ASA founding member Blake Ebersole joined Len Monheit, Holly E. Johnson and Thomas Brendler on September 30 for a candid discussion about ashwagandha at the Naturally Informed conference focused on supply chain.
The talk landed on the core problem: ashwagandha doesn’t have a science problem — it has a consistency problem.
Industry knows how to ID and test the strength of ashwagandha products based on established marker compounds and methods.
While there’s still some source of quantitative imprecision due to certain elements, like consistency of reference materials, differences in methods used, and interlab variability, that’s no excuse anymore.
Every arrow doesn’t need to land on the center of the bullseye to know that product testing isn’t as much of a mystery as it’s made out to be.
What we do know is that many commercial products still show a surprisingly high degree of variation in what’s actually measured, versus what’s claimed on the label.
Unreplicable numbers on labels. Root extracts testing as weaker than root powders. And more.
Luckily, the totality of evidence on ashwagandha shows a remarkable record of safety and efficacy — but this evidence is product and composition-specific.
How do we apply the results of a clinical trial if the product isn’t correctly characterized?
If we don’t know exactly what’s in the product, how confidently can we connect an adverse event to ashwagandha?
And how should regulators make decisions about an entire plant, or a particular plant part, when the products behind the evidence aren’t labeled right and represent such a wide range of compositions?
That’s why debates miss the mark over whether ashwagandha is “safe” or whether root or leaf is the problem.
Those questions come after cleaning house.
First:
What exactly is in the bottle? How was it measured? Does the label accurately describe it?
And how do you know?
That’s where better standards start.
Thanks to to Industry Transparency Center, Naturally Informed and meeting sponsors for giving us the space to do it.
There’s plenty the ashwagandha industry still needs to work out.
At least now we’re starting to ask better questions.
The Naturally Informed Supply Chain conference and slides are available on-demand here: https://lnkd.in/e7y33CBa