31 replies to this topic

[lily liu-kingtiger]

late greetings: Merry Xmas! Hope that everyone here can make great achievement next year!

[Anthony_Loera]

Jeff Prowel and Jeff Ranney... Seem to be members of a garage band. You can check out the listing on http://4thefam.us/family/links.php under "groove party". Terraternal seems to either be:

1.) An online cookie-cuttered supplement RESELLER business run by the above mentioned garage band members.
or
2.) An online cookie-cuttered supplement RESELLER business set up by someone else illegally using the above people's names.

Reselling isn't a bad thing. But at least be up-front and honest about it.

God only knows what the Terraternal "brand" of supplements actually are or even contain. With all the false advertising, misleading website and company info., and obvious attempts to keep customers from knowing anything about the company itself (much less what they're actually sending to customers) I wouldn't be surprised if they've got either very low grade astragaloside and resveratrol and simply lying to people about the quality or are sending out some other substances all together... Someone should report these guys. Again, doesn anyone have a bottle of their product with a manufacturer listed on it? What exactly is it they're selling people???

Well, this has reared it's ugly head again this morning... (I got an email from our folks at Chromadex, so I need to clear things up again)

This is the story so far, about Chromadex and Terraternal
(please correct me if I am missing anything...)

Last year, we saw a new startup called terraternal start selling Astragaloside IV as a dietary supplement. We also saw they they sported a Chromadex COA on the website. So we asked Chromadex about Astragaloside IV extract, testing etc. Specially because we simply wanted to know if Chromadex provided a better price on this than we were getting. From the Terraternal website, we estimated a decent price. (simple enough)

A little background:
Chromadex usually requires an NDA signed regarding new items developments, tests etc. We refused to sign one, while Terraternal apparently did sign an NDA. Now, while talking to Jeremy Bartos, Phd Technical sales at Chromadex (949.419.0288), he told me that the COA on Terraternal's website was:

1- Not allowed, that the COA should be taken down immediately.
2- That Terraternal had only purchased Astragaloside IV from Chromadex in a very small amount (I believe he said 90 grams at the time). Since I did not twist his arm about it, he certainly appears to have not cared about the NDA they had with Terraternal. The fact is that it was impossible for me to know the exact amount of grams purchased from Chromadex without Jeremy Bartos, the representative of Chromadex, tell me the information outright.

Later on the phone, both Jeremy and Frank (the owner of Chromadex), also confirmed item 1 above.

What is my guess?
It then became apparent in my head, that the issue was that Terraternal was advertising Astragaloside IV from Chromadex, even though they did not purchase more than 90 grams or so (according to Jeremy Bartos) from Chromadex. It would simply take much more than that to make the amount of bottles being portrayed on the terraternal website. Chromadex only sold terraternal 90 grams of Astragaloside IV, calculating the price per gram, terraternal appears to be losing an estimated $1200 or more with their pricing on their products at that time. So what were they selling customers?

Unless I am corrected (can someone shed some light on this?), I can only assume a few things from this whole ordeal:

1- The information collected so far along with Jeremy Bartos information at Chromadex, leads me to believe that the Chromadex COA was being used to bolster the image of high purity and quality, when in fact the Astragaloside IV being used in the products did not come from Chromadex at the time.

2- Again, Chromadex typically disallows their material from being used in humans, even if you did buy it from Chromadex. So we believe Chromadex material cannot be used as a dietary supplement in any product at this time. We know this because If you ask them, the Chromadex folks will say that their material is not made for human consumption. We actually hit this wall ourselves when we asked Capsugel to consider some of the Chromadex material for a new product of ours, and when the formulators called Chromadex, Chromadex said that their material is not to be used for human consumption... period, end of story.


What does this mean?
So this last piece of information leads me to believe that even if Terraternal did buy large amounts of material at a later date from Chromadex, we know that it may likely not had been safe for human consumption according to our past requests through Capsugel. We can't confirm it, because the Chromadex COA that was on the terraternal website was not complete, but I suppose we will take Chromadex's word on it.


Unbelievable, but funny
The funny part, is that if Terraternal was buying Astragaloside IV from another supplier, and had the COA from anyone else other than Chromadex... this whole thing would have been a non-issue, and the establishment of trust for the consumer would have been nailed from the get-go, instead of having these posts show up. But since the COA issues started to creep up, it certainly makes Terraternal look like they were hiding facts, and possibly misinforming the consumer. Not a good thing when you are trying to build a new start-up. I am sure this issue will continue to haunt folks for a bit, as at the very least Terraternal has the right to sue Chromadex for violating the NDA they both signed. Heck, from a business standpoint, that is what I would do as Chromadex apparently allowed the information to leak.

I personally cannot do business with Chromadex anymore, as this experience in the last year has showed me what I believe to be their dark side. Read on to know a bit more about it...

The nutraceutical business is convoluted, but regardless of what you want to purchase... be aware that some companies may provide you with material that may not be suitable for human consumption (sometimes without them even knowing!) As the Chromadex lesson has taught us, some folks are ready to sell you anything. In our situation capsugel verified that the material was not for human consumption... Chromadex was then taken out of our list of suppliers because of this issue and we had to look for another supplier.

After this exercise in futility with Chromadex and Capsugel, I certainly believe It is possible that Terraternal did not know that the material they were getting from Chromadex may not have been suitable for human consumption. I don't believe Terraternal was at fault, but it raises questions about Chromadex and any company that purchases their dietary supplement material from Chromadex.

How can I make sure I buy a good product?
When purchasing a new product, at the very least, make sure your material has a United States COA (lab analysis that shows the labs address and phone number), It needs to show that it has been tested for all heavy metals and microbial tests. It doesn't take a lot to simply ask for the COA for the product you are considering. At the present time Terraternal has a new COA showing tests in their present batch, and it looks good even though I personally think they really need to add chitosan and astragalus into their formulation to bolster absorption, but otherwise it looks like the material is clean.

FYI:
RevGenetics is not using Astragaloside IV anymore in the products. The fact is that because of the UCLA tests regarding telomerase, we have switched to an astragalus extract with a measurable amount of Cycloastragenol (which has been determined to be Geron's telomerase activator called TAT2). We ask all folks to consider this new material which has independent UCLA study backing it up, rather than Astragaloside IV, which does not have any studies to back it up as a powerful telomerase activator. Even Terraternal acknowledges this point.

A

Edited by Anthony_Loera, 16 February 2010 - 06:32 PM.