Some Of The Most Commonly Asked Questions About Prevagen
As you'd probably expect the customer review of Prevagen aren't exactly positive. With most people saying it had little effect and those that did report it having any positive results were probably vitamin d deficient. The reality is that most Americans would benefit from supplementing vitamin d especially in winter with almost half of the population being deficient. [4] As a result some people will have actually seen statistically significant improvement in their overall brain health. As vitamin D at least is proven to improve brain function. [5] The key difference is a bottle of vitamin d pills will set you back a couple of dollars not 30-40.
The FTC has taken issues with their advertising [1], and the suit is still ongoing [2] and their self funded study wasn't even a fraction as effective as they claimed if you actually look at the full results. [3]
Lastly there's the fact that the FDA had previously raised concerns in 2012, of Prevagen overreaching it's advertising into Alzheimers these seem to have been addressed by 2018 when the FDA released a statement that they were happy Prevagen had addressed the issues in their warning letter.
We've already talked about vitamin D3, which does have some benefits, so what about Apoaequorin. The controversial ingredient. Let's start with the side effects of apoaequorin, because it's not off to a great start, when taken at levels of 10mg/day or above (the dosage in Prevagen) it can cause:
Nausea.
Dizziness.
Headaches.
There are also some reports of other issues.
In terms of what it actually does, very little, in theory it was thought that it could reduce calcium build up in the brain, but the reality is that there isn't any reliable evidence to suggest that it does this and it seems that it doesn't pass from oral ingestion effectively even if it could work [6].
Taking prevagen will do no more than a vitamin d pill, which could have some positive impacts and would improve memory, give clearer thinking a sharper mind etc. But, once again, just take a vitamin pill.
1 - https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/quincy_bioscience_holding_co_ftc_amended_reply_7-17-18.pdf
2 - https://www.reuters.com/article/quincybioscience-ftc-memorypills-idUSL1N1EZ13E
3 - https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(15)30157-2/fulltext
4 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21310306/
5 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132681/
6 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK552157/