Comment · Sat, May 25, 2024 · Nootropics Depot & Natrium Health
Consumer Labs latest results for Ashwagandha are disappointing. Nootropic Depot, LEF, Swanson, others fail.
Original post in this thread
flashlightsmurf · 119 points
Consumer Labs tested Ashwagandha supplements recently, only 5 of 13 of the products they tested passed. Some of the products that failed were very popular, so if you aren't seeing any impact maybe that's why.
As usual they tested ones with rice fillers for heavy metals and potency. All the failures were because products did not have the claimed amount of withanolides expected. Tests were sent to second lab to confirm.
Every product containing KSM-66 failed, there could be a problem with Ixoreal. There are details in the article about some disputes they had with Ixoreal and how to test KSM-66 (our formula is too advanced) but the monograph was never updated and so CL did the same tests, found the same results, and reported the same lol.
Products that failed:
* Life Extension Ashwaganda
* Nootropics Depot Shoden
* Pure Encapsulations Ashwagandha
* Swanson Ultimate Ashwagandha
Their top pick was NOW® Ashwagandha 450 mg.
During the LEF super sale I purchased a year supply of Ashwagandha, now I need to see if I can get my money back :/
What they were answering
they-were-here-first · 4 points
I don't disagree, that's why I feel they should have waited. Or as you said, made it abundantly clear that it was ranking based on USP's inaccurate monograph.
They did make mention under "Not Approved Products" that they were using USP's method and the method hadn't been updated. Which blows my mind why they would still come out with that review.
Despite all of that, I'm still a believer in CL and what they are trying to do (wish it were free though). Can they do better? Absolutely. EVERYONE can do better.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Nootropics Depot & Natrium Health
Then what about the lion's man results? They didn't even test for the identity of lion's mane! How can that happen? How can an organization (a for-profit one, by the way) that asserts itself as the authority on supplement testing and ranking, not even test for the identity of the thing they are testing?!? Can they be better? YES! Can they be worse? Well you can make the argument no. If you rank lion's mane, but don't even test the products to see if they are even lion's mane, what the fuck are you doing?!? It's anarchy! Nothing has meaning anymore! I could have put a 98% beta-glucan yeast extract in a bottle, and labeled it lion's mane, and we would have been the number one product according to Consumer Lab! 98% beta-glucans lion's mane! How did they do it?!? Nobody knows! Should we test if it is actually lion's mane? Nah, fuck that. Put the rankings out!