Irregular Supplements

But we reserve our right to raise a few good questions here: can the manufacturer’s claims be realistic when an ingredient is so new on the market? How can they prove its effectiveness if it’s never been properly studied? Do they know what the long-term effects are?

A well built marketing campaign can be a very powerful tool. You will hear about “new medical breakthroughs,” “Holy Grails of supplementation,” or “ingredients that have been kept secret for thousands of years.” Not to mention that many of the brain supplements using irregular ingredients are pretty cheap compared to other more established formulations.

Don’t get us wrong. Some irregular ingredients can actually be a good addition to certain brain supplements. Some brands will take these irregular ingredients and they will bring them to a whole new level. Take Omega-3 for instance. This ingredient has been used for decades in brain supplementation, with more acceptable results, and right now Omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) are core ingredients in many top brain supplements.

Another example is Vinpocetine, which is claimed to have powerful cerebral blood-flow enhancing and neuroprotective properties. There is a good amount of positive feedback on this irregular ingredient, many claiming Vinpocetine to be one of the most powerful memory support ingredients available out there.

In most cases, companies will mention a plethora of clinical studies that may look great on paper, but do you know how relevant these studies really are? How many test subjects have participated in these trials? For how long? And most important: who conducted the study – was it an independent source or it was someone sponsored by the company itself?

Getting back to irregular brain supplements, what may pose a challenge for most consumers is the ability to properly identify the irregular ingredients. Most of them are “hidden” behind “proprietary blends.” Companies use this practice to make their ingredients look more special or more mysterious, but what really happens is that consumers must do their own research in order to understand what the ingredient name represents. On top of that, manufacturers are not legally bound to list the amount of each ingredient the “proprietary blend” contains, so you have no idea how much of this irregular substance you are actually getting.

It’s not difficult to draw a line between “irregular ingredients” and the proven brain supplement ingredients that have been used by millions and millions of people for thousands of years.

Take this for instance: have you ever heard of a viable alternative to replace the amino-acids our brain and bodies need on daily basis? If the answer is “no,” then you are right…because there is none. …show less