Should You Buy Into The Adaptogen Obsession?

Adaptogens are the latest craze taking over the nutrition world. This apparent cure-all for stress, poor immunity, sexual dysfunction and general malaise is "all natural" and perfect for those on an anti-pharma mandate. But the proof that adaptogens work is...nonexistant. So should you buy into the obsession? Tune in to find out.

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Credit to MonoSheep for the theme music.

Transcript

Welcome to Nutrition Bites. The no nonsense podcast where you get the truth about food so you can eat what you want, and be healthy. I’m your host Maggie and welcome to Episode 19 of this series! Today’s topic is yet again inspired by the celebrity and wellness marketing culture of the internet. It’s another, ‘too good to be true’ episode.  On the menu today, adaptogens.

Before the digital era alternative health therapies, like tinctures and herbal remedies were relegated to strip-mall health food stores that always smelled kinda dusty. But now, thanks to influencers and fancy marketing campaigns, taking part in these more “traditional” medicines is branded as cool and “better-for-you”. A space for those who are able to afford to tap back into natural healing and break away from the shackles of big-pharma. It seems we’re at a point now where the ingredients list and outrageous health claims on a powdered supplement can be overlooked if it tastes kinda bitter, turns your water purple, and has vegetables on the package. All it takes is for something to claim to “restore your balance” and people are willing to fork over mad cash to support it. One of the more popular alternative supplements out there are adaptogens - a group of edible plant extracts that claim to help our bodies manage and adapt to stress. Although adaptogenic plants have been used for thousands of years in non-Western medicine practices, how it’s being packaged and sold to us today is brand new. 

Take Moon Juice for example. A company that just screams “made in Los Angeles”. Moon Juice is all about “intelligent self-care” and they provide adaptogenic supplements to elevate consciousness and wellbeing. A pretty big promise. The website is clean and sunny, giving very much Solar Power by Lorde vibes, and absolutely geared to millennials eager to reduce our stress. One of their best selling supplements is a package of stress management pills called “Super You” - which retail for $40 US. These pills contain a blend of four adaptogens and claim to, I quote “improve energy, mood and focus, and help regulate cortisol to reduce the effects of stress. Commit daily for life-changing results”. Now those are some powerful statements and the best part is that they are all followed by the same FDA warning. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the webpage where you can buy these pills, past the 5-star reviews and “contact us” section, you’ll see the following message connected with that impressive description: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” Kinda puts a damper on the whole life-changing results feeling right? Because of the popularity of Moon Juice it’s one of the rare supplement companies that even have this warning. Due to the lax rules of this industry many products just carry on with dazzling claims like improved strength, increased immunity, and even cured erectile dysfunction, without the caveat that none of these statements have been verified. So let’s take this time to get up to speed and figure out the truth behind adaptogens.

Like I said earlier, adaptogens are a category of plant substances that allegedly help us adapt to external stressors. This group is supposed to bring our bodies back in balance, thereby improving a whole host of mental and physical ailments. Technically adaptogens can also be synthetic, but for the purposes of this episode I’m focusing on the natural ones. Adaptogens can be taken as teas, tinctures, or pills, and are recommended to be consumed daily. Many adaptogen prescribers proclaim that these aren’t a one-time fix. Popping an adaptogenic pill is not going to decrease your stress when the very well-crafted and important e-mail to your CEO is responded back with “ok” thus beginning your internal freakout to prepare for immediate unemployment. Adaptogens are meant to be consumed regularly over the period of months, or even year. They are seen more as an addition to an otherwise healthy diet - filling the so-called gap between our stressful lives and Western medicine. 

Popular adaptogens you may have heard of include ashwagandha, rhodiola (also called “golden root”), ginseng, holy basil, turmeric, and mushrooms, or cordyceps, like reishi and chaga. Some of these plants are staples in traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda - a holistic healing practice originating in India. Each adaptogen is associated with different purposes, for example, ginseng to reduce fatigue and holy basil to alleviate anxiety. And collectively, this group of herbs is the supposed cure-all for anxiety, depression, insomnia, hormonal issues, sex drive, skin conditions, gut health, and immunity. That’s a lot of pressure for a group of plants.

More recently, adaptogens have also been making their way into the fitness world - with claims that they can help improve performance. According to National Geographic, long before Russians were doping their athletes with steroids, the former Soviet Union spent years researching energy-enhancing plants to help their Olympians, soldiers, and astronauts. In fact, the term “adaptogens” was coined by a Soviet scientist who was tasked with understanding how the body responds to stress. One of the most tested adaptogens by the Soviets was Rhodiola with results apparently showing that supplementation helped soldiers stay alert during sleep-deprivation and increased the endurance of Olympians. Not much more is known about this research however because it was top-secret. And not just sealed in an envelope top-secret, I’m talking locked in the Ministry of Defense research archives in Siberia, kind of top-secret. Allegedly of course. Today, adaptogens can be found in fitness supplements alongside the usual generic claims to “boost performance”. Whatever that means. I can see how the long-history of adaptogen use and bountiful claims associated with these plants can definitely pique people’s interest. I mean getting rid of stress and improving athletic performance are two huge areas where people are eager for solutions. But what does the science have to say?

If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while you may have a hunch about what I’m going to reveal here. To keep it short, the science of adaptogens is heavy on hope and light on proof. There is a ton of anecdotal evidence from thousands of years of use, but when it comes to testing out claims of “boosted performance” and “stress reduction” in a lab - the science comes up short. Very few clinically-sound studies on adaptogens have been published - and the results are often mixed. Also, many of the studies conducted are structured in a way where the results are untrustworthy. In one review of the effects of Rhodiola and fatigue, only 11 articles met the criteria for evaluation out of a pool of 206, and all 11 had a high risk of investigator bias. Another review on the same adaptogen evaluated 10 clinical trials, but none of them passed the international criteria for proper clinical trial reporting.

But if you browse any website that sells adaptogens you may find the opposite - often they link out to individual studies which allegedly prove the life-changing results they claim. However, 30 seconds spent browsing these scientific articles and it’s clear that these studies are conducted in a way that makes it impossible, and frankly negligent, to extrapolate results to a wide population. Take ginseng for example. Many of the clinical studies I found  investigated this adaptogen on less than a hundred people, which is a miniscule sample size, and often the subjects were healthy, mid-twenties men. Also the clinical trials would usually last less than 3 months, which is far less than the recommended time people advise you take adaptogens for. As a rule of thumb, the scientific community refrains from making claims on foods, supplements, and medicines, until they have tested it on tens of thousands of people, of all ages, sexes, and health levels, and over a period of years. Which means that the scientific results from the adaptogenic studies out there should be viewed with the same level of caution that Chuckie Finster shows whenever the Rugrats get up to new shenanigans.

Now I realize that modern, specifically Western, medicine can be seen as a predominately white gate-keeper to officiating what works and doesn’t work in the field of healthcare. So it’s important to acknowledge the historic use of these plants and not discredit them entirely. For thousands of years ginseng has been used as a fatigue treatment throughout Asia; in ayurvedic practice ashwagandha has long been prescribed to relieve stress, and in the mountainous Arctic regions of Siberia, rhodiola tea has been consumed to boost energy. The clinical study of these herbs is relatively new, and while research in humans don’t show any consistent results, there are some cell studies that support the theory that adaptogens can help with our biological stress response. Remember though that a positive result in a petri dish of cells does not equal the same result in the body. But, the point is, groundwork is being laid for future investigation.

Also remember that clinical studies take time, and a LOT of money, and considering adaptogens come from plants, and it can be really difficult to patent a plant that’s been used forever, it’s unlikely a company is going to fork over the millions of dollars required to conduct clinical research. Without that funding, it’s going to be hard to find scientists to study this. So we may never have the pile of robust evidence necessary to confidently determine if adaptogens work. Not only that, but a lot of the claims of adaptogens are also just generally hard to study. Clinical research really favours objective measurements - things like blood pressure, weight, or a molecule in your blood. But conditions like stress are often evaluated by subjective measurements - like filling out a questionnaire about how stressed you feel. And of course, miniscule events like a traffic jam en route to the testing lab or not enough peanut butter left for your toast can drastically impact how you perceive your “average” stress levels to be. This alone can make it really difficult to evaluate effective treatments for stress.

On the flip side, there’s also a strange benefit to subjective measures - and that is the placebo effect. This phenomena explains how a person can respond to an intervention even if it doesn’t actually do anything. For example, If you’re really stressed out and are convinced that a daily herbal supplement can help you, just the idea that you found something to help may actually lower your stress levels - even if the supplement does nothing. It’s the power of our brain at it’s finest. Now combine this placebo effect with the fact that many of the adaptogens don’t have serious side effects, and maybe Moon Juice can actually improve your energy, mood and focus. If you believe it enough of course.

While most adaptogenic supplements seem to be safe to consume, it doesn’t mean you should be throwing back chaga tea like it’s champagne on New Years Eve. Because we really don’t understand how these plants work, it means they can pose a risk to people with medical conditions, and potentially interfere with other prescriptions. For example, ashwagandha can be dangerous for people with thyroid disorders, and ginseng may interfere with blood pressure medications. And any adaptogen is an absolute no-go for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or immunocompromised. 

The other main risk from adaptogenic supplementation is less about the plants themselves and more related to how we are consuming them today. There are plenty of companies similar to Moon Juice that sell pills, tinctures and teas, blended from a variety of plants. And because the supplement industry is highly unregulated, they don’t have to prove that their products work or are even safe before they can be sold. That means the dose on the bottle may not be what’s in the pill, or there could be unlisted mystery ingredients included. Poor manufacturing practices can also cause heavy metals to accidentally wind up in your herbal blend. So even if the packaging is pretty and the marketing is slick, treat every supplement like it could be sourced from your shady neighbour’s basement. Because...it very well could be.

Being cautious is the main recommendation I have when it comes to adaptogens. If you want to add turmeric to your latte, or drop $100 a month for Gwenyth Paltrow’s ashwagandha pills, go for it. But also remember that there are other natural, and completely free, methods to help alleviate a stressful life and boost your health - like spending time in nature, meditating, and getting enough sleep. And these methods are also clinically proven to work. But I also understand the appeal of a herbal pill that can be easily added to your breakfast routine. And at least for most people, including adaptogens in your life don’t seem to cause any harm, so long as you carefully criticize what you’re taking. Ask questions of the products you’re taking like where are the herbs sourced from? Is the factory GMP certified? Do they use third-party testing to ensure accuracy and safety? And if you live with a chronic health condition, or take any kind of medication, please speak to your doctor first to rule out any negative interactions. At the end of the day, adaptogens may be a seemingly harmless add-on to your lifestyle if you really feel the need to try something new. Just don’t expect a miracle. 

That’s been the bite for today. Stay hungry.