Years in the past, I had a roommate who labored out every single day and would additionally devour Dionysian quantities of Entenmann’s cake. My form of man. We received alongside, partially, due to a shared conviction that the pursuit of bodily health didn’t preclude placing away huge portions of processed sugar. To not brag, however in my prime I might eat a whole household measurement bundle of Chips Ahoy as a post-run snack. The glories of youth.
However you become older and, you’d prefer to assume, wiser. Once I not too long ago noticed my former roommate, he talked about that he’d began taking the favored each day complement powder AG1 as a type of dietary insurance coverage. He’s not alone; the model was valued at $1.2 billion in 2022 and has been dubbed a “unicorn” in an overcrowded complement market.
A part of this success might be attributed to seductive messaging: the AG1 web site tells us that it’s a “science-driven complement that helps bodily well being and psychological efficiency” and is “designed to switch a number of dietary supplements by offering a complete mix of vitamins in a single tasty scoop every day.” That tasty scoop consists of 12 grams of greens powder, which are supposed to be blended with 8 ounces of water and consumed every day. Its purported advantages embody elevated vitality, immunity protection, and improved intestine well being.
An optimized dietary enhance in an simply administered dose. For sure, we’ve heard comparable guarantees earlier than. However such miracle elixirs make us ever-keen to ask the query: Might or not it’s true this time?
What Is AG1?
Previously generally known as “Athletic Greens,” AG1 is likely one of the extra distinguished examples of the current powdered greens craze. The model was based in 2010 by Chris Ashenden, an entrepreneur, athlete, and health fanatic from New Zealand.
Earlier this yr, AG1 introduced that Kat Cole, a former COO and president on the franchise restaurant group Focus Manufacturers (now named GoTo Meals), can be succeeding Ashenden as the corporate’s CEO, although Ashenden will stay on the board of administrators.
In line with the AG1 web site, the complement is for anybody “who needs to make sure their dietary wants are met every day” in an “obsessively curated product” that comprises multivitamins and multiminerals, pre- and probiotics, antioxidants, and buzzy “superfoods” whose supposed well being advantages are touted by the model. Different substances embody: rose hip fruit powder (“a supply of phytonutrients which can be foundational for the physique”), dandelion root (“recognized to assist soothe the abdomen and help digestive enzyme secretion”), and slippery elm bark powder (“recognized to appease the intestine lining”).
Obsessive curation doesn’t come low cost; a month-to-month provide of AG1 will set you again $79. By comparability, a month’s price of Greens and Superfoods from Bloom Diet prices about $35. However AG1 has a novel set of substances and a rigorously crafted picture of exclusivity, positioning itself because the Cadillac of the complement world.
It’s actually true that no different greens powder firm has AG1’s celeb firepower. The model has been endorsed by athletes like Olympic runner Allyson Felix and Components One driver Lewis Hamilton, in addition to an countless roster of wellness and health influencers. Hamilton has invested within the firm, as have Hugh Jackman and Cindy Crawford. Alex Honnold, who additionally holds a minority stake, is one other AG1 fan. In an e mail, the Free Solo star informed me that whereas it was arduous to place his finger on what precisely he beloved concerning the product, he nonetheless regarded it as “a part of a wholesome morning routine.”
“It helps me really feel typically properly—sick much less usually, fewer abdomen points, and so on.,” Honnold stated.
Like many manufacturers, AG1 has an affiliate marketing program, partnership alternatives for content material creators, in addition to the tried-and-true low cost for subscribers who get their buddies to enroll. In line with its web site, the corporate pays out a 15-percent fee on subscription gross sales by referral.
The corporate has additionally been sensible about partnering with among the greatest names on the self-optimization podcast scene, together with Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan, Wealthy Roll, and Andrew Huberman. Though the Huberman Lab didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the character of its partnership with AG1, the podcast’s sponsorship web page notes that they “solely work with manufacturers whose merchandise we personally use and love.”
Do We Want Multivitamins and Greens Powders within the First Place?
On AG1’s web site, below a subheading that asks “What merchandise does AG1 exchange?” I discovered the next: “One each day serving of AG1 eliminates the necessity for different dietary supplements reminiscent of a multivitamin, probiotics, greens, and superfood powders, vitamin B complicated, and vitamin C tablets.” The product, we study, “helps mind, intestine, and immune well being.” A single-arm examine (which implies a examine with no management group) with 35 contributors funded by AG1 discovered that almost all customers felt “extra calm” and that their “digestion improved” after three months of utilizing the product.
In fact, elevated calmness and improved digestion are quite imprecise and subjective metrics by which to proclaim efficacy. Purveyors of dietary dietary supplements should watch out about any purported well being claims, lest they find yourself being labeled as a drug—at which level they might have to be vetted by the FDA. (On the AG1 web site, there’s an asterisk hooked up to just about the entire alleged advantages of its substances to tell us that “these statements haven’t been evaluated by the Meals and Drug Administration” and that “this product is just not meant to diagnose, deal with, treatment, or stop any illness.”)
Working example: in 2023 the advertising and manufacturing corporations behind dietary complement Steadiness of Nature needed to briefly pause operations following an FDA letter warning that the corporate was not in compliance with federal laws as a result of its well being claims technically made it a “new drug” that required FDA approval. In a separate case earlier that yr, Steadiness of Nature needed to pay a $1.1 million settlement as a part of a consumer protection lawsuit in California that took the model to process for alleging it might assist deal with or stop critical ailments like most cancers, coronary heart illness, and diabetes.
As Exterior has covered in the past, many distinguished voices within the medical neighborhood don’t assume each day multivitamins are obligatory. David Seres, a professor of drugs on the Institute of Human Diet at Columbia College Medical Middle, has lengthy beat the drum for us to take a extra skeptical stance towards multivitamins and the broader complement market. Seres informed me that AG1 was one other instance of what was primarily a “freeze-dried salad of unique vegatables and fruits.”
Seres was adamant that, until one has a recognized deficiency of a specific vitamin or mineral, multivitamins haven’t any confirmed profit. He additionally suggested in opposition to taking each day multivitamins as a preemptive measure. “To my information, there is no such thing as a prime quality proof of any well being profit from multivitamin supplementation within the basic inhabitants,” Seres informed me. “And there’s proof that there’s potential for hurt.”
Seres referred me to a 2022 meta-analysis within the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation (JAMA), which pooled 84 separate research to conclude that vitamin and mineral supplementation was related to “little to no profit” in stopping most cancers and heart problems. (AG1 was not part of this evaluation.) As for the what’s-the-harm-in-taking-a-supplement-anyway method, Seres cited a 2011 study of males within the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico that appeared to hyperlink an elevated danger of prostate most cancers with vitamin E supplementation.
Once I ran this summation by a spokesperson at AG1, she offered the next assertion: “Every of the substances in AG1 is backed by peer-reviewed literature. Our staff of scientists and researchers have reviewed 1000’s of research as a part of the formulation and steady enchancment course of for AG1.”
It needs to be famous that the tutorial neighborhood is just not unanimously in opposition to multivitamin use. A recent study by college scientists, as an illustration, discovered that multivitamins would possibly assist counteract cognitive decline in older adults.
Neither is everybody as dismissive of greens powders as Seres. Emily Prpa, a registered nutritionist within the UK, informed me that for some teams—like first-year school children with “very beige” diets of processed meals—the multivitamin-as-insurance method in all probability does make some sense. As for the opportunity of doing hurt via a possible vitamin overdose, Prpa informed me that, typically, the physique was superb at dealing with extra vitamins.
Nevertheless, Prpa confused that her method was “meals first” and that individuals can “meet their vitamin and nutrient wants via a well-balanced eating regimen.” She steered that the “pure” method of getting one’s vitamins was preferable anyway, since sure fat-soluble nutritional vitamins (like vitamin A) are extra successfully absorbed with meals.
Prpa additionally defined that enormous doses of 1 mineral would possibly get in the best way of your physique absorbing different micronutrients ingested on the similar time—an idea generally known as aggressive absorption. “With a few of these proprietary blends the place they’re simply mixing quite a lot of issues collectively, that’s presumably a crimson flag,” Prpa stated. “Are you truly getting all of these nutritional vitamins and minerals that they are saying you’re gonna get from one scoop? It’s unlikely.”
The Analysis Behind AG1
An organization spokesperson for AG1 despatched me the next assertion: “We’ve labored with third-party consultants to conduct research and analysis to additional validate the advantages of AG1 as an entire, past the analysis and research for substances. These are revealed on drinkag1.com and peer-reviewed scientific journals, and present important proof of the efficacy of AG1.”
There’s a section on the corporate’s web site labeled “Analysis,” which lists peer-reviewed research, albeit ones which can be funded by AG1 and largely co-authored by AG1 workers. In line with the AG1 spokesperson: “As is customary for the trade, the research on AG1 are funded by the corporate and carried out by impartial third-party consultants and labs. These research are along with a large physique of third-party literature to help efficacy and security of the substances in AG1.”
It’s price noting that almost all of those research investigated the product’s potential helpful affect on the gastrointestinal tract utilizing a simulator that “mimics the physiological and organic circumstances discovered within the human intestine” and weren’t carried out on precise people. There’s nothing flawed with that—in vitro research are safer and fewer invasive—however because the authors of the research themselves point out, additional investigations are wanted to confirm the product’s precise well being advantages for people in a scientific setting. The decision, in different phrases, remains to be out.
The corporate’s web site additionally mentions a scientific trial on human topics that concerned a double-blind trial with 30 contributors through which wholesome adults got both AG1 or a placebo for one month. (The study was simply revealed within the Journal of the Worldwide Society of Sports activities Diet in October.) Subsequent stool samples purportedly revealed that AG1 enriched the microbiome by “greater than doubling the degrees of wholesome micro organism recognized to bolster digestion.”
The wholesome micro organism in query seem like Lactobacillus acidophilus UALa-01 and Bifidobacterium bifidum UABb-10, that are each listed on AG1’s substances checklist. Nevertheless, whereas L. acidophilus and B. bifidum are among the higher recognized species of probiotics, there isn’t a lot proof that the particular AG1 strains have any well being advantages.
The one examine that comes up whenever you lookup Lactobacillus acidophilus UALa-01 within the Nationwide Library of Drugs’s database, PubMed.com, is a 12-week controlled trial on the results of the probiotic on bone mineral density and calcium ranges in postmenopausal ladies. The conclusion of the examine notes that: “The consumption of L. acidophilus probiotics each day for 12 weeks amongst postmenopausal ladies doesn’t have an effect on the profile of BMD, however it could assist in stabilizing bone turnover . . . Nevertheless, it’s price noting that three months of probiotic supplementation might doubtlessly disrupt calcium and glucose standing in postmenopausal ladies.”
Once I requested AG1 why they selected these particular strains of micro organism regardless of a relative lack of revealed analysis on them, an organization spokesperson replied: “The probiotics in AG1, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidum, are properly researched and chosen for his or her security profile throughout a wide range of populations.”
Professor Gregor Reid, a distinguished professor emeritus at Canada’s Western College and creator of the 2023 e-book Probiotics: A Story About Hope, informed me that “individuals are getting kind of carried away with the concept that all the things that’s Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium is a probiotic and that’s not the case.”
“For the patron, it’s a disgrace as a result of they appear to assume that every one probiotics are the identical and subsequently, should you’re taking a probiotic, it have to be good,” he stated. “However until there’s scientific information to help it you then actually don’t know what it’s doing.”
Reid is on the scientific board of the probiotic complement firm Seed, and may be incentivized to be essential of a rival model’s product. Nevertheless, Reid was adamant that he’s not claiming that AG1 is a nasty product, however that the onus is on a probiotics firm to show the dietary worth of its particular strains. As he places it, “The query is the place’s the scientific information exhibiting these two strains have a probiotic impact and what’s the impact?”
As a sensible useful resource for individuals who wish to do their very own analysis, Reid recommends a guide to probiotic products—a reasonably expansive listing of merchandise that lists probiotic strains and functions, in addition to related research, which is put collectively by the Alliance for Training on Probiotics. Lest he be accused of bias, Reid identified that neither AG1 nor Seed are listed on the positioning.
So What’s the Takeaway?
Must you take AG1? The tacit promise of a product the place each ingredient is “backed by peer-reviewed literature” is {that a} proprietary mix of these substances will confer an optimized synthesis of each alleged profit and minimal unintended effects. At current, there have been no impartial research that confirm that AG1 does this.
Nevertheless it’s additionally not arduous to search out individuals who, like Honnold, imagine that their each day greens powder repair does have some constructive impact. Whether or not that perceived enchancment is a consequence of AG1’s components, or as a result of investing $79 monthly in a stylish wellness product makes you extra prone to take possession of your well being in different methods, stays up for debate. However to paraphrase the words of greens powder skeptics, why not simply eat just a few extra rattling greens?
Certainly, normally when articles come out questioning the claims of some new superfood-laden wunderproduct, they may conclude with a reminder that there isn’t a option to outhack the standard nutritious diet. (AG1 doesn’t declare that its product eliminates the necessity for wholesome consuming.) It’s all the time so disappointing. As a result of who doesn’t wish to dwell in a world the place the adversarial results of final night time’s boozy bacchanalia might be neutralized with an ashwagandha root smoothie?
Our collective want for the dietary panacea comes at a second when mistrust towards consultants may be at an all-time excessive. In line with Seres, a part of the rationale why so many individuals desire to take heed to influencer well being gurus quite than scientists is that the latter group usually hasn’t carried out a superb job in speaking dietary recommendation to most people. (AG1’s web site notes that the corporate has an “in-house staff of medical doctors, scientists, and researchers.”) The result’s a specific amount of cynicism; Seres stated the primary query he hears when new pointers are introduced is, “OK, are eggs in or out this time?”
“Individuals observe the suggestions of scientists and dietary pointers for the three most vital causes potential: they wish to dwell longer; they wish to dwell more healthy; they usually wish to be happier,” Seres stated. “Once we change our minds as scientists—which we don’t do frivolously however based mostly on new proof—we have to do a greater job of explaining why, in order that individuals are truly prepared to take heed to us.”
If Seres has any phrases of consolation for individuals who could also be dismayed that we are able to’t cancel out our meals vices with a greens powder complement, it’s that we should always regard excellent diet as a utopia, quite than one thing we have to beat ourselves up for not attaining.
As he places it: “Taking pictures for the perfect eating regimen is the objective; attaining it’s not.”
