I've been seeing a lot of influencers promoting neural supplements recently

It's your AG1s or your Feel Frees or some other natural energy or mental clarity boost

And I have no problem with taking supplements or sleep aids...

But, these companies often make claims that *feel* misleading

*I said feel - don't sue me*

For example- I could sell you a pill of naturally crystalized dihydrogen monoxide and tell you it's healthy but that's literally just ice... good old H20

So before you start buying supplements to help you focus or relax, I want to show you 3 ways that I check the ingredients to at least get a better idea of: "will this work for me?"

I thought of this while watching an ad for Neuro, so we're going to pick on them. They seem like cool guys, hopefully they can take it:

In their ads they mention L-Theanine as an active ingredient so we'll use that for an example.

Efficacy is a lot of things, we're keeping is as simple as possible:

1) Dose
2) Results
3) Limitations

So I literally just go to google and I type in:

"How much L-Theanine do I need to have an effect pubmed"

I search pubmed so I get real data and not product reviews.

Dose is usually pretty easy to find, it's in the abstract or methods.

I found multiple studies:

I see one study did 50mgs of L-Theanine [1],

I found another 2 that were 200mgs [2], [3]

For reference: Neuro has 65mg of L-Theanine - so on the lower end of the spectrum.

Next we're looking for Results-  we'll find this in the abstract and in the discussion

All 3 studies I found indicate some kind of significant stress relief from L-Theanine.

That's good. But we have to check the limitations of those results...

Limitations are kind of everywhere, I usually just skim around and ignore the stuff I don't understand.

Here's why it's important to check limitations:

That study with 50mg of L-Theanine only tested people while they were laying down with eyes closed.

So if you're planning on laying down with your eyes closed- the 65mg in Neuro has a chance of working out

But, the other studies with 200mg actually put their targets under stress.

Which is what I assume you take these for - actual stressful situations where you need help focusing or relaxing.

Those studies found stress relief, but not always.

Sometimes, not even often.

"Second, only about 20% of symptoms (the PSQI subscales) and cognitive functions (the BACS verbal fluency, especially letter fluency and executive function) scores showed significant changes after L- theanine administration compared to the placebo administration, suggesting that the effects are not large on daily function of the participants." (Hidese, 2019) [3]

And remember: that's with 200mg of L-Theanine compared to the 65mg in Neuro.

I'm not saying Neuro doesn't work... this isn't about the efficacy of any of these "neural supplement" companies.

This is about companies advertising the benefits of an ingredient like L-Theanine even though their product has about a third of the dose that real-world studies showed.

And those studies weren't even perfectly effective.

On their own website, Neuro admits that none of their claims are backed by the FDA.

And because they don't have the clinical data to say "this works. period." They sponsor influencers who can say, "this worked for me..."

It's a little - legal workaround - on an already insanely unregulated industry.

Obviously this is oversimplified.

But, I think that before you get your hopes up and spend hard earned money on something, it's worth doing at least basic research on their ingredients.

And these studies or trials get a lot less complicated if you know what to look for.

That was the whole point of this.

So as a start-

Dose
Results
Limitations

See you on the next one.

Sources:

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18296328/

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051106001451?via%3Dihub

[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6836118/

https://getneuro.com/pages/ingredients-benefits

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/you-probably-dont-need-green-ag1-smoothie

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