Comment · Sat, December 31, 2022 · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
KSM-66 and Sensoril Ashwagandha brands are extremely dishonest.
Original post in this thread
hootenanny03 · 200 points
I work at a supplement testing laboratory where my specialty is HPLC. Every single product that has come through the door with Ashwagandha on the label from these 2 brands is insanely low in withanolide content. Orders of magnitude low. I just got Sensorils HPLC method and I'm seeing how they quantify their product and they are lying liars, like how NBC Dateline with Chris Hansen did with that dry labbing lab in 2012. They aren't quantifying anything, literally making up numbers. Yeah that's right, I'm accusing Sensoril of lying about what is in their product and I have proof, not just in their garbage method but in the dozens of clients samples I've tested that contain literal fairy dust amounts of actives. These products contain no plant DNA either so there's no way you can positively identify that Ashwagandha is in a product.
What's more, I know that there is at least one independent laboratory that is advertising their ability to test Ashwagandha and I have proof that they are literally making up numbers, I sent them a sample with a fake spec and they hit the fake spec right on the money. I have been a chemist for 18 years now and I am extremely reserved about accusing other…
What they were answering
hootenanny03 · 7 points
I am looking at their confidential testing monograph. I am not being hyperbolic when I say the entire thing is a mockery of GLP. On the page to calculate % oligosaccharides is says:
"To obtained value multiply a constant factor ‘1.5’ to provide final oligosaccharide content in the product. (The constant factor was derived because oligosaccharides in the product are admixed with withanolide glycosides, in whose presence the true RI value is reduced, the extent of which has also to be validated by HPTLC)."
How do they justify the true RI value is reduced? That's not been my experience doing HPLC RID at all.
On their page to calculate withanolide glycosides they are integrating literally everything from void to 6.6 minutes and calling it all withanolide glycosides. It's all so so bad.
I maintain that Sensoril / Natreon is criminally misrepresenting their material.
While their protocol is confidential I am not under NDA and can send it to you so you can see for yourself.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
Yes, please send me what you have. I have seen some of their back end data before, and I agree it is garbage. When I pressed them further, they said they had more data proving their correction factors. However, they would not share that with me. Admittedly I kind of dropped it, because it was getting frustrating. Then a bunch of other shit came up and I forgot to revisit it. We removed the standardization claims, and just created an HP-TLC fingerprint of what KSM-66 and Sensoril should look like. Then we validate each batch to ensure it matches that fingerprint, along with heavy metals and micro testing. Since we don't own the patent, we just verify that each batch is consistent with what KSM-66 and Sensoril should be, per the patent holder. They also are matched against a validated botanical reference material for ashwagandha.
I will say there is something unique about the extracts that is having an effect. KSM-66 in particular uses milk in the extraction process. Ixoreal will sell you a dairy-free version, but it does not have the same effects. I think it shouldn't even be called KSM-66. It's that different. Our speculation was that perhaps the milk in the extraction is resulting in unique withanolide glycoside/oligosaccharide complexes. There is just no hard data to prove that. I think we were going to try some chemistry to see if we could prove it, but I don't know where we left it off. My lab director is on vacation for new years, but I will circle back with him when he is back in. There is something in each extract giving effects, and that is not one of the 8 withanolides in the USP monograph. It would be nice to figure out once and for all what that is.