AG1 is a lot less science-y than it sounds

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I’m prepared to guess you’ve been served an advert for Athletic Greens — often known as AG1. It’s unattainable to flee them in podcasts, and it looks like nearly each wellness influencer on each social media platform has accomplished an advert for them in some unspecified time in the future.

AG1 is a greens powder containing over 70 elements. Most of it’s freeze-dried vegetable powder blends. Principally, as an alternative of taking a multivitamin or consuming an precise vegetable, greens powders like AG1 declare to be a extra handy approach to be sure to’re getting all of your important vitamins. The proposed advantages are higher vitality ranges, intestine well being, digestion, focus, and immunity. You recognize, issues that pesky dieticians say will come from consuming a balanced weight loss program.

I take AG1 very first thing within the morning earlier than work. I really feel a lot more healthy and higher in my physique, say yoga-set-wearing influencers, holding up a glass of murky inexperienced liquid. In recent ads, actor Hugh Jackman faucet dances, annoying his downstairs neighbors, as a result of the “high quality nutritional vitamins, probiotics, and superfoods” in AG1 give him boundless vitality. He should drink it each morning if he’s to do eight reveals on Broadway per week, Jackman says with a toothy, affable smile.

Wolverine isn’t the one one getting a lift. AG1 introduced in a football-themed ad that it’s “endorsing” three scholar well being researchers.

“At AG1, we consider that while you’re clinically backed, you need to again analysis that strikes science ahead,” a baritone-voiced announcer intones, over footage of younger teachers posing on the 50-yard line.

Not one of the different sensible, science-sounding phrases hit fairly as onerous as “clinically backed.” Within the wellness wild west, you’ll see that descriptor plastered throughout a sea of selling supplies and falling awkwardly from the mouths of superstar spokespersons. The implication is straightforward: Not like the snake oil salesmen, we care about science. We do the analysis. We are reliable.

However what does “clinically backed” truly imply?

Scrolling by way of AG1 movies on TikTok, I see some skeptical dieticians and health professionals. Taking AG1, they are saying, will simply end in costly pee. Even so, the overall consensus is that whereas AG1 is perhaps expensive and multivitamins aren’t mandatory for many wholesome folks, they do conduct loads of analysis.

What sort of analysis? To search out out, I hopped on over to AG1’s Research Studies webpage. I’m greeted by large textual content that reads, “The following era of AG1 is clinically backed.” Within the accompanying blurb, there are phrases like “analysis” and “scientific discovery.” Any claims, it reads, are “substantiated by a number of our bodies of analysis on elements and the completed system.” I’m instructed that the influence of AG1 Subsequent Gen is measurable. Subsequent to this lofty blurb, a hand holds out a petri dish-like disc with a small mound of inexperienced powder within the center.

All through this web page you see wellness buzzwords like “biomarkers,” “bioavailability,” “microbiome.” Occasionally, “clinically” is sprinkled in for good measure. There are little explainer blocks with much more science-sounding phrases like “randomized, placebo-controlled trials” and “gold normal.” Charts and graphs accompany every part. I’m proven skilled headshots of the analysis workforce, lots of whom have “Dr.” in entrance of their names and an impressive-seeming jumble of letters after, denoting their numerous bona fides. There are extra headshots of science and innovation advisers.

After scrolling for what seems like an eternity, I arrive at a piece titled “peer-reviewed analysis” that lists every printed examine, a short descriptor, and a hyperlink.

If I had been the typical client, I might not get this far down the web page. If I did, this may look fairly legit. As a well being tech reviewer, there are a number of purple flags earlier than I even click on on a single examine hyperlink.

A traditional wellness advertising and marketing technique is to stay a viral advertising and marketing label subsequent to precise scientific phrases or ideas with analysis behind them. On this case, a advertising and marketing label like “superfood” can stay comfortably subsequent to phrases like “probiotics” and “microbiome.” The previous simply means “nutrient-dense meals.” The latter two confer with a kind of dwelling micro organism and the ecosystem of microbes that stay in your intestines. Add the phrase “scientific” and modern packaging, and it’s straightforward to persuade everybody your product isn’t only a complement. It’s scientifically confirmed, and due to this fact, reliable.

However what’s the level of scientific research for a complement? Scientific trials are a should for medicine and medical remedies, however aren’t required of dietary supplements, as they’re not overseen by the Meals and Drug Administration. Scroll down far sufficient on AG1’s website, and also you’ll discover this disclaimer:

These statements haven’t been evaluated by the Meals and Drug Administration. This product shouldn’t be meant to diagnose, deal with, remedy or forestall any illness. Data on this website is supplied for informational functions solely.

“The time period ‘clinically examined’ is context-dependent and should characterize a variety of proof high quality. Within the nutritional vitamins and dietary dietary supplements market, it’s regularly used as a advertising and marketing time period relatively than a standardized scientific designation,” says Dr. Julia Adamian, an inner medication specialist at NYU Langone Well being.

“In some circumstances, ‘clinically examined’ might even be primarily based on buyer evaluations or restricted observational information. As we all know, this isn’t probably the most dependable type of proof, particularly when incentives are provided for constructive suggestions.”

To judge a scientific examine’s trustworthiness, Adamian pointed me to a couple standards:

That’s a wonderful begin. In science reporting, we even have a couple of different standards, like analyzing pattern dimension and reviewing methodology. Positive, AG1’s website offers summaries, however when you actually wish to vet a wellness firm’s trustworthiness, it’s a good suggestion to overview the outcomes your self.

Of the peer-reviewed journals listed on its website, AG1 lists Vitamins, Microorganisms, Present Points in Microbiology, Journal of Purposeful Meals, Journal of the Worldwide Society of Sports activities Vitamin, and Frontiers. These are, in actual fact, peer-reviewed journals and never white papers. (Wellness corporations generally attempt to go off inner analysis, or white papers, as peer-reviewed, which suggests different scientists overview the work itself.) That stated, not all peer-reviewed journals are considered equally. Frontiers, for instance, has many offshoots and a combined repute amongst teachers after it needed to retract 122 articles in 2025 for unethical actions like improperly disclosing conflicts of curiosity.

On that matter: Of the non-paywalled research — the typical client seemingly wouldn’t subscribe to a science journal — all had been funded by AG1, and a number of other authors had been additionally AG1 workers. That’s widespread in wellness, nevertheless it means these aren’t really unbiased research.

As for outcomes, the printed research had pretty clear abstracts and had been fairly sincere of their findings. I say they had been sincere as a result of in a number of situations, the outcomes confirmed there was little to no influence of taking AG1.

In one study designed to measure the influence on the intestine microbiome, researchers discovered taking AG1 elevated the quantity of two probiotic strains… as a result of they had been elements in AG1. This, they concluded, meant the probiotics reached the intestines. This examine additionally discovered no destructive change to bowel actions. Which means, when you had been hoping this may assist you poop higher, this examine is wholly inconclusive. That’s partly as a result of this examine had a small pattern dimension of 30 wholesome adults. Anybody affected by digestive points was additionally excluded from the examine, prone to cut back variables. Meaning when you do undergo from gastrointestinal issues, these outcomes additionally might not apply to you.

In abstract, AG1’s printed research boiled right down to this: It seemingly received’t damage you to take AG1. It simply seemingly received’t change your life both.

However there’s a catch. The printed research are for the unique formulation of AG1. The flamboyant graphs and charts on the high of the web page? They confer with information from new, unpublished research for AG1 Subsequent Gen — a reformulated model of AG1 that you could at present purchase on the positioning.

The one reviewable data for the brand new “clinically backed” AG1 Subsequent Gen are transient summaries that had been offered at conferences final 12 months and footnotes on the very backside of the web site. Not each abstract disclosed funding, however the ones that did confirmed AG1 paid for these research. In a collapsible menu that’s straightforward to scroll previous, AG1 says it might take years to totally publish the whole lot in a peer-reviewed journal.

Once I dove down the AG1 rabbit gap, the purpose was to look at how truthful its product advertising and marketing was. Wellness branding usually slips into science-washing — and that may be extremely onerous for the typical individual to identify within the age of influencer advertising and marketing. AG1 has a well-crafted, slick advertising and marketing web page. Its adverts inform a coherent story that’s based upon many years of wellness and complement developments. And, contemplating that doing any analysis for a complement isn’t required, AG1 is spending some huge cash to doc that its product does what you’d suppose a freeze-dried spinach powder does.

However calling it “clinically backed” isn’t the endorsement most individuals suppose it’s. If I had been to grade AG1’s trustworthiness, I’d merely say: This product is sus.