Comment · Tue, August 22, 2023 · ND Owner
Pregnenolone with Sorbitol issue.
Original post in this thread
h2oape · 3 points
Pregnenolone has become a foundational product in my stack, however I've discovered Sorbitol (a sugar alcohol sweetener) makes me itch to the point of distraction.
ND only offers it with Sorbitol, and knowing it's unlikely they'll produce a product just for rare cases like mine, I'd like to ask what brand(s) would those more knowledgeable than me recommend I try?
What they were answering
wavyeggs · 2 points
I appreciate you re-clarifying here. I’m also at a loss at the state of the world and subsequently this industry, well - almost every industry anyways but still. I did have a sour taste after your original comment having a lot of respect for you and your mission and I’m glad you were able to see my perspective and be compassionate. We’re on the same page and I definitely realize that my diet and things I choose to avoid are nearly unavoidable, I just try to limit the number of “unnatural” things I consume as much as possible. I did not mean to come across as blaming ND, I just was trying to say in my ideal world (reasonable or not). If there was gonna be a company it would be this one..
I’ve seen you reference the magnesium stearate and a lot of the other fillers to which I understand the frustration, which I agree it’s much better you list and test everything, regardless if it’s unfavorable or not. People really don’t think for themselves anymore and it’s a scary time. Information used to be spread and criticized, now people see clickbait and scary words and they go fully up in arms against simple things.
I take your word for the maltodextrin issue, and to clarify my stance on the lecithin it’s derived from sunflower oil which I would never consume. Maybe I’m assuming incorrectly that it could still contain some of the oxidized fats or linoleic acids, but I personally choos…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
I feel you. I just get really frustrated by everything I see these days. There are so many bad actors, and I literally find brand new ones every single day. My team and I have a chat for it, and I put in screenshots of competitor ads I see. It's constant, so it puts me in a bad mood. It's hard to compete when the default in an industry is lies and fraud.
I take your word for the maltodextrin issue, and to clarify my stance on the lecithin it’s derived from sunflower oil which I would never consume. Maybe I’m assuming incorrectly that it could still contain some of the oxidized fats or linoleic acids, but I personally choose to avoids all seed oils. I believe they contribute to most metabolic issues and diseases. I eat exclusively fats from beef, butter/ ghee, or olive/avacado oil. Honestly I don’t buy anything from the grocery store that has more than one ingredient. I make an exception with supplements and whatnot though.
That's a good stance with cooking oils. I avoid seed oils there as well. I mostly use avocado, olive, butter, and beef fat as well. It's not really an issue in supplements that you are not heating or cooking with, though. Take the berberine phytosome for example. That uses grape seed extract to prevent oxidation, and pea protein isolate and hydroxypropylcellulose to improve pharmacokinetics. You can read the paper on how Indena formulated it and proved it had better bioavailability.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8665891/
You can see the process the formulation goes through, and the function certain other ingredients have. In the pharmaceutical industry, the other ingredients used in the formulation are sometimes so crucial, they either patent them or keep the formula secret as intellectual property. Sometimes the other ingredients are just as crucial as the main actives to how well the product works. So all Berbevis will have these other ingredients, right? That's because it's part of what makes the berberine phytosome work. Now let's look at one of our competitor's labels for Berbevis...
No other ingredients listed from the formula. They just leave it off the label. Now let's look at the quercetin phytosome, Quercefit. Maltodextrin is part of the spray drying process of that, so ALL Quercefit will have maltodextrin. Let's see if others list it...
No maltodextrin listed.
No maltodextrin listed, and that's Thorne...
Nothing else listed at all!
No maltodextrin listed!
No maltodextrin listed!
No maltodextrin listed!
Now look at the composition from the spec sheet directly from Indena.
It's literally 18% potato maltodextrin, yet we are the only brand listing that on our label! How can we compete with outright fraud? This is literally every single one of our hundreds of products, too! I have countless instances of lies and fraud from competitors of literally every single one of our products. You can see why I am so upset by all this! It's not just a few bad apples. The whole fucking orchard is rotten!
That said, could you possibly clarify the reason for this thread - why some of the recent releases aren’t in powder form yet? Like preg, isoliquir., etc.? Is it just a convenience thing - as in you think it’s such small amounts people wouldn’t want the hassle of weighing it? Or is it something else?
Sales and staffing. Powders don't sell as well, and they take a lot of labor to make currently. We have to manually fill them all, which takes FOREVER. We are a bit short staffed, and we can't justify taking people away from larger runs of capsules that will sell hundreds/thousands of units a month for powders that will sell 10-20. If people bought powders more, we could run them on our fully automated All Fill line to be more efficient. However, we need to run at least 1,000 jars for that to make sense, and most people are just not buying powders anymore, so we can't justify making 1,000 jars of something that will take 4-8 years to sell through.