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Almost all ecdysterone supplements are underdosed
According to animal and human studies, ecdysterone, a steroid-like substance in spinach and quinoa, has an anabolic effect. Yet athletes who have used ecdysterone supplements are often not happy with these products. If you know what's in these supplements - and what's not - you will understand why.
Anti-doping
Anti-doping organizations keep a close eye on ecdysterone. You can read why exactly here. And thanks to this renewed interest in ecdysterone, anti-doping chemists are publishing analyzes of supplements that should contain ecdysterone. We found two of these studies that we would like to share with you, in which researchers determined the composition of a total of 14 products.
Study One
Researchers at the Anti-Doping Laboratory Qatar bought various supplements and searched for ecdysteroids in them. [Drug Test Anal. 2021 Mar 23. doi: 10.1002/dta.3032. Online ahead of print.] Most products claimed to contain no ecdysteroids at all. The researchers found no ecdysterone in these products.
The researchers also analyzed two products that should contain ecdysterone: Norateen II from LA Muscle and Ecdybolin from Truly Huge, which, according to their labels, should contain 15 and 100 milligrams of ecdysterone per capsule, respectively. However, the lab found only 0 and 1 milligrams of ecdysterone per capsule.
The researchers had also obtained a supplement containing turkesterone, a different ecdysteroid than ecdysterone. This product, called Turkesterone, of which we have not been able to identify the producer, contained 2.3 milligrams of turkesterone per capsule.
Study Two
In 2020, biochemists from the Freie Universitaet Berlin published an analysis of 12 ecdysterone supplements in the Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis.
The products claimed to contain ecdysterone, but did not always say exactly what amounts were involved. In those cases, the researchers themselves calculated how much ecdysterone should be in a capsule of the relevant supplement.
Product |
Should contain |
Lab found |
House of Muscle
Beta-Ecdysterone
lot 1800900
|
500 mg per cap
|
1.77 mg per cap
|
Peak Performance Products
Peak Ecdysone
lot 0616001
|
100 mg per cap
|
0.84 mg per cap
|
Peak Performance Products
Peak Ecdysone
bottle 1
lot 0916001 |
100 mg per cap
|
4.19 mg per cap
|
Peak Performance Products
Peak Ecdysone
bottle 2
lot 0916001 |
100 mg per cap
|
4.17 mg per cap
|
Nature's Way Products
Suma Root
lot 20018153 |
Calculated by researchers:
2.1 - 3.3 mg per cap
|
2.32 mg per cap
|
Paradise Herbs & Essentials
Brazilian Suma
lot 1406048 |
Calculated by researchers:
1.7 - 2.6 mg per cap
|
1.37 mg per cap
|
YunDao Biotech Production
Muscle Building Formula Ecdysterone & Dioscin
|
280 mg per cap
|
44.2 mg per cap
|
Myprotein
Beta-Ecdysterone
|
300 mg per cap
|
27.9 mg per cap
|
Weider Germany
Beta-Ecdysterone
lot 402305
|
25 mg per cap
|
22.3 mg per cap
|
Verde Vita
VerdeFit
|
450 mg spinach extract per cap
(no claim about ecdysterone content)
|
1.77 mg per cap
|
Verde Vita
Verde ArthroSan
|
260 mg spinach extract per cap
(no claim about ecdysterone content)
|
0.1 mg per cap
|
Verde Vita
Verde CorSan
|
20 mg per cap
|
2.5 mg per cap
|
The best source of ecdysterone was YunDao's Muscle Building Formula Ecdysterone & Dioscin, but this product contained only 16 percent of the claimed amount of ecdysterone. We have not been able to find any information about this product. We suspect that it is no longer available.
In second place came Beta-Ecdysterone from MyProtein. This product was also underdosed. It provided only 9 percent of the claimed amount of ecdysterone.
There was only one supplement that lived up to the amount of ecdysterone claimed on the label: Beta-Ecdysterone from Weider. Weider delivers a few milligrams less ecdysterone per capsule than MyProtein's product, but hey. At least Weider doesn't cheat you.
Conclusion
Of the 14 ecdysterone products analyzed, 13 were underdosed. This amounts to 9 percent.
Of the 14 ecdysterone supplements, only 3 contain enough ecdysterone to have an anabolic effect. This amounts to 21 percent.
Source:
Pharm Biomed Anal. 2020 Jan 5;177:112877.
More:
Ecdysterone kills breast cancer cells 27.11.2020
Ecdysterone analogue Bio103 has more anabolic effect than its mother compound 07.09.2019
How harmful is ecdysterone? 13.06.2019
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