Dear Friends,
In my last letter, I reviewed the best supplement I’ve ever used for daytime focus, alertness, and sustained mental energy (without caffeine), all of which supports better cognitive performance for a much more productive day.
It’s our new TrueMind formula, which you can start to feel working within an hour of taking it - with the effects lasting for about 5 hours, and perhaps longer in certain cases.
It’s great for working adults in today’s hectic world, as well as middled-aged folks or seniors feeling the effects of normal age-related cognitive challenges. And then you have some who fall into both buckets – like me.
As promised, in this letter I’m going to share more details about one of the key ingredients in TrueMind that plays a big role in delivering these benefits.
This ingredient is a relative newcomer to the supplement world. The brand name is enXtra, and it’s an extract of a plant often called Thai Ginger.
The Latin name of this plant is Alpinia galanga, and it’s in the same plant family as ginger and turmeric and like those plants, it’s used in cooking in Asia and India.
The health properties of Thai ginger are different from turmeric or the more traditional ginger.
The compounds in the enXtra Thai ginger extract have been shown to have same-day benefits in supporting increased alertness, focus, attention, and promoting natural mental energy.
Scientifically Studied 300mg Serving
So far there’s been 4 published placebo-controlled studies evaluating the benefits and safety of supplementing with 300mg of enXtra – which is what we use in a serving of TrueMind.
An interesting tidbit is one of these studies used caffeine as the placebo (that’s called a positive control group in the research world), so we have some head-to-head results of enXtra versus caffeine, which I think you’ll find intriguing.
For example, a study published in The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, compared the same-day effects of taking 200mg of caffeine versus 300mg of enXtra on mental alertness.
200mg of caffeine is a good amount of caffeine to consume at one time, it’s like drinking 2 cups of coffee or a pretty strong energy drink.
On average, after 1 hour those ingesting the 200mg of caffeine increased their mental alertness scores by about 19% from the start - not too surprising, most of us have experienced that short term boost from caffeine.
When taking enXtra, the participants fared even better – improving mental alertness by 26% after 1 hour, on average.
That’s an impressive result for the Thai Ginger extract – but what happened after 3 and 5 hours was even more interesting.
After 3 hours, the effects of caffeine on mental alertness had greatly subsided, and after 5 hours there was just a 6% improvement in mental alertness from the baseline start. These percentages were group averages of the participants, who I should mention were healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 40.
So with caffeine, there was the expected 19% boost in mental alertness after 1 hour, but this quickly subsided by the 3 hours period.
And that’s the challenge with caffeine – the effects on energy and performance are short lived.
You feel good for an hour or 2, your mood temporarily improves, but before you know it, you need more caffeine to keep it going. That’s the caffeine crash that’s often discussed.
This is where I think enXtra changes the game.
After 1 hour the improvement in mental alertness with enXtra was 26%, and instead of declining, after 3 hours there was further improvement - a 28% increase from the start.
This 28% improvement was sustained at the 5 hour mark, which was about 4.5x the rate of improvement seen with caffeine at the same point in time.
What Happens After 5 Hours?
I wish the researchers had extended the study beyond 5 hours to see where the drop-off in mental alertness typically happens, but the study wasn’t designed that way beforehand.
Anecdotally, the makers of enXtra have said many users still feel it’s helping them after 7 hours, which frankly has been my personal experience with TrueMind and enXtra.
No doubt everyone’s experience is going to be a little different, but as I shared last week, I usually take it between 10 and 11am in the morning (have morning tea with caffeine around 7am), and I feel it carries me through the rest of the workday, as typically I leave the office around 7pm.
And here’s what I also like – it’s not like I go home and collapse from exhaustion – we make a quick dinner, clean up, and still have some time to wind down before bedtime.
This reminds me of another good point about enXtra - other research has shown the energy support comes without any negative impact on heart rate, blood pressure or sleep.
This was found to be true even at double the suggested 300mg daily dose of enXtra. As you may know, this isn’t necessarily the case with caffeine.
Do the Benefits Continue Over Time?
You may be wondering, “if I take enXtra every day, will I continue to experience the alertness and mental energy boosts?”
To help answer this question, two follow-up studies were conducted.
One was a 4-week study, where adults between the ages of 18 and 55 took enXtra daily for 28 days.
The second study was 12 weeks long – with the participants being adults between the ages of 18 and 60 years old.
In both studies, the improvements in alertness recorded for those taking enXtra on the last day of the study were similar to the improvements experienced on the first day – no drop off was noted.
Personally, I’ve had a similar experience with enXtra. I’ve been using it for about a year now, and I feel it’s still helping me.
Will that change? Perhaps - but for now I’m thrilled with the results from enXtra and the other ingredients in TrueMind.
Plus, the benefits of enXtra go beyond alertness and sustaining mental energy.
Help Staying Calm and Focused
In the 12-week study, enXtra significantly improved calmness scores, as measured on the 1st day and last day of the study.
In my last letter, I discussed this notion of calming energy from taking enXtra and TrueMind, you can feel alert and energized, while remaining calm and focused and sustaining attention on what you’re doing.
What’s more, in the 28-day study, it was found that taking enXtra resulted in more correct responses to questions in testing.
This improvement in accuracy is associated with feeling more alert and exhibiting better brain processing speed, all of which helps us be more productive during the day.
Incidentally, the improvement in accuracy started in just 30 minutes and continued at the 1-hour, 2-hour and 5-hour points. Getting more done with less mistakes makes for a nice day.
Those are some of the key findings from research with enXtra. Let’s now quickly review how researchers believe it works.
How enXtra Works
The main way enXtra seems to help promote mental energy, attention and alertness is by supporting dopamine activity in the brain.
Dopamine is one of the body’s “feel-good” hormones, and helps us stay alert, motivated and productive. enXtra doesn’t seem to help your body produce or release more dopamine, it helps your body get the most from the dopamine already in brain synapses.
For example, there’s an enzyme abbreviated as COMT that degrades dopamine, the enXtra Thai ginger extract helps inhibit some of the activity of this enzyme, so you can get more from the dopamine in brain synapses.
Last point, if you really like your post-lunch coffee or caffeine hit, you can still use enXtra – and get many benefits. However, based on the study data and personal experience, you may not need the afternoon caffeine (which can help your sleep at night).
Do I consider enXtra a caffeine alternative? I don’t think of it that way. I think caffeine gives you a “buzz” that helps jumpstart your day, but once that wears off, I think enXtra provides the daytime support many of us want.
As mentioned, my caffeine comes in the early morning, I usually drink tea between 7 and 8am, and then I take TrueMind between 10 and 11am, and I’m good for the day. Of course, we’re all a little different, and you need to figure out what works best for you.
I do hope you give enXtra and TrueMind a chance – I think you’ll be happy with how it helps you.
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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