Ceretropic Super Rhodiola

[avega17]

Has anyone tried this product? I have been taking NOW Rhodiola (3% rosavins) for quiet some time now, but I have read that rosavins aren't actually active. Salidroside and tyrosol are the active compounds, and this seems like one of the only products on the market standardized for them.

 

[muscleupcrohn]

Has anyone tried this product? I have been taking NOW Rhodiola (3% rosavins) for quiet some time now, but I have read that rosavins aren't actually active. Salidroside and tyrosol are the active compounds, and this seems like one of the only products on the market standardized for them.

Basically all of the positive research on rhodiola (reducing fatigue, improving endurance, etc) have been conducted with extracts that are standardized for both rosavins and salidrosides. Studies on fatigue and rhodiola tend to use the SHR-5 extract, which is standardized to ~2-2.5% salidroside and ~3% rosavins. Studies on exercise performance and/or endurance tend to use an extract standardized for 1% salidroside and 3% rosavins. In my opinion, it would not make sense to stray from the extract standardization that has repeatedly been found to be quite effective, especially considering that said extracts are very affordable, and high doses are not needed (as higher doses offer no real additional benefit over lower doses in many studies). I'm not sure it's quite as simple as "rosavins do nothing, so you shouldn't have them in a rhodiola extract."

Perhaps they are referring to this;

Rhodioloside, and tyrosol were identified as active principles of the extract, whereas rosavin, rosarin, rosin, cinnamic alcohol, cinnamaldehyde, cinnamic acid were inactive.

but didn't mention this;

A fixed combination of rhodioloside [salidroside], rosavin, rosarin and rosin [the rosavins] was more active than any of the individual components alone, indicating a synergistic effect of the ingredients in RR extract.

While they may not do anything alone, and you don't want an extract without salidrosides, it seems that it may be better to have an extract that includes both salidoroside and rosavins.

Here is some info from an article by Dr. Howard Peiper and Dr. Zakir Ramazanov:

TRUE rhodiola extract contains sufficient standardized levels of its unique active constituents... Salidroside... alone should never be used as the objective standard for Rhodiola rosea evaluation.

http://www.chagatrade.ru/pdfdocs/RHODIOLA ROSEA.pdf

 

[muscleupcrohn]

I just looked at the NOW rhodiola, and it appears to have 3% rosavins a AND 1% salidroside. If it was only standardized for rosavins, then it would be far less than ideal, with a similar but perhaps not as bad case if it was only standardized for salidroside (it is very common for high salidroside extracts to have little to no rosavins, although extracts with 2+% of both rosavin and salidroside do exist). With a 3/1% extract, doses as low as 200mg have been found to be effective in healthy humans.

 

[avega17]

I just looked at the NOW rhodiola, and it appears to have 3% rosavins a AND 1% salidroside. If it was only standardized for rosavins, then it would be far less than ideal, with a similar but perhaps not as bad case if it was only standardized for salidroside (it is very common for high salidroside extracts to have little to no rosavins, although extracts with 2+% of both rosavin and salidroside do exist). With a 3/1% extract, doses as low as 200mg have been found to be effective in healthy humans.

Thanks for the replies man. I've never had a problem with NOW, but I ran into that page and started questioning the active compounds. Went ahead and reorders two bottles of NOW. What do you use?

 

[muscleupcrohn]

Thanks for the replies man. I've never had a problem with NOW, but I ran into that page and started questioning the active compounds. Went ahead and reorders two bottles of NOW. What do you use?

Yeah, but the way I see it, there is a lot (many studies for many uses) of research showing that the extracts standardized for rosavins and salidroside are pretty effective, and even the paper that said rosavins are "inactive" did still state that salidroside + rosavins was more effective than salidroside alone. Plus these extracts are very affordable; if it's not broken (and it's definitely not broken), you know

Right now I'm using a bulk powder standardized for 1% salidroside and 3% rosavin, although I do also have another extract standardized for the same thing in caps from Life Extension (250mg per cap) for when I don't want to measure the powder. I've also used SHR-5 caps before (180mg per cap). I've gotten COAs for some 2% salidroside and 3% rosavin (more similar to the SHR-5 extract), but I don't want to buy more rhodiola when I already have a decent amount of what is still a good extract.

It looks like the NOW caps are 500mg each. There's really nothing wrong with taking 500mg, but I usually only take 200-250mg, although I do sometimes take it twice daily.