Green Superfood Complex
The Opti Greens 50 formula is based heavily around its 6,180 mg Green Superfood Complex, which includes organic alfalfa grass, organic barley grass, organic kale, organic oat grass, organic parsley, organic spinach, organic spirulina, organic wheatgrass, and broccoli extract.
Some of these ingredients, such as the barley grass, kale, spinach, and spirulina, are extremely useful and found in most of the best greens powders. The problem is they are outnumbered in the blend by ingredients with little evidence that they are of any use.
With the Green Superfood Complex proprietary blend hiding the true dose of each ingredient, there isn't any way to know what percentage of it will be useful. This means it simply can't be counted on to produce any real results.
Glycemic Balance Blend (Includes Grape Seed Extract)
The Glycemic Balance Blend is the 2nd largest component in the Opti Greens 50 formula at 2,224 mg. It contains alpha lipoic acid, cinnamon extract, grape seed extract, green tea extract, soluble rice bran, and stevia.
The green tea and grape seed extracts are both well-known antioxidants that can reduce inflammation and boost energy levels. For optimal effects, 500 mg of tea and 300 mg of grape seed must be consumed per day (1)(2).
Alpha lipoic acid has been shown to reduce inflammation and blood sugar, and also prevent certain diseases when used in doses between 300 and 600 mg per day (3). Cinnamon can also lower blood sugar and cholesterol when 1 to 6 grams is consumed daily (4).
Some studies also suggest that both soluble rice bran and stevia can reduce inflammation throughout the body as well. However, this is unconfirmed, no optimal doses have been agreed upon, and stevia can potentially also be toxic when consumed in large doses.
With four very useful ingredients present in the Glycemic Balance Blend, it would look at first glance to be effective. However, with the rice bran and stevia listed first on the label, it means they are present in the largest quantities.
This would suggest the blend has been used to hide the doses of the good ingredients and then stuffed full of the bad ones, making it highly unlikely to be of any use.
Phytonutrient Complex
The Phytonutrient Complex in Opti Greens 50 contains cranberry extract, elderberry extract, organic beet juice, organic turmeric root, raspberry and raspberry seed powder, strawberry extract, wild bilberry extract, wild blueberry extract, and citrus containing bioflavonoids.
Turmeric is well known for its antioxidant content and anti-inflammatory properties and is great for neutralising free radicals and preventing oxidative damage (5). Beet juice can then lower blood pressure and boost energy levels, stamina, and exercise performance (6).
Berries are rich in vitamin c, minerals, and antioxidants, and offer benefits like improving eye, bone, brain, heart, skin, and gut health, boosting blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol, reducing inflammation, and boosting energy, stamina, and immune health (7).
These benefits are true of most of the berries in the blend, although bilberry and elderberry extract are less studied. There is also very little evidence to support the use of bioflavonoids.
The problem here has little to do with what is in the Phytonutrient Complex but how much is in it. With most of the individual ingredients needing 100 to 500 mg to be consumed daily to be effective, the 430 mg that the entire blend weighs just will not be enough to be of any use.
Plant Enzyme Blend
The Opti Greens 50 Plant Enzyme Blend includes 200 mg of amylases, proteases, cellulase, lactase, lipase, maltase, invertase, peptidase, bromelain, papain, rutin, AMLA, hemiSEB, and peptizyme-sp.
Many of these digestive enzymes are good for digestive health, but the blend is missing one of the 7 main digestive enzymes, sucrase, and has a number that are either less effective or have had less research done to support their use. The biggest issue comes with the dosages though.
For starters, the 200 mg is well below the 500 mg that has become the industry standard for a digestive enzyme supplement that is accepted to be the optimal dose (8). Then there is the fact that the blend hides the actual dose of each of the individual digestive enzymes.
While this means we don't know just how effective the Plant Enzyme Blend is, we do know it isn't as useful as what you'll find in similar greens supplements.
Probiotic Blend
The Probiotic Blend in Opti Greens 50 has b. bifidum, b. longum, l. acidophilus, l. bulgaricus, l. plantarum, l. reuteri, l. rhamnosus, l. salivarius, and s. thermophilus. All of these are healthy bacteria which can help with digestive issues and diarrhoea, and aid with abdominal pain (9).
Yet again though, the issue is that Opti Greens 50 simply doesn't contain enough of these probiotics. With 10 to 30 billon daily CFU (colony forming units) required for optimal effects, the 1 billion present in the A-List Nutrition supplement is essentially worthless.