Re: Stopping Ashwagandha, need suggestions

 So are you saying I should have NOT bought this????


Planetary Herbals Full Spectrum Ashwagandha -- 570 mg - 120 Tablets

Supplement Facts
Serving Size: 1 Tablet
Servings per Container: 120

Calcium 59 Milligrams 6%
Ashwagandha Root 500 Milligrams *
Ashwagandha Root Extract (25:1) Yielding 5% Withanolides 70 Milligrams *

This is not really a standardized extract. It is a concentrate in an base of the powdered herbs. Concentrates are not the same as standardized extracts. Concentrates are made by extracting the whole herb then concentrating it down to a certain strength (4:1, 20:1, 200:1, etc.). So it is more like taking a very strong cup of herbal tea. Standardized extracts take a plant, they guess as to what they think is the active component, then they extract and concentrate that compound. Basically very little difference than the way pharmaceutical drugs are made. And they fail to take in to account that VARIOUS compounds in the plant work together. A great example is with Saint Johnswort (SJW), which was one of the first herbs to be standardized. So they standardized the plant for the hypericin, which they thought was the active component. Then they said, no the active component is hyperforin, so they standardized the product for that. Then they said, no it was neither. The actual active component is its flavonoids....... The fact is that all of these compounds and others are all active, and they all work together. So isolating and standardizing one compound not only makes it less effective, but also increases the risk of side effects. Again this is exactly what happens when they make a pharmaceutical drug from a plant.