This page has two jobs. First, it explains every one of the five plants printed on the label of the alcohol-free herbal extract we sell, what each is, and what the research does and does not say about it. Second, and this is the part most advertising pages leave out, it lists the headlines we run, tells you which ones are exaggerated, and separates the small number of things that are genuinely supported by evidence from the many that are not.
You almost certainly arrived here from an advertisement. The headline you clicked was written by us and paid for by us to appear next to real news stories. It was designed to make you stop scrolling. Several of our headlines overstate what science actually shows, and a few attribute statements to doctors who do not exist.
Everything on this site is a paid advertisement for a product we sell. If you buy through a link on any of our pages, we are paid a commission. That is the reason this site exists.
The product is an alcohol-free liquid herbal extract: five certified-organic plants (oat seed, gotu kola, rosemary, licorice root and lion's mane) in organic vegetable glycerin and water, made in Idaho and sold by Plant Therapy as a dietary supplement. It is not a medicine. It does not treat, prevent, cure or slow Alzheimer's disease, dementia, or any other medical condition, and no study has ever tested this blend. The words "Brain Power" and "Promotes Focus & Clarity" on the label are a product name and a sales line chosen by the maker, not a finding, and the label itself carries the standard statement that its claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. No food, drink or supplement on this page is a substitute for a doctor.
If you are genuinely worried about your memory, the single most useful thing you can do is book an appointment with your doctor. That costs you nothing from us, and some causes of memory trouble are reversible when they are found early. Your health matters more than anything we are selling. We would rather you close this page and call your doctor than buy something under a false impression.
These are the headlines we have run, grouped by the claim they make. The right-hand column is our own plain assessment. We have marked each family of headlines as Exaggerated, Partly true, Withdrawn or Broadly supported.
| The headline as you saw it | What is actually behind it |
|---|---|
| "Mental Decline Begins When Seniors Can't Spell These 3 Words. Test Now""Top Doctors Say Mental Decline Begins When Seniors Can't Pronounce These 3 Phrases. Can You?""MDs Say Mental Decline Begins When Seniors Can't Pronounce These 3 Phrases. Can You?""Memory Decline Begins When Seniors Say These 3 Phrases (See The List)""Declining Memory Begins When Seniors Say These 7 Phrases. See Which Ones" | Exaggerated There is no set of three words, three phrases or seven phrases whose spelling or pronunciation marks the beginning of mental decline. Nothing "begins" at a word. Word-finding and naming tasks do appear inside real cognitive screening tools, but those tools are administered and interpreted by a clinician alongside your history, your medications and a physical exam. Failing a word online means nothing on its own: plenty of people with perfectly healthy brains stumble over a word when they are tired, anxious, or being timed. "Top doctors" and "MDs" refer to no specific doctor. See section 5. |
| "Japan's Oldest Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Age: Just Avoid Drinking These 3 Beverages""Japan's Greatest Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Age: Just Avoid Drinking These 3 Beverages""Japan's Oldest Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Age: Just Avoid Eating These 3 Foods""Japan's Oldest Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Age: Just Stop Eating These 3 Foods" | Exaggerated No group of Japanese doctors issued this statement. There is no such panel, no such list, and no source we can point you to. Japan appears in the headline because it is widely associated with long life, which makes the claim feel credible. That is a marketing decision, not a citation. The second half is also wrong in an important way. Memory loss is strongly related to age. Age is the single largest risk factor for dementia, and no diet removes it. What is true is narrower: certain long-term drinking and eating patterns are associated with faster cognitive decline in large population studies. Association is not proof of cause, and "just avoid these three" is not how any of it works. |
| "Nobel Prize's Doctors Say Memory Loss Isn't Age: Just Stop Eating These 3 Foods" | Withdrawn We retract this one outright. No Nobel laureate has endorsed this page, this product, or any list of three foods on our behalf. Attaching the Nobel Prize to an advertisement implies an authority that does not exist and we should not have run it. |
| "Brain Experts Now Say These 3 Cereals Age the Brain Faster Than Time""Scientists Now Say This 1 Cereal Ages the Brain Faster Than Time" | Exaggerated No food ages the brain "faster than time." That phrase was written for effect and it is not a finding from any study. It is also internally inconsistent: in one version it is three cereals, in another it is one, because the number is something we test for click-through, not something we measured. The grain of truth: diets high in added sugar and refined starch are associated with poorer memory scores and greater cardiovascular risk over years. That is a modest effect across a population, not a fate sealed by a bowl of cereal. See section 3. |
| "Doctors Now Say This Popular Evening Drink Is Behind Memory Loss""Doctors Now Say This Popular Evening Drink Is Behind Brain Health Decline" | Partly true The "evening drink" is alcohol, and of everything our ads point at, this is where the evidence is strongest. Heavy and even moderate regular drinking has been linked in long-running studies to worse brain outcomes, including shrinkage of the hippocampus, the region most involved in forming memories. Excessive alcohol is one of the risk factors named in the 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia. [1] [2] What is overstated is the word "behind." Alcohol is one contributing risk factor among many, not the cause of memory loss. Cutting back is a genuinely good idea. It is not a cure, and it will not undo damage already done. It is also worth saying plainly: the product we sell is alcohol-free. The five plants are extracted in vegetable glycerin and water, so nothing on this page about alcohol applies to the bottle itself. |
| "Doctors Name 5 Popular Drinks Now Tied To Memory Decline. Coffee Tops The List""Seniors: These 4 Drinks May Be Aging Your Brain Faster""The 4 Drinks Brain Doctors Want Seniors to Quit""Neurologists Say Cognitive Decline Isn't Age: Just Stop Drinking These 2 Popular Drinks""Doctors: 3 Popular Drinks Now Tied to Memory Loss in Seniors" | Exaggerated Notice that the count changes: two drinks, three, four, five. It changes because it is an advertising variable we rotate, not a number that came out of a study. No neurologist is named in any version, because none was consulted. "Coffee tops the list" is the clearest thing we have got wrong. Large reviews of coffee and cognition have generally not found ordinary coffee drinking to be a risk factor for dementia; several report a neutral or modestly favourable association. If you drink coffee and enjoy it, this headline gave you a reason to worry that the evidence does not support. Our own article about this extract puts the two squeezes next to the morning coffee, as the anchor of a habit. That is a routine point, not a claim about coffee and memory either way. See section 2. |
| "Brain Doctors: Quit These 4 Drinks Before It's Too Late" | Exaggerated No brain doctor was consulted for this headline, and there is no "too late." The deadline was invented to make you click. The four drinks are the ones in section 2: alcohol, sugar-sweetened soft drinks, energy drinks and sweetened coffee-shop drinks. Cutting back on them is sensible for your heart, your sleep and your weight, and long-running population studies link heavy use of the first two to poorer cognitive outcomes over years. There is no evidence that quitting them on any particular day changes anything about your memory, and there is no age after which the change stops being worth making. See section 2. |
| "Memory Slipping? Check These 4 Everyday Drinks First" | Partly true Half right, in the wrong order. If your memory is slipping, the first thing to check is not a drink; it is your doctor, because several treatable causes listed in section 6 look exactly like memory loss and none of them is fixed by changing what you pour. The four drinks are the everyday ones in section 2: alcohol, sugary soft drinks, energy drinks and sweetened coffee drinks. Reviewing them is a reasonable second step, mostly for sleep and for your heart. Not enough plain water belongs on the list too, and it is the one our own article keeps coming back to: the two squeezes go into a full glass of it. See sections 2 and 6. |
| "America's Top Experts Say Mental Decline Isn't Aging: Just Avoid These 5 Kitchen Drinks" | Exaggerated The same construction as the "Japan's doctors" headline above, with the country changed. No panel of American experts issued this statement, and we cannot point you to one. Mental decline is strongly tied to age, and no drink removes that. The five kitchen drinks are alcohol, sugar-sweetened sodas, diet sodas, energy drinks and sweetened coffee-shop drinks, all in section 2, where the honest version of each is written out. "Just avoid" overstates what any of that evidence shows. See section 2. |
| "Still Sharp at 90? Seniors Are Rethinking These 3 Everyday Foods" | Partly true The gentlest of our headlines, and still an overstatement. Nobody knows what keeps a particular person sharp at 90. The largest studies point to blood pressure, hearing, physical activity, social contact and education far more than to any food; see section 7. The three everyday foods are sugary breakfast cereals, processed meats and packaged baked goods, all in section 3. Eating less of them is associated in population studies with better long-term brain and heart outcomes. That is a modest, slow effect across a population, and no food is a guarantee at any age. See sections 3 and 7. |
| "Drink one cup a day and watch your memory change" | Exaggerated The cup is a glass of water, juice, tea or coffee with two squeezes of this extract in it. Nothing in that cup has been shown to change memory: the five plants are at a fraction of the doses the trials used, the lion's mane trial used 3.2 grams a day of the mushroom itself, [3] and the oat and gotu kola results are small and mixed. [4] [5] [6] What a daily cup can honestly give you is a thirty-second habit, done at the same time each morning, that carries the rest of a routine: a full glass of water, a real breakfast, one thing at a time. "Watch your memory change" should not have been written. See sections 7 and 9, and the ingredients below. |
| "Neurologists Name 5 Popular Prescriptions Now Tied to Memory Decline" | Partly true, and the most dangerous to act on This one is closest to real research. Several widely prescribed drug classes have been linked in large studies to higher dementia risk, and prescribing guidelines already flag some of them as poor choices for older adults. [7] [8] [9] But an advertisement is the worst possible reason to change a prescription. Stopping some of these medicines suddenly can cause seizures, dangerous rebound anxiety, or a return of the condition being treated. Never stop or change a prescribed medicine because of something you read in an ad, including ours. Read section 4 before you do anything. |
An honest answer: these headlines appear beside real news stories, competing for attention with everything else on the page, and dramatic phrasing gets clicked. That is the incentive, and we are subject to it like every other advertiser.
It is also why this page exists. Once you are here, you are entitled to know exactly which claims we can stand behind and which ones were written to get your attention. Everything below is the sober version.
Our headlines have referred, in different versions, to "3 beverages", "4 drinks", "5 popular drinks", "2 popular drinks" and "this popular evening drink" without ever naming them. Here is the complete list of what we were pointing at, and what the research actually supports for each one. Where a study is cited, it is observational unless stated otherwise: it can show that two things travel together in a population, not that one causes the other.
This is the "popular evening drink" · Best-supported of the group
What the research says. Heavy drinking is consistently associated with cognitive decline and higher dementia risk, and excessive alcohol is one of the modifiable risk factors named by the Lancet Commission. [1] A long-running study of British civil servants found that even moderate intake was associated with hippocampal atrophy and faster decline in language fluency. [2] Alcohol also raises blood pressure, disrupts sleep and interacts with many medications: three separate routes to worse brain health.
Honest verdict. Of everything on this list, cutting back on alcohol has the strongest case behind it. It is still not "the cause" of memory loss, and no amount of cutting back guarantees anything.
About the product we sell. It is alcohol-free: the five plants are extracted in organic vegetable glycerin and water, and the label says so. Nothing in this item applies to the bottle.
Important. If you drink heavily every day, do not stop abruptly on your own. Alcohol withdrawal can be medically serious. Ask your doctor how to reduce safely.
Part of the "3 popular drinks" and "4 drinks" · Partly supported
What the research says. In the Framingham Heart Study community sample, higher intake of sugary beverages was associated with lower total brain volume and poorer memory scores. [10] The more established harm is indirect and well documented: sugary drinks contribute to weight gain, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and diabetes, obesity and hypertension are each independent risk factors for dementia. [1]
Honest verdict. A reasonable thing to cut down on, mostly for reasons that have nothing to do with a dramatic headline. Replacing them with water is a cheap, low-risk change.
Often the "surprising" drink in our ads · Weak evidence
What the research says. One widely reported analysis found artificially sweetened soft drink intake associated with higher risk of stroke and dementia. [11] The authors themselves cautioned that this does not establish cause, and reverse causation is a real possibility: people already managing diabetes or weight problems are more likely to choose diet drinks in the first place.
Honest verdict. Interesting, unresolved, and not a reason to panic. Anyone who tells you diet soda has been proven to cause dementia is going beyond the evidence.
Part of the "4 drinks brain doctors want seniors to quit" · Indirect concern
What the research says. There is little direct research linking energy drinks to dementia. The concern for older adults is more immediate: high caffeine loads combined with sugar can raise blood pressure, trigger palpitations in susceptible people, and badly disrupt sleep. Persistently short sleep is itself linked to worse brain outcomes. [12]
Honest verdict. Worth avoiding if you are over 65, on heart or blood pressure medication, or sleeping poorly. But for heart and sleep reasons, not because of any proven memory effect.
The version of "coffee" our ads should have named · Partly supported
What the research says. These are sugary drinks that happen to contain coffee. Whatever applies to sugar-sweetened beverages applies to them. A large flavoured frappé can carry as much added sugar as a soft drink.
Honest verdict. If our "coffee" headline had meant this, it would have been defensible. It did not, and we should have been specific.
Part of the "3 beverages" · Partly supported
What the research says. Same story: the sugar is the issue, not the tea or the fruit. Whole fruit behaves quite differently from fruit juice, which delivers the sugar without the fibre; in the Framingham sample, daily fruit juice was associated with lower brain volume and poorer memory scores. [10]
Honest verdict. Treat these as soft drinks, because nutritionally that is largely what they are. The label of the extract we sell allows you to take it in juice; a small glass of juice once or twice a day is a modest amount of sugar, and water works just as well.
Named in our headline as the worst offender · Our headline was wrong
What the research says. Ordinary black coffee and tea, without added sugar, are not established risk factors for cognitive decline. Reviews of coffee consumption and dementia have generally found neutral or modestly favourable associations, and tea is a routine part of dietary patterns studied for brain health. Caffeine late in the day can wreck your sleep, and short sleep is genuinely linked to dementia risk, [12] so timing matters more than the drink itself. The extract we sell contains no caffeine; the label allows it in water, juice, tea or coffee.
Honest verdict. "Coffee Tops The List" was a bad headline. If you drink coffee, enjoy it, and it does not keep you awake, the evidence does not ask you to give it up.
The food headlines referred to "3 foods" and to "cereals": one cereal in some versions, three in others. Again, the number was ours, not a finding. Here is what was meant, and what stands behind it.
The "3 cereals" / "1 cereal" that "age the brain faster than time" · Partly supported
What the research says. Frosted, honey-coated and chocolate cereals are mostly refined starch and added sugar, and many contain more sugar per serving than a biscuit. Diets high in refined carbohydrate and added sugar are associated with poorer cognitive scores and with the metabolic conditions that raise dementia risk. [1] [10] No study has found that any cereal "ages the brain faster than time." That phrase is ours and it is not defensible.
Honest verdict. Reading the sugar figure on the box is a sensible habit. Plain oats, plain wheat biscuits and unsweetened whole-grain cereals are inexpensive swaps.
The honest version of all our food headlines · Partly supported
What the research says. A large Brazilian cohort found that adults with the highest intake of ultra-processed foods showed faster decline in global cognition and executive function over roughly eight years than those who ate the least. [13] This is observational, the effect size was modest, and diet is tangled up with income, education and dozens of other factors.
Honest verdict. The pattern of your diet over years matters more than any single food. That is a duller message than "these 3 foods", which is exactly why our headlines do not say it.
Usually one of the "3 foods" · Partly supported
What the research says. High processed-meat intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and, in some cohorts, with higher dementia risk. Because what is bad for your blood vessels is generally bad for your brain, the cardiovascular link alone is reason enough to take it seriously.
Honest verdict. Worth moderating. Not an emergency, and not undone by any supplement or any bottle of herbs.
Usually one of the "3 foods" · Partly supported
What the research says. Frequent fried-food intake is associated in observational studies with poorer cognitive performance, largely through the same cardiovascular and inflammatory pathways.
Honest verdict. Same as above: pattern over years, not any one meal.
The refined-carbohydrate group · Partly supported
What the research says. Dietary patterns built on refined starch and added sugar score poorly on measures such as the MIND diet, which was associated with slower cognitive decline in older adults. [14] Swapping toward whole grains, leafy greens, berries, beans, nuts, olive oil and fish is the version of "eat this, not that" with actual research behind it. Rosemary and oats, two of the five plants in the extract we sell, are ordinary kitchen ingredients in that pattern; cooking with them is free and untroubled by any of the cautions below.
Honest verdict. The useful advice was never "stop eating these 3 foods." It is "shift the overall pattern," which takes months and cannot be sold in a headline.
Drink less alcohol. Drink less sugar. Keep your coffee, earlier in the day if it costs you sleep. Eat more like the MIND or Mediterranean pattern (vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, olive oil, fish, berries) and less like a vending machine. Every one of those changes is free, and none of them requires anything we sell.
Do not stop, reduce or skip any prescribed medicine because of this page. Some of the drugs below cause seizures, severe rebound anxiety or dangerous withdrawal if stopped abruptly. Others are treating a condition that will come back, sometimes worse, if the medicine is dropped.
The right action is simple and safe: put every medicine, vitamin and over-the-counter product you take into one bag or one list, and take it to your doctor or pharmacist. Ask specifically: "Is anything on this list a poor choice at my age, and is there a safer alternative?" That review is often free, takes fifteen minutes, and is far more valuable than anything on this page.
Our headline said "5 popular prescriptions now tied to memory decline." It named none of them. These are the drug classes that research has actually flagged. "Tied to" means associated in observational studies, not proven to cause.
Older sedating allergy and sleep aids, including many "PM" formulas · diphenhydramine, chlorpheniramine
A prospective cohort study found that higher cumulative use of strong anticholinergic drugs was associated with an increased risk of dementia. [7] A later large case-control study reported similar findings across several anticholinergic classes. [8] Note that many of these are bought without a prescription, in products sold for sleep, and the 2023 Beers Criteria list first-generation antihistamines among the medicines older adults are generally best avoiding. [9]
Prescribed for overactive bladder · oxybutynin and relatives
Included in the same anticholinergic-burden research above. [7] [8] Alternatives with a lower anticholinergic burden exist for some people, which is a conversation to have with the prescriber.
Anxiety and sleep · diazepam, lorazepam, alprazolam, clonazepam
Associated with confusion, falls and impaired memory in older adults, and listed in the American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria as generally best avoided in this age group. [9] Whether they raise long-term dementia risk is genuinely disputed in the literature. These must never be stopped abruptly: abrupt withdrawal can cause seizures.
zolpidem, zopiclone, eszopiclone
Also flagged in the Beers Criteria for older adults because of confusion, night-time falls and next-day impairment. [9]
amitriptyline and relatives; ongoing opioid pain treatment
Tricyclics carry a high anticholinergic burden. [7] [8] Long-term opioids are associated with confusion and falls in older adults. [9] Both are often prescribed for good reasons, and both deserve a periodic "is this still the best option for me?" review rather than a unilateral stop.
What this section is not. It is not a claim that these medicines cause dementia, not medical advice, and not a suggestion that a herbal extract is an alternative to any of them. It is a prompt to have one specific conversation with a professional who knows your history. Two things in the extract we sell deserve a mention in that conversation of their own accord: licorice root contains glycyrrhizin, which in quantity or over long periods can raise blood pressure and lower potassium, and which matters if you take anything for your heart, your blood pressure or fluid retention; and lion's mane, oat seed and gotu kola have no established interactions but no long-term safety data at these amounts either. One more reason to have that conversation before you make it a daily habit.
Several of our headlines invite you to test yourself on words or phrases: spell these three words, pronounce these three phrases, see whether you say these seven phrases. There is no such validated test, and we cannot give you a real one, because a real one does not work that way.
What actual cognitive screening looks like. Clinicians use short structured tools. The Mini-Cog, the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) and the MMSE are the common ones. They do include word tasks: recalling three unrelated words after a delay, naming animals, repeating a sentence. But three things make them different from an online quiz:
Screening tools also produce false alarms. Anxiety, poor sleep, hearing loss, depression, pain and simply being nervous all lower scores in people whose brains are fine. This is precisely why an online word quiz is meaningless: it has none of the context that makes the real instrument useful.
We are sorry. Take it as a prompt rather than a verdict: if the worry is real, bring it to your doctor and ask for a proper cognitive assessment. If it was just a startling headline, the reassurance you are looking for cannot come from a quiz on an advertising page, including this one.
The genuinely useful list is not about spelling. It is about whether memory or thinking has changed enough to interfere with everyday life. Signs that deserve a medical appointment include:
Ordinary ageing looks different: occasionally forgetting a name and recalling it later, misplacing your glasses and finding them, needing help with an unfamiliar device, taking a moment to find a word, rereading a paragraph after lunch and getting it on the second pass. That is normal and common at every age.
Before anyone concludes anything about dementia, a good clinician rules out conditions that cause memory and thinking problems and can improve when treated:
None of these are found by a bottle of herbs, a food list, or an online quiz. They are found by a doctor with a blood test and fifteen minutes of your history.
United States. The Alzheimer's Association operates a free, confidential 24/7 helpline at 800-272-3900, staffed by specialists who can talk through symptoms, next steps and local resources. They sell nothing.
Anywhere. Your regular doctor is the right first call. If someone is in immediate danger or crisis, use your local emergency number.
If we only had one section to be useful in, this would be it. The 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission on dementia concluded that nearly half of dementia cases worldwide, around 45%, could potentially be prevented or delayed by addressing fourteen modifiable risk factors across the life course. [1] Not one of them is a supplement, a herbal extract, or a list of three foods.
These are unglamorous. They cannot be delivered in a headline, they take years, and none of them can be sold to you by us. They are also, by a wide margin, the best-supported things on this entire page.
What each of the five plants printed on the label of Plant Therapy Brain Power is, what it is traditionally used for, and what the cited research says. The label lists a proprietary extract blend of 1,755 milligrams per two-squeeze serving, about 1.5 millilitres, in this order: organic oat seed, organic gotu kola aerial parts, organic rosemary leaf, organic licorice root and organic lion's mane fruiting body; it gives no amount for any single plant. Oat seed is first and is very likely the largest share, lion's mane last and the smallest. The other ingredients are organic vegetable glycerin and water; there is no alcohol. Where a study is cited below, it used one plant at a time, in a measured dose, usually as a concentrated extract or the whole mushroom in a capsule; none of it tested a glycerin extract, and none of it tested this blend. Read the statement at the end of this section before you buy anything.
Oats are a cereal grass grown across the temperate world for their edible grain. The herbal ingredient is different from breakfast oats: it is the fresh, unripe seed head of the same plant, picked while still green and milky, and extracted rather than eaten as food.
Traditional and everyday use. Green oat preparations have been used in traditional European herbalism for generations as a daily tonic; the grain itself has been a staple food for millennia.
What the research says. In a 29-day placebo-controlled trial of 132 healthy adults aged 35 to 65, a green oat extract was associated with better performance on a working-memory task and a multitasking test compared with placebo.[4] The picture is mixed: a 12-week trial in 37 healthy adults around age 67 found no change in any measure of cognition.[5] The trials used concentrated extracts in capsules, not a liquid extract.
Amount per serving in Brain Power Organic Herbal Supplement. part of the 1,755 mg blend ("milky oat seed" in the seller's description)
Good to know. No specific safety warnings were found in the NIH or MSKCC herb references for oat herb. As with any daily supplement, talk to your doctor first if you have a health condition or take anything daily.
A small, creeping perennial with fan-shaped leaves, native to wetlands from the tropical Old World to eastern Australia. It is eaten as a vegetable and in salads across South and Southeast Asia.
Traditional and everyday use. Used for centuries in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese practice, and eaten fresh as a salad green.
What the research says. In a small 2-month placebo-controlled trial of 28 healthy older adults, the highest dose (750 mg/day) of a gotu kola extract was associated with improved working-memory performance and higher self-rated alertness.[15] A 2017 review that pooled the randomized trials found no significant effect on cognitive test scores overall, though it did find higher self-rated alertness.[6]
Amount per serving in Brain Power Organic Herbal Supplement. part of the 1,755 mg blend
Good to know. Skin rash has been reported. Rare reports of liver problems have been linked to gotu kola products: stop and talk to your doctor if you notice unusual tiredness, dark urine, or yellowing of the skin or eyes. Laboratory studies suggest it may interact with some products processed by the liver; talk to your doctor before use if you take anything daily.
A small evergreen shrub of the mint family, native to the dry, rocky Mediterranean coast, whose needle-like leaves are one of the world's most familiar cooking herbs. The FDA lists rosemary among spices generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food.
Traditional and everyday use. In ancient Greece and Rome rosemary was associated with memory, and in folklore it has long been an emblem of remembrance. In the kitchen it flavors roasts, breads and oils.
What the research says. In a small crossover trial of 28 adults with an average age of 75, a single 750 mg dose of dried rosemary leaf, close to a culinary amount, was associated with faster speed of memory compared with placebo, while a much larger dose (6,000 mg) had the opposite effect.[16] More was not better.
Amount per serving in Brain Power Organic Herbal Supplement. part of the 1,755 mg blend
Good to know. Culinary amounts are widely used. In the trial above, a very large single dose (6,000 mg) slowed memory measures, so more is not better. Talk to your doctor before use if you have a health condition or take anything daily.
A perennial herb cultivated across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The dried root and rhizome are naturally sweet and are used to flavor candy, foods and herbal blends.
Traditional and everyday use. One of the oldest recorded herbs, used in ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese and Indian traditions. In traditional Chinese formulas it is added to round out and harmonize the other ingredients; in Ayurveda it is used as a tonic. In this blend it contributes the naturally sweet taste.
Amount per serving in Brain Power Organic Herbal Supplement. part of the 1,755 mg blend
Good to know. Licorice root contains glycyrrhizin. In large amounts or with long-term use it can affect blood pressure and lower potassium levels, and it can interact with some daily products. The NIH advises particular care for people who eat a lot of salt or have heart or kidney conditions. Take it as directed on the label, do not exceed the recommended use, and talk to your doctor before use if you have a health condition, are pregnant, or take anything daily.
An edible mushroom with long, white, downward-hanging spines that grows on older beech and oak trees in temperate forests across the Northern Hemisphere. It is eaten as food, especially in East Asia and the United States, with a texture often compared to crab or lobster.
Traditional and everyday use. Known as yamabushitake in Japan and houtougu in China, it has a long history of use as a food and in East Asian and Native American traditions.
What the research says. In a 12-week placebo-controlled trial of 31 healthy adults over 50, a daily lion's mane fruiting-body preparation (3.2 g/day) was associated with higher scores on a standard mental-status test compared with placebo.[3] A visual-retention test in the same trial did not change, and the dose was far larger than a liquid extract or a spray delivers. In a separate pilot trial in 41 healthy adults aged 18 to 45, a single 1.8 g dose was associated with faster performance on the Stroop task an hour later, while 28 days of it produced only a non-significant trend on self-rated stress.[17]
Amount per serving in Brain Power Organic Herbal Supplement. part of the 1,755 mg blend
Good to know. Generally regarded as safe as a food. Stomach discomfort, nausea and skin rash were reported by a few participants in one clinical study. Avoid if you are allergic to mushrooms.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This information does not constitute medical advice and it should not be relied upon as such. This product is not a substitute for medication or other treatment prescribed by a physician or health care provider. Consult your doctor before starting any dietary supplement.
Set against the headlines that brought you here, this is the complete and honest position.
Things we cannot promise, and that nobody selling you a supplement can:
Things we can say honestly:
No. Those attributions are advertising language. No named or identifiable expert made those statements, and none has endorsed this product.
Ordinary coffee is not an established risk factor for cognitive decline, and reviews generally find neutral to modestly favourable associations. Our "Coffee Tops The List" headline overstated it. What is worth watching is added sugar in coffee drinks, and caffeine late enough in the day to spoil your sleep. That last point is worth more than our headline was.
Not on your own, and not because of an advertisement. Some of these drugs cause seizures or severe rebound symptoms if stopped abruptly. Take your full medication list to your doctor or pharmacist and ask whether anything on it is a poor fit for your age. See section 4.
No. It is not a treatment for any disease. If you or a family member is facing a diagnosis, the people to talk to are your doctor and a support organisation such as the Alzheimer's Association helpline listed above.
Because that is the name the maker printed on the label. We did not choose it and we do not repeat it as a promise. The same label carries the statement that its claims have not been evaluated by the FDA and that the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. We treat the name as a name.
No. The five plants are extracted in organic vegetable glycerin and water, and the label says alcohol-free. It can be taken in water, juice, tea or coffee.
The label does not say. It gives one figure for the five-plant blend, 1,755 milligrams per two-squeeze serving, and lists the plants in order of amount: oat seed first, lion's mane last. None of the trials cited here used a blend, and the lion's mane trial used 3.2 grams a day of the mushroom itself.
Because one of our headlines pointed at "5 prescriptions", and you deserve to know what was behind it. Nothing in section 4 is advice to change a medicine, and the product is not an alternative to any of them.
A fair question. Do not take our word for it. The references below are real, published sources you can look up yourself, and nothing in sections 5, 6 and 7 requires you to buy anything or trust us. If this page and our headlines disagree, believe this page.
No. It is free, there is nothing to sign up for, and you are welcome to read it, close the tab and never come back.
Yes, and you should. Every numbered reference below can be found by searching its title. For general information, the National Institute on Aging (nia.nih.gov) and the Alzheimer's Association (alz.org) publish plain-language material and sell nothing.
These are the sources behind the claims marked with a number above. Most are observational studies, which can show association but not cause; the lion's mane, oat, gotu kola and rosemary trials were small, and most used a concentrated extract or the whole plant in a capsule rather than a glycerin extract. We have deliberately not cited anything for the claims we describe as exaggerated, because there is nothing to cite.
Citing a study does not mean the study is about this product. None of the research above tested Plant Therapy Brain Power, and none of it supports it.
This site is an advertising publication. The Sharp Years is not a news organisation, is not affiliated with any news outlet whose page our advertisements appear on, and is not affiliated with the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer's Association, The Lancet, the Nobel Foundation, the European Medicines Agency, or any medical body, university or government agency named on this page. Logos and names of publishers appear in our reporting dashboards only to describe where advertisements were placed; they imply no endorsement whatsoever.
Headlines used in our advertising are promotional and may be dramatised, generalised or exaggerated for attention. Where a headline conflicts with this page, this page is correct. Individual results, testimonials and endorsements do not represent typical results. We are compensated when readers purchase products through our links.
Medical disclaimer. Nothing on this page is medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Do not delay seeking professional advice, and do not stop or change any prescribed medicine, because of anything you read here. If you are worried about memory, thinking or mood, your own or a family member's, speak to a qualified healthcare professional. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.