[LookingForward2NBE]

It is just pill pressed. Because the product isn't an extract. There isn't much they could have done to it. They may get it from a better farm, but that is about it. They don't add or do any processing to it.

Reminds me of what happens to protein in Australia. They whey is bought in bulk from USA companies (supplied from Australia), they add flavouring, repackage it and sell it back to us for a higher price.

Just because it is more expensive doesn't mean it is better. I see these things called Ah bras on tv saying Super discount price of 15 dollars! But the same product is on alibaba for 70cents each.

It is how importers make profit.

That is not actually true or accurate. Sorry - even regarding the Whey example you quoted.

With respect to herbs. They basically come in:

1. Raw form. Think fresh at grocery store or your local market.

Then you get into manipulated forms of herbs - extracts. The extraction can be as simple as a dehydration (removing the water component of the herb) or solvent based using alcohols and other type of solvents to physically PURIFY the bulk herb so you can get the specific plant component you are looking to take (for PM etc. it's the phytoestrogen components etc.).

The easiest to understand and most common is dehydrated. Most herbs are greater then 90% water. So you can get a 4:1, 10:1 extracts simply by drying the herb

ie. 1g of wet natural fresh cut herb can end up being 100mg of dried herb.

So if the traditional medicine dose is 5g of fresh herb, taking 500mg of dried herb would be equivalent. This would be called a 10:1 extract.

Now that actual amount of "Active" ingredient (ie phytoestrogen) could en up being just 1mg in 1g of raw herb so the effective dose is 5mg.

So in 5000mg (5g) of Raw Herb or 500mg of dried 10:1 extract you get 5mg of active ingredient for a particular medical outcome.

Now using a solvent, you can extract that 1mg out of the 100mg into about 5mg of powder. During the solvent process, the phytoestrogen is removed from the cellulose and other components of the herb so you get more pure phyto. That is a very basic workflow.

So you go from 5g of Raw herb, to 500mg of dried powder to 25mg of EXTRACTED powder to get 5mg of actual phytoestrogen.

So for the same medicianl affect in the Above example:

5g of Raw IS EQUIVALENT to 500mg of dried herb IS EQUIVALENT to 25mg EXTRACT POWDER; all yield 5mg of phytoestrogen

That being said.. now you get into marketing language.

99% pure.. can mean anything.

1st...
It can mean 99% pure dried powered. Normally to make a capsule or tablet, you need flow agents, binders to make the powder stick together to form a tablet, bulking agents to get uniform doses etc. So an actual tablet can be 33%, 50%, 90% non medicinal ingredients need to simply make a tablet. Some example of those include lactose, Microcrystaline cellulose, Polyethlene glycol, SSF etc.

So 99% pure can mean it's a tablet made of 1% tablet or capsule manufcaturing ingredients and 99% dried powdered.

2nd...
Or can mean that it's 99% EXTRACTED powder. In the above example

If there is 1mg of active in 100mg of dried powder.. it's 1% pure.. 99% of the powder is cellulose and other plant products. So if it's a solvent extracted ingredient.. then it's pure pure pure phytoestrogen.

Which mean in the above example:

5g raw is the recommended dose = 5mg of active phytoestrogen.

Then 99% pure extracted phyto.. you should only take 5mg! Since it's ultra pure.

So.. you can have extracts listed as:

1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 10:1, 25:1, 100:1 etc.
or
50%, 80%, 90%, 99%..

CONFUSING.. absolutely..

Depending on extraction procedure.. it can also degrade the quality of phyto.. or you can run into religious aspects due to the alchohols being a common and most used solvent.

So you can non-alcohol, cold extract, Supercritical Fluid Extract (which uses high pressure and a solvent) etc.

Each companies process is different, each companies raw herb to start with is different.. yielding different % of the different phyto's and different purities.

So .. Simply put. It 100% does matter and does make a difference which companies product you buy. Every source could be very very different.

....
As for your whey example. There are 3 predominate versions: Whey Concentrate 34%, Whey Concentrate 80%, Whey Isolate 90%. Then there is microfilter cold (which doesn't denature the protein) or heat (less ideal) processing. As for your example of buying whey. As the purity goes up, as does the cost cause of the waste produced when removing lactose, ash, albumins etc.

A "manufacturer" buy bulk whey.. then add's flavoring, gelling agents to make it thicker for shakes etc, additional amino's, vitamins, minerals and a bunch of other stuff as per their marketing angle, packages and sells. Its NOT just simply buying 40ft tractor trailer of whey protein in 25kg bags and putting it in a bottle and selling. 99.9% of market tries to improve it and make it developed product. And yes.. that manufacturer will mark it up for a profit.

[LookingForward2NBE]

Then trying to compare a product that recommends 2x500mg (BID or twice daily) to a product that recommends 1x325mg (once daily) is confusing as well.

Just because both products may deliver "EQUIVALENT" amounts of phytoestrogen (major major assumption) it doesn't mean you get the same biological effect.

The systemic absorption and elimination half life of each product will be hugely different so Product X of 2x500mg may be more effective then Product Y of 1x325mg even though Product Y is way more pure. However, the opposite can also be said that Product Y may be more effective as it's provides a bigger initial surge of phytoestrogens which could trigger a different physiological effect.

The reason I bring this to light is not confuse anyone but mainly to show how complicated it is when trying to comparing 2 different products...

What is perceived as a cheap inferior product doesn't mean it is.

What is perceived as ultra pure .. may not be depending if the marketing of the product is done very well.. 99% pure means nothing.

What is perceived as equivalent is probably NOT unless it is very specific in what is being claimed. In terms of phytoestrogen.. they had better be listing exactly which one and how much of it is in the product in mg quanties.

For a user, you may not react to one product and react very well to another of the same herb. That is very probable and likely.

It depends on the farm where the herb was grown, how long it was grown, what part example of the herb is used, how it was handled from harvest to extract, to how it was manufacturer and then packaged.

PM from Company A may be the same but honestly.. it is highly unlikely. There are too many farms, processers and manufacturers out there. So trying to prove equivalency is nearly impossible between them.

Its a matter of finding what works for you.

[mochaccino]

THANK YOU Lookingforward! If it isn't too much trouble, I hope you can boil those two posts down into one "guide" and put it in the "general information" section. Everyone who's considering PM should read this. It's too bad that the PM sellers don't make it easier to put this info to good use. Without more detailed information it's impossible to directly compare all the brands. If only someone would start selling a useable standardized extract. There are only 2 standardized PM extracts that I'm aware of, but they're probably useless for BE due to obscenely large megadoses of B vitamins.

Just for the sake of everyone's sanity, I'll add that St.Herb caps, Ainterol caps, and Ro-bust cream all have good reputations for working when other brands have failed. Isabelle pointed out that with Ainterol some people might have to take more than the recommended dose. Usually 1500mg. I don't know how she came to that conclusion, but she's generally very methodical. At one point, she made a list of all the people that were currently using PM at the time of the post. It wasn't perfect, but it's far more than anyone else has bothered to do. She has plenty more info on PM in her program thread. It's high time the "general information" section was updated with some useful info to refer to.

[LookingForward2NBE]

2 more points to consider as well.

Quality Control
Even though company x has a purer product then y, if there Quality Control standards are poor, then reliability of the product will suffer. For example, PM is considered a commodity. So if they don't control where they buy, the marketer could end buying from framer A one day and farmer B the next week and farmer C the third week. A good company, would negotiate withe farmer and buy direct, but that is very rare.

Perceived Value
In the whey example above, customers may see a US manufactured product as being worth more due to higher standards not as an absolute but as a rule. It wasn't long ago that Chinese made was seen as inferior to Japanese made but that gap in perception and reality has closed tremendously the last 20 years. For the whey example, that perception is due to a US manufacturer who expanded into the EU and in doing so, sub contract manufacturing to a European house. The EU partner did a horrible job and all the customers were demanding US made product. Its been 10 years since that event but it still lingers. As for Australia, there are few manufacturers and even less marketers doing as good a job as most US competitors its a demand issue that drives the imports. You see that in herbal products as well. There is real cause for concern for china direct suppliers so its not smoke and mirrors..

So Absolutely it matters and absolutely you'll get variations in result depending on who you buy it from.

[LookingForward2NBE]

With respect to eBay and other Bulk sources. Also eluding the whey Australia comment, it costs a lot of money to be compliant to federal regulations, running a business, testing the product, hiring staff to market it, paying listing fees, paying leases on facilities and equipment so it will cost a lot more to buy a manufactured product vs. bulk. What you are really paying is ensuring a certain level of quality is there in the product.

It is very very easy for a Chinese supplier to put talc powder in a bag and call it a plant extract. A home customer has no way of validating what powder they are buying. For PM, a eBay person could sell just root powder and call it a 90% extract and you have Zero way of knowing. To make matters worse, the eBay seller could actually honestly think he's selling you expensive 90% extract caus ehe think he bought it and its just dehydrated root powder that at best 1%. If you don't believe it, then good for you for not having been exposed to the ingredient suppliers of china and india.

[jiberish]

As I stated, it isn't an extract.

I asked my friend who lives in Japan to get me the product information. It is just a smaller dosage, like those in thanyaporn pills. This is because the average weight in Japan is less than that internationally. So to get the appropriate mg per KG dosage they have a reduced amount. It is just dried form pill pressed.

I know the difference between an extract and raw powder.

And both the protein and bra examples are true. They buy the protein powders in their filtered state. Such as this
"http://www.globalvitamins.com.au/fonterra-whey-protein-isolate-p-816.html"

And in most cases, it actually just is adding a few filler ingredients for taste etc. Because I have asked people in the industry and this that is what they stated. Also if you look at the amino profiles of the products they are exactly the same typically. The big difference is when they add a lot of dextrose mono hydrate and call it a mass gainer.

Additionally you aren't correct about Australia in regards to supplements. Beginners tend to buy the american products due to brand awareness. But when they find the cheaper Australia products that are exactly the same they tend to switch over. Or in my case just buying the RAW form directly. In terms of other dietary supplements. The vast majority are made in Australia.

[emlo]

I am new to this site and I'm starting my NBE journey and I would like to know, can anyone break down step by step Chiyomilk's routine please? As far as what to take each day and how much of each and results if any. I would greatly appreciate it. I know PM, whitex or (pig placenta and HA seperately), super b-up, nano collagen, and HGH were all listed but I dont know what to take, when or how much. some one please help

[jiberish]

She did not take HGH, HGH is an illegal anabolic substance.

If you want your body to release more hgh get better sleep.

[Jessicajung]

Im interested in this method...can someone tell me what pm is

[AbiDrew85]

Pueraria Mirifica.

http://www.pueraria-thai.com/what-is-pue...rifica.htm