The LYMA Supplement

"I really love this supplement, and I have taken it long enough to have opinions about the jar. So let me start there, because the jar is why I still take it."

"It arrives in a hammered copper vessel with a heavy lid and a black pouch of capsules inside. The vessel sits on my kitchen counter next to the kettle. I take four capsules with breakfast, which is a mouthful, and I do it every day because the jar is looking at me. That sounds small. It is not. Every other supplement I have owned lived in a cupboard and died there. The pouch smells faintly of saffron and turmeric when you open it, and the refill shows up before I run out. That is the whole routine."

"The formula is eleven branded ingredients at published doses: ashwagandha 250 milligrams, citicoline 250, curcumin 300, palmitoylethanolamide 350, keratin 500, gynostemma 450, beta-glucan 250, lycopene 30, saffron 28, vitamin D3 2000 units, vitamin K2 75 micrograms. Every supplier is named on the label. I have never seen another supplement do that, and it is the reason I could check it."

"What I noticed first was sleep. Not deeper, not longer, but faster. I fall asleep quicker than I used to, and I did not expect that from a morning capsule until I read the trial: 103 people, eight weeks, 350 milligrams of PEA, the exact dose in here, falling asleep about nineteen minutes faster than they had at the start while the placebo group gained under six. Total sleep did not change in that study and it did not change for me either. The saffron trial, 63 people at 28 milligrams, also the dose in here, moved insomnia scores. I believe both, because I felt both."

"The second thing was my nails, and then my hair. I have never in my life had nails that did not split, and about three months in they stopped splitting. The keratin trial was 50 women for 90 days at 500 milligrams, the same dose, measuring exactly that: less hair shed, stronger nails, shinier hair. I want to be honest that the trial product also contained vitamins and minerals, so it is not a perfect match. But my nails do not care about study design."

"The third thing is harder to pin down. I am calmer in the afternoons. The ashwagandha here is 250 milligrams of a root-and-leaf extract trialled on 130 stressed adults for sixty days, which lowered their anxiety scores and their cortisol at every dose. The citicoline is 250 milligrams, the lower of two doses that cut attention errors in 60 women over four weeks. Do I feel more focused? I think so. Would I bet a star on it? No. That is the honest line between what I can feel and what I am reading."

"Then there are the ones I cannot feel and take on faith. Beta-glucan from baker's yeast, trialled on 75 marathon runners who reported fewer colds afterward. Gynostemma, which took about three square inches of abdominal fat off 80 people in twelve weeks. Lycopene at 30 milligrams for the skin, which is more than any of the sun-protection trials used. Vitamin D at 2000 units, which is simply correct. Vitamin K2 at 75 micrograms, which is the reference intake and less than half of what the three-year bone and artery study used. Curcumin at 300 milligrams in a form that reaches the blood about two and a half times better than plain turmeric, with no efficacy trial at that dose for anything on the box. I am not saying these do nothing. I am saying I cannot tell, and neither can anyone else, because nobody has ever tested this formula."

"That is the thing I want the company to hear. Every ingredient on this label is real, dosed properly, and named down to the supplier. And then the website says two hundred trials prove the combination works, when there has never been a single trial of the combination. The eleven have never been in a room together except inside this capsule. Every trial they cite was paid for by the company that sells that ingredient. There is no USP mark, no Informed Sport mark, nothing from anyone without a stake. For 269 dollars a month I think that is owed."

"Two more things. Ashwagandha is prohibited in supplements in Denmark, and France has advised pregnant women, teenagers and anyone with a liver or thyroid condition to avoid it. LYMA tells you not to take this while pregnant and to ask your doctor if you are on medication, which is right, and says nothing about the rest. A brand that leads with evidence should lead with all of it. And it is not vegan: the keratin comes from wool. They say vegetarian, correctly, and it is easy to miss."

"So one star, and I want to be clear about why it is one and not none and one and not two. The star is for the most honest label in the category, for eleven ingredients that each earned their place, and for a copper jar that is the reason a supplement finally became a habit in my house. The second star is waiting on a certificate of analysis I can read, a mark from someone independent, and one study of the formula as sold. The company that published every dose can publish those."