Astragalus IN DEPTH

[qbkilla]

Does anyone know who actually makes vitamin shoppe supplements? I read years ago Carlson makes their fish oil and optimum makes their protein but no idea if true.

 

[bbxtreme]

Do you know of any reliable brand off Amazon for those of us with no access to the vitamin shoppe astragalus?

If you have access to the internet you have access to the Vitamin Shoppe. Not trying to be a smartass.

Dante may have some other recommendations, but the only brand I personally would trust on sourcing and quality on Amazon for this would be Gaia Herbs.

 

[bbxtreme]

Does anyone know who actually makes vitamin shoppe supplements? I read years ago Carlson makes their fish oil and optimum makes their protein but no idea if true.

Years back they private labeled from many different brands. New Chapter was the source of most of their herbs during that time, but I am not sure if that has changed.

New Chapter was bought by Proctor and Gamble years back so may have changed… not sure.

 

[BlueShocker]

If you have access to the internet you have access to the Vitamin Shoppe. Not trying to be a smartass.

Dante may have some other recommendations, but the only brand I personally would trust on sourcing and quality on Amazon for this would be Gaia Herbs.

Ah, cool I didn’t know they shipped!

Thanks. I guess I should have checked. Wish there was a reputable brand out there we could just buy the powder in bulk from…

 

[DOGGCRAPP]

Do you know of any reliable brand off Amazon for those of us with no access to the vitamin shoppe astragalus?

Alot of people ask me this question, especially the Euro guys, and i really dont have a legitimate answer for them...it would be guesswork by me to be honest.

 

[bbxtreme]

Ah, cool I didn’t know they shipped!

Thanks. I guess I should have checked. Wish there was a reputable brand out there we could just buy the powder in bulk from…

Nutricost makes a powder. But again, we come back to sourcing. And yes I know it’s third party tested, but all that verifies is that there is astragalus in the container and is free of toxins. It doesn’t tell us the source which is key with herbs.

If you live in America it’s hard to beat the decide plus of experience @DOGGCRAPP has using Vitamin Shoppe brand with blood work to back it up.

I personally don’t know why anyone here in the US would even consider taking another brand.

 

[whacked]

Whacked can i give you my opinion on this?

I am the guy who did all the research and studying on Astragalus to present to the bbing community a decade plus ago. It mainly came about because I was really upset about a guys story on this very board who went into kidney failure. I have studied so much on it in the past that i would have to go back and refresh myself on certain aspects because I have forgotten details due to study overload of other topics since ...but I know these main points.

a) It is greatly beneficial to telomere/DNA health
b) When people tried to isolate certain aspects of it like Astragaloside IV, I looked into this more and came out with the concept that the "whole" seemed to work together as a system and isolating what is perceived to be key parts might not be as beneficial. The whole seemed to work in conjunction with each other for the end result.
c) I have been in the business of making dry powders, capsules and supplements for 21 years now. Not to be smug but i have MASSIVE buying power of raw materials. So i can get ingredients much cheaper than the next guy due to the amount of material i can buy. When i see companies on Amazon selling products cheaper than I can actually make them for.....that is a scam. There is no way in hell they can capsulize, capsule count, bottle, label, cap, seal and do all the FDA testing done at a price point that is impossible. Trust me on this. Ive shown you guys before the testing results of some of these brands on Amazon that have awesome marketing and advertising on CO q10 and even Berberine. Some of the very companies you guys raved about had ZERO ingredients in their capsules to 50% of the viable ingredients. Saving money is one thing, swallowing a capsule filled with nothing but maltodextrin is another. (Edit: Nothing in this post is anything derogatory about Will Whitlock or his company, i think highly of him and use his Tudca and have seen the testing results on that and its legit)
d) NOW brands is usually a viable brand. I dont know what goes on with their Astragalus but I have never seen people get reliable results with that brand and Ive seen many (got no idea why)
e) I have nothing to do with Vitamin Shoppe, nothing, could care less about them....but their Astragalus has worked time and time again for virtually everyone I have ever seen use it. and i have seen 1000's now use it and the bloodwork to back that statement up. Are there other good brands? Probably...i just kind of stick to something I have seen work with proof in the pudding.
f) You are talking to a guy who has been a bodybuilder from 250 to 303 lbs for the last 35 years. I noticed with time that my kidney values were slightly going downward (as they do with everyone with age), not dramatically but with the natural aging process. This was before i started using Astragalus a decade plus ago.
g) I have used Astragalus virtually every single day at 4-6 caps morning and 4-6 caps night for like I said a decade plus. (along with grapeseed extract as someone else mentioned and by my previous posts on this board).....I am 58 now. Here is my kidney values from a month ago

.96 creatinine which is pretty much unheard of by anyone my size and age in the bbing world
GFR 92 on the regular scale and i wanted to get really detailed and used the Cystatin C scale which is more of the gold standard of measurement and
GFR of 114 and .69 cystatin C on that scale. If thats not proof in the pudding for you I dont know what to tell you.

I buy the 300 capsule bottles from VS and i wait till their bi yearly 50% off sales to get one at full price and one at half price and i buy 6 at a time.

DC - you’re awesome man.

Thanks for taking the time to share all of this.

Yup. I got suckered into thinking this was the next best thing astragulus-related.

Lesson learned.

Thank you !!!!

 

[aHarness]

Nutricost makes a powder. But again, we come back to sourcing. And yes I know it’s third party tested, but all that verifies is that there is astragalus in the container and is free of toxins. It doesn’t tell us the source which is key with herbs.

If you live in America it’s hard to beat the decide plus of experience @DOGGCRAPP has using Vitamin Shoppe brand with blood work to back it up.

I personally don’t know why anyone here in the US would even consider taking another brand.

As far as powder, I use the bulksupps astragalus root extract and as my anecdote after many years of gear use my cystatin c has always been good… but that’s just an n=1

 

[MouthBreather1982]

nusa pure has the biggest reviews on Amazon, I would imagine it isn’t great if you guys would have mentioned it already

 

[MR. BMJ]

nusa pure has the biggest reviews on Amazon, I would imagine it isn’t great if you guys would have mentioned it already

That stuff is pure crap. I'd highly recommend nobody use this brand.

 

[Flex500]

Just wanted to give a shout out to vitacost. Been using their astragalus for years and see results in bloods as well as every other product I've used from their brand. Lots of discounts too if you never ordered from them you get 20% off first order.

They have 20% offs all the time and they are the cheapest high quality supplements I've ever used...been using the last 7ish years.

 

[69cyclerider]

I was using NOW brand and the urine sample had protein spilling in it, switched to Vitamin Shoppe brand and no protein spillage.

 

[MouthBreather1982]

That stuff is pure crap. I'd highly recommend nobody use this brand.

lol damn there goes 20$ I guess I’ll order another brand now.

 

[specter]

Alot of people ask me this question, especially the Euro guys, and i really dont have a legitimate answer for them...it would be guesswork by me to be honest.

As a Euro guy i use supplement needs Dr Deans brand. Dude really knows his stuff and has alot of great products.

 

[MouthBreather1982]

Vitamin shop has bogo deal right now on astragalus. Had to get the small bottles because they only had one big one and didn’t feel like trying to figure it out with zip code etc

 

[mslmn]

Vitamin shop has bogo deal right now on astragalus. Had to get the small bottles because they only had one big one and didn’t feel like trying to figure it out with zip code etc

You could have had them shipped to you. When placing order online you can choose pick up or delivery. Usually ships from another store. There was only one bottle at my store when I placed an order, so I had it shipped instead of picking it up myself. This time it was shipped from Kansas, last time it was Arizona.

 

[CorgisOnTren]

This guy talks about the previous mentioned Astragalus IV (it’s in his product he sells) and says some pretty hefty claims regarding normal astragalus. Seems more like a sales pitch, especially given what past users here that have used the IV form have experienced.

 

[luki7788]

This guy talks about the previous mentioned Astragalus IV (it’s in his product he sells) and says some pretty hefty claims regarding normal astragalus. Seems more like a sales pitch, especially given what past users here that have used the IV form have experienced.

I don't listen to what these guys say at all - they change their minds all the time

 

[aHarness]

Seems more like a sales pitch

Agreed. It seems like one of those things that sounds better on paper, but for one reason or another it hasn’t seemed to translate (at least not that I have seen).

@whacked was this the brand you tried?

 

[Alan1]

Seems like Astragaloside IV has potential. I do wonder how they (Leviathan Nutrition) decided on 25mg as the dose to use.

Astragaloside IV improves renal function and alleviates renal damage and inflammation in rats with chronic glomerulonephritis - PMC

From Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bge.var. mongholicus (Bge.) Hsiao, astragaloside IV (AS-IV), a saponin can be purified and is considered traditional Chinese medicine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the AS-IV-mediated mechanism on ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

That study used 10-20mg per kg Astragaloside IV (in rats). From the article text above:

"As an active component of astragalus, astragaloside IV (AS-IV) has multiple pharmacological effects, including antioxidant (Mei et al., 2015; Li et al., 2018), antiinflammatory (Zhou et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2019), antitumor (Li et al., 2022), and hepatoprotective functions (Zhang et al., 2020). A series of studies have demonstrated the efficacy of AS-IV for kidney diseases, such as obstructive nephropathy (Meng et al., 2011), membranous nephropathy (Zheng et al., 2012), and childhood IgA nephropathy (Liu et al., 2021). Recently, AS-IV has been described to have a renoprotective effect on CGN"