ConsumerLab's Ashwagandha report: KSM and Shoden

I have already reached out to our lawyers on this. I am sick of Consumer Lab ranking products using shoddy chemistry! Consumer Lab is using methods to quantify withanolides that only look at a small portion of them in the sample. Their methods are only looking at 8 of the over 40 total withanolides in ashwagandha. We worked with the team from Nutriscience for over a year to expand and improve the testing methods for ashwagandha, and built and validated UPLC methods that look at a full picture of withanolides. Then we structurally elucidated them using quantitative NMR. It was a really cool scientific project, and we are super proud of it. We even use these methods on the NIST proficiency testing round for ashwagandha in 2022. To then get shit on by a hack organization like Consumer Lab because they are only looking at 20% of the withanolides in the sample, is ridiculous!

Here is their methodology section:

Total withanolides and withanosides are calculated as the sum of withanoside IV, withanoside V, withanoside VI, withaferin A, 12-deoxywithastramonolide, withanolide A, withanone and withanolide B (USP-DSC 2023). Root/rhizome powders are expected to contain a minimum of 0.3% (wt./wt.) total withanolides and withanosides (USP-DSC 2023) and extracts expected to contain a minimum of 1.5% (wt./wt.) total withanolides and withanosides (CL minimum based on Industry Standard). The minimum will be applied if the product does not state an amount of total withanolides and withanosides in an Ashwagandha-based ingredient or if the claimed amount is lower than the expected minimum. (Although not a requirement for Pass, any product claiming or providing less than 6 mg of withanolides and withanosides per daily dose will be noted in the Review as providing a "low dose").

So you can see they are only looking at 8 of the over 40 withanolides in ashwagandha. We are quantifying much more than that.

Here is the UPLC chromatogram from the most recent batch of Shoden.

We are seeing 48% withanolides when you look at the full picture. Of course if you only look at a small grouping of withanolides in the sample it won't meet specs! No shit! If I were to calculate the number of words in a book by only looking at the first page, I would get a low number, too. If there are over 40 withanolides in ashwagandha, how does only looking at 8 of them make sense? They can fall back on "Well this is the USP monograph!" all they want, but they have been made aware of the issue in the past, and they continue to choose to rank products by ignoring the majority of the actives. This is not the first time Consumer Lab has ranked products using shitty science. Their lion's mane rankings are an absolute joke! I'll copy their methodology for that one, so you can all have a laugh at how worthless their rankings are.

Here is how they tested lion's mane to rank products...

Yep, that's right! They didn't even TEST TO SEE IF THE PRODUCTS WERE LION'S MANE!!!! No identity testing of any kind. They tested for beta-glucans, which we all know can come from many sources. Oats have beta-glucans. Yeast has beta-glucans. Many suppliers out of China right now are mixing mushroom powders with cheap yeast beta-glucans to pump the numbers up. Chinese suppliers have admitted to us they are doing it, and said they can do different ratios of yeast beta-glucans to lion's mane to get the numbers people want to see. Consumer Lab ranking lion's mane on completely faulty data, while not even do the fucking basic test to see if the products are even lion's mane, just underscores where their rankings belong: right in the trash! Imagine trying to convince consumers that you are an authority on testing and ranking of products, but then you don't even test to make sure the products you are ranking are even the species they are supposed to be! Seriously, I feel like we are living in a clown world! The absolute MINIMUM Consumer Lab should have done was to test the lion's mane products to see if they were even lion's mane. I shouldn't even have to say that!!!! Of course you should test to see if products are even real before you rank them! Just utter incompetence.

In that same round, they ranked chaga as well. For chaga to work, it needs to grow wild on birch trees, the be harvested in a short period in the middle of winter. This is because birch trees concentrate nutrient in themselves to survive the winter months, and the chaga then absorbs these nutrients and bioconverts them to the actives we want in chaga. You can't cultivate chaga and have it work the same as wild chaga harvested in winter, as it won't have the actives. Does Consumer Lab take that into account at all in their rankings? NOPE! Does Consumer Lab even test to see if the products they ranked were even chaga at all? NOPE! You know how they determine if a product is fruiting body or mycelium? They look at the label... Yep, they just take the brand's word for it. You might as well just close your eyes and randomly pick products. That's about as good at Consumer Lab's ranking methodologies.