Olympus Ep1c vs EGCG supps?

[Comeuppance]

I apologize if this has been addressed previously, but, given the stark price difference between EGCG supplements and OL's EP1C Unleashed, is there any particular reason to not just spring for EGCG? I can get 100 caps of decaffeinated EGCG with 325mg of EGCG (750mg of extract standardized at 45% EGCG) for 17 bucks shipped to my door, and I can get 180 caps at 200mg EGCG for the same. Heck, I can get 250g of 45% EGCG as a bulk powder for twenty bucks - again, shipped.

EP1C's blend is 500mg. Let's say all 500mg are EGCG / Epicatechin. EP1C comes in 60ct bottles for about $50. I could dose 600mg of EGCG for 60 days for 17 bucks if I just took three of the 200mg EGCG caps at once. That's almost exactly 1/3rd the price! It gets even cheaper with the powder - I could take 2000mg / day (900mg EGCG!) for 125 days for 2/5 the cost of a bottle of EP1C at retail price. That's almost twice the dosage for almost a third the price.

Now, the transdermal is very appealing to me conceptually, given reports of very poor oral bioavailability of EGCG. Were I to go for caps, however, is there any particularly good reason I should go for the OL product? Don't get me wrong, I like OL. I'm taking Radar1ne and Str3ngth currently and am very pleased. However, I don't see that EP1C represents a particularly good value given the content.

 

[nasrenegade]

Broham, you realize Ep1c is an epicatechin product and not an EGCG product right? EGCG is in there for bioavailability.

 

[Comeuppance]

Ah! Upon further research, I have found that EGCG does not mimic the hormone that inhibits myostatin in the same fashion that Epicatechin does. I had thought the two may have been functionally interchangeable, and now I see that is not the case.
This is why I asked! It seemed like such an oversight, but I was the one overlooking things.

 

[Comeuppance]

Dang, I keep looking around, and I can only find one other comparably priced epicatechin product... From a company I've never heard of, and not at much of a cost advantage over EP1C.

Looks like OL is the best game in town once again... Now I just need to save my pennies and buy a bottle.

(I swear I'm not being paid to say that)

 

[GNO]

Ah! Upon further research, I have found that EGCG does not mimic the hormone that inhibits myostatin in the same fashion that Epicatechin does. I had thought the two may have been functionally interchangeable, and now I see that is not the case.
This is why I asked! It seemed like such an oversight, but I was the one overlooking things.

Comeuppance
I suggest reading the through the following thread for more information on EP1C Unleashed. We have been getting great feedback on it and actually have several logs in progress.

 

[Afi140]

It's good stuff op and worth those saved pennies. I beta tested both the td and oral and they're both great.

 

[mase1]

I am running the TD and highly recommend it,it would be worth every penny.

 

[Comeuppance]

So, I did some research into buying epicatechin in raw bulk form, and...

It's extremely expensive. This makes me question the total content of epicatechin in the products I'm seeing on the market. The very berry best price I've seen thus far is $24 for 10g... which would be 33.3 300mg servings. That puts the raws almost exactly in line in price with the finished product, and that seems incredibly unlikely to me. That price, by the way, is well under the other sources I have found:

20mg for $153
10mg for $155
25mg for $249
5mg for $131

What's going on here? How could a supplement company afford to put 300mg in 60 caps for $50 when one can't even buy the raws at that rate? Most caps are sold at a pretty high markup over the raws (TUDCA, for example), but -(-) Epicatechin appears to be so prohibitively expensive that it makes me suspicious of the companies claiming to be selling the product in such quantities per cap.

 

[Quads_of_Stee]

ep1c unleashed has an added absorption additive btw. Also don't forget that companies buy in bulk and usually get a discount

 

[Comeuppance]

ep1c unleashed has an added absorption additive btw. Also don't forget that companies buy in bulk and usually get a discount

The thing is, I'm looking at the bulk prices. Kilograms cost thousands of dollars at bottom-dollar pricing from China.

The transdermal is the only one I'm interested in at this stage, as the orals are likely to be considerably less effective and perhaps underdosed. I guess it's no surprise that basically every company selling it is either shady and you can't trust their listed amounts, or it's in a proprietary blend...

A couple companies have it mixed with "ribe fiber"
Another has it mixed with maltodextrin
XCEL lists the amount they have in theirs, but, realistically, they also sell a YK-11 blend and if that product contains YK-11 I'll put a pink cowboy hat on my head, a dildo in my mouth, and do the hokey pokey in rush hour traffic.

The only company I've seen offering a epicatechin product with a listed amount that seems properly dosed is Brawn's "Epic Elite" at 300mg, and I can't find much information about them at all and trust them about as far as I trust XCEL's claims.

 

[furion]

The only company I've seen offering a epicatechin product with a listed amount that seems properly dosed is Brawn's "Epic Elite" at 300mg, and I can't find much information about them at all and trust them about as far as I trust XCEL's claims.

Competitive Edge Labs EPI-PLEX-
Completely transparent label:
300mg Epicatechin/cap - 60 caps @ the most reasonable price.

 

[Olympus Labs]

The thing is, I'm looking at the bulk prices. Kilograms cost thousands of dollars at bottom-dollar pricing from China.

The transdermal is the only one I'm interested in at this stage, as the orals are likely to be considerably less effective and perhaps underdosed. I guess it's no surprise that basically every company selling it is either shady and you can't trust their listed amounts, or it's in a proprietary blend...

A couple companies have it mixed with "ribe fiber"
Another has it mixed with maltodextrin
XCEL lists the amount they have in theirs, but, realistically, they also sell a YK-11 blend and if that product contains YK-11 I'll put a pink cowboy hat on my head, a dildo in my mouth, and do the hokey pokey in rush hour traffic.

The only company I've seen offering a epicatechin product with a listed amount that seems properly dosed is Brawn's "Epic Elite" at 300mg, and I can't find much information about them at all and trust them about as far as I trust XCEL's claims.

There will be lots of sales coming up with Labor Day, I am sure. Key issue with epicatechin is bad absorption, EP1C Unleashed alleviates that.

Heres a quote from mr.cooper69:
Right now, the premise of OL's epi really piques my interest. Phytosomes demonstrate remarkable efficacy, even for the least bioavailable compounds out there. And this is not just at the level of absorption, but at the level of distribution as well. This may very well allow for a longer duration of action for the compound, which can put it leagues ahead of plain old epi

 

[Afi140]

Competitive Edge Labs EPI-PLEX-
Completely transparent label:
300mg Epicatechin/cap - 60 caps @ the most reasonable price.

98% purity too iirc. OP I'm sure you can hit them up if you want verification (both CEL and OL.)

That being said I have used both OL and CEL products-both are Legit and both produce great results. Even if OL may have slight less epi per bottle the absorption enhancers more than make up for the lower dose. You can't go wrong with either. By the time you buy in bulk (which you would not need a large amount) and have it tested for purity, capped, Etc, it's not even close to being worth it.

 

[Comeuppance]

Hah, I take everything with soy lecithin or lecithin caps, along with piperine, citrus bioflavonoids, and mct oil. MAX ABSORPTION. My morning pre-workout routine involves gunning raw powders with orange juice (previously grapefruit before I found the bioflavonoid tabs) and liquid sou lecithin - which also contains phosphatidic acid!

I even have caps and tabs of all of those for travel. I'm all about proper absorption of supplements.

I guess I'll wait a while and see what sales come my way. Even at $40 a bottle for 60x300mg, I can't justify the cost without knowing how well it will work for me.

I just need a bottle to fall into my lap from the skies, I guess. I'm pestering PowderCity and NewStar Nootropics in the hopes they'll start carrying affordable raws. I want to try the TD and caps eventually, though, but I'm still wary of the caps given the cost of the raws.

 

[furion]

Hah, I take everything with soy lecithin or lecithin caps, along with piperine, citrus bioflavonoids, and mct oil. MAX ABSORPTION. My morning pre-workout routine involves gunning raw powders with orange juice (previously grapefruit before I found the bioflavonoid tabs) and liquid sou lecithin - which also contains phosphatidic acid!

I even have caps and tabs of all of those for travel. I'm all about proper absorption of supplements.

I guess I'll wait a while and see what sales come my way. Even at $40 a bottle for 60x300mg, I can't justify the cost without knowing how well it will work for me.

I just need a bottle to fall into my lap from the skies, I guess. I'm pestering PowderCity and NewStar Nootropics in the hopes they'll start carrying affordable raws. I want to try the TD and caps eventually, though, but I'm still wary of the caps given the cost of the raws.

I'm not convinced that epicatechin is solely responsible for the observed activity and would go as far to say as 'augmenting' bioavailability by inhibiting/bypassing certain phase II hepatic enzymes (using certain bioflavonoids- as you have described) could be detrimental to getting the most out of your epicatechin product. From my research (see attached) it seems that some major metabolites- particularly the 3' O-methyl metabolite seem likely responsible for a lot of the measurable effects observed. Additionally the capacity of these metabolites to enter the cell (higher partition coefficient and lipophilicity) is significantly higher than the parent compound- which gives more substantiation to my observations and really, should be enough reason to maximise this metabolic pathway.

 

[GNO]

Hah, I take everything with soy lecithin or lecithin caps, along with piperine, citrus bioflavonoids, and mct oil. MAX ABSORPTION. My morning pre-workout routine involves gunning raw powders with orange juice (previously grapefruit before I found the bioflavonoid tabs) and liquid sou lecithin - which also contains phosphatidic acid!

I even have caps and tabs of all of those for travel. I'm all about proper absorption of supplements.

I guess I'll wait a while and see what sales come my way. Even at $40 a bottle for 60x300mg, I can't justify the cost without knowing how well it will work for me.

I just need a bottle to fall into my lap from the skies, I guess. I'm pestering PowderCity and NewStar Nootropics in the hopes they'll start carrying affordable raws. I want to try the TD and caps eventually, though, but I'm still wary of the caps given the cost of the raws.

Taking plain -epi with bioprene or ECGC is not the same as what you get in EP1C Unleashed. We use a process called Phytofuse which uses lipids to complex with -epi on the molecular level.
I highly suggest trying it out, you can start with the TD if you like since you seem less skeptical of it.
If you do let us know how you like it.