this one. The main limitation in Cellastrus is that 99% of the suppliers out there can't standardize or control the process to the level we need. This is why we just didn't offer it for years. Well we finally got one of our other trusted manufacturers to take on the project with us. They source the Cellastrus plant, and then do the extracts how we want them to. We tried both water, ethanol, and dual extracts from all parts of the Celastrus paniculatus plant. Just like on the 10% icariin above, there was one extract that stood out in its effects. That was a 100% water extract of a combination of the seeds and leaves. The ethanol and dual extracts didn't have the magic. The extracts from the other parts of the plant didn't either. There is some balanced effect that only occurs in a complete water extract of the seeds and leaves together that gives a really nice mood effect, paired with the memory effects everyone expects from this plant. I keep using the term pharmacologically complex, but that is the best way to describe it. The UPLC chromatogram on this one is also full of different peaks. In Cellastrus's case, those are polyphenols. Because this is a brand new thing people have never done before, we are setting our initial specs very conservatively. We are claiming 8% polyphenols on this one, but our testing is actually showing around 17% in this batch. There are other things in there as well, but we are holding off till we have a few more batches under our belts. Then we will see how the growth time and harvesting affects those numbers throughout the year. We will definitely be updating our STAG and standardization as time goes on. I just never want people to get less than we claim, so we set things low at first till we can be confident in the consistency and total scientific validity of our claims. Just know that this Cellastrus is unlike any other out there. It's a very interesting and nice feeling extract! I am taking it every day now myself. I hope you all like it as much as I do!