AG1: Do You Really Need It?

You’ve probably heard of AG1 from an influential YouTuber or medical expert, or maybe you’ve seen ads for it on YouTube and other places. If you’re not yet familiar with this product, let’s give you a quick rundown.

AG1 is a popular “all-in-one” greens powder drink mix made by Athletic Greens. You add it to a liquid, like water or milk, and you’ve got an instant smoothie that “covers your bases” and “holistically nourishes” every system in your body. The drink has a whopping 75 ingredients, which does sound like something that would cover at least a few bases.

There’s been a growing trend when it comes to wellness drinks and health beverages—mushroom coffee, MUD\WTR, kombucha, Ka’Chava, mocktails, electrolyte drops, wellness shots, and of course AG1, to name some popular brands and drinks. While it’s certainly great that consumers are getting more interested in their physical health, can you really just drink your way to better health?

What’s in AG1? A Look at This Greens Powder

Vitamins and Minerals

At its core, AG1 is a multivitamin supplement. It contains high doses of vitamins and minerals that are indeed essential nutrients, such as B vitamins, vitamin A, vitamin E, and zinc. While we do need vitamins and minerals, we don’t necessarily need a ton of them. “Too much of a good thing” is an all-too-common circumstance with supplements.

Some vitamins, like vitamin C, are water soluble. That means that you pee out any excess. And if you’re taking in nearly 500% of your daily vitamin C every single day, you’re probably peeing out at least some of it.

Other vitamins, like vitamins A and K, are fat soluble. This means they’re stored within the body, even if you’re taking in more than you need. They don’t leave. They build up. Naturally, you can see how this might lead to problems.

The bottom line is to be wary of large doses of vitamins and minerals in supplements. They’re called supplements for a reason: they’re supposed to supplement your nutritional needs, not replace them.

Antioxidants

AG1 contains a handful of antioxidants, like cocoa bean polyphenol extract, Coenzyeme Q10 (CoQ10), and grape seed extract. These may very well be effective. CoQ10 certainly is important; our own bodies produce it after all. But whether other extracts really do a lot of good is left to be seen, from a strictly empirical standpoint.

The AG1 website says, for instance, that cocoa bean can “support skin texture and help combat visible signs of aging like loss of elasticity and sun damage.” Some key words there are “support” and “help.” The lack of hard evidence means that companies need to be careful with how efficacious they can claim certain ingredients to be. Again, that doesn’t mean the efficacy isn’t there. It just means that there isn’t a lot of hard data to back up the claims.

Adaptogens, Alkalines, Extracts, and Superfoods

AG1 also contains some adaptogens, which allegedly reduce stress, although there is sufficient research to back up this claim. These include ashwagandha root extract, rhodiola root, and licorice root powder. Common sense would tell us that stress is a complex problem, and therefore the solution is going to be a bit more complex than ingesting mushrooms. If your goal is to just relax a bit more and feel less stressed out, there are cheaper ways to achieve those health benefits.

Along with those stress-reducing ingredients, AG1 also contains alkalines, extracts, and what are commonly called “superfoods.” These include beet root, green tea extract, rose hip fruit powder, lycium berry fruit extract, carrot root powder, spinach leaf powder, broccoli flower powder, milk thistle seed extract, slippery elm bark powder, papaya fruit powder, ginger rhizome powder, rosemary leaf extract, shiitake and reishi mushroom powder, spirulina, stevia leaf powder. And that’s not even quite everything.

That probably sounds really impressive, and while it’s not something to completely dismiss, we hate to break something to you—there’s no such thing as a superfood. And what we mean is that there isn’t some group of magical foods that, upon consumption in a convenient pill or drink mix, will completely turn your health around. Maybe such a scenario could play out for someone whose health is abysmal to begin with, but for the average Joe or Jane, not so much.

That doesn’t mean that these foods and extracts don’t have any health benefits. Of course they do, but they often get marketed as cure-alls and as a way to easily gain great health without much effort, often via a greens powder or another supplement. That’s just not how life works, and that’s not what scientific research supports. There are no shortcuts to good health, AG1 and other greens powders included.

Digestive Enzymes and Probiotics

AG1 includes probiotics, like L. acidophilus and B. bifidum, as well as the digestive enzyme bromelain. There’s not much of a problem with probiotics or bromelain, although you might be getting more than you really need with AG1. Will that have a negative health consequence? Probably not. But you might just be throwing money away.

If you’re building a house, you aren’t going to purchase three times more lumber than you actually need, right? You’re not going to buy enough roofing material for three roofs or enough paint to paint all the walls 10 times over. So why do that with your health, especially if you’re paying for the excess?

The Marketing of AG1—Wellness in a Scoop?

The Athletic Greens website contains the slogan “One scoop. Every morning. For life.” Well, that’s rather convenient. Take this green powder every single day, and do that for the rest of your life, for $80 per month. If you just need to eat more fruits and vegetables, then you’re clearly overpaying to fill your “nutritional gap” of vitamins and minerals.

On the company’s website, four categories of health improvement are mentioned—gut health, focus and energy, stress and mood balance, and immune defense. Interestingly, the pictures for gut health and immune defense are an apple and a stack of orange peels, respectively. This probably doesn’t need to be said, but apples and oranges are fairly cost effective. They also taste better.

The other two images show mushrooms and licorice root, for focus and energy and stress and mood balance respectively. Although we’re not certified nutritionists, we can guarantee that you don’t need mushrooms to get focused. And like we said earlier, managing your mood and stress levels is a complex problem. While a healthy diet certainly helps to improve stress and mood (and should not be overlooked), consuming licorice root will only do so much, especially if the problem is more psychological than physiological. Seek therapy, start a new hobby, and interact more with loved ones if you need to improve your mental health.

AG1 Research

The Athletic Greens website mentions research on their green powder. So what about that? For one thing, it’s great that the company is trying to put their product to the test and share the results. While one may argue that the results could be biased, it’s still more than what most other companies are willing to do.

The website mentions a small handful of studies. The first shows that AG1 resulted in a 2.9x increase in healthy gut bacteria compared to a control group. The sample size is 30, which, contrary to what some may believe, is actually a decent sample size. So AG1 apparently increased the amount of two types of healthy gut bacteria.

Great. But what do we know about the two groups? The 30 adults are supposedly “healthy,” but what does that mean? What were the diets of the two groups? Did the researchers control for every conceivable factor so that AG1 could be the only explanation for the increase in bacteria? Perhaps they did, but we don’t really know.

Two in vitro studies show an increase in short-chain fatty acid production and serotonin production in the gut. If you’re curious, “in vitro” literally means “in glass.” This means that the study was done in a laboratory setting with artificial equipment that simulates the human gastrointestinal tract. Both of these studies mention that the data was collected from 3 stool samples. Three is not many. But still, that’s a promising result. About 90% of your serotonin is in your gut. The human gut is sometimes referred to as our “second brain” because it houses a complex network of neurons. That along with the serotonin and more can help you see why “second brain” is an accurate label, and why your gut health can be connected to your mood (but that doesn’t mean your mood is wholly dependent on your gut).

Another in vitro study talks about mineral absorption in AG1. That’s a big key when it comes to supplementation. The whole thing is useless if your body can’t absorb it in the first place. The website says that AG1 has a 4.4x better absorption than “a multivitamin tablet.” What we don’t know is what multivitamin they’re talking about. There are many, and they all have different levels of absorption.

So is this in comparison to the most highly absorbable multivitamin on the market or cheapest garbage vitamin they could find? But yes, in theory it makes sense that a powder would be more absorbable than a pill. Keep in mind though that this was an in vitro study, meaning the data was collected from an artificial “gut,” not an actual human.

The other studies are observational. While observational studies can be useful, they’re arguably the least reliable because they’re all about self-reporting. The data is based on how people feel and perceive their bodies, which can be influenced and skewed by any number of things. So what does it mean that 97% of the participants “felt more energy” when taking AG1? Or that 94% “felt more calm”? These feelings could legitimately reflect the efficacy of AG1, or they could just be that—feelings.

On top of that, we assume that this research was done with the participants taking AG1 once per day, as prescribed by the company. What if it’s taken every other day? What if half or one-fourth of the “dose” is taken each day instead of the full scoop? What if it’s taken only on the weekends? Or at night? Would the results be the same? Would they be less but still positive?

Things to Keep in Mind about AG1

Despite the smorgasbord of vitamins, minerals, mushrooms, and more, AG1 doesn’t contain any iron or vitamin D. The lack of iron makes sense; men don’t typically need to supplement their diets with iron. It also contains very little fiber, which is really one of the most important nutrients that most people are not getting enough of. AG1 contains organic apple powder, taken from apple pomace, and perhaps this is where the fiber comes from. Granted, the purpose of the apple powder is to provide prebiotics, not fiber. Even so, you can just eat an apple.

If you are on medications, be careful with products like AG1. With 75 ingredients, AG1 can interfere with a number of medications. And if you smoke, you also need to take caution. Some vitamins can actually increase certain health risks in smokers. For example, high doses of B6 and B12 have been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer in male smokers. Beta-carotene and vitamin A can also increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers.

Who Really Needs AG1?

If you’re young, active, and eat a fairly healthy diet with a lot of whole foods full of essential nutrients, including fruits and vegetables, it’s unlikely that you will get an enormous benefit from a greens powder product like AG1. If you struggle with unhealthy food addictions and fail to consume a reasonable amount of fruits and vegetables, perhaps you could consider it.

If you decide to take it for whatever reason, we recommend that you first go to your doctor and get a blood test. This will in essence be your “control” data and give you a sense of where your health stands before you start supplementing. When you do start using AG1, start with a half dose or less, or take it every other day.

Do this for roughly three months and get another blood test to see what has changed. Although attempting to gauge how you “feel” can be subjective, it’s certainly still worth doing. Just be sure to be objective. Don’t try to tell yourself you feel better simply because you want the product to work. Consider asking family or close friends if they notice any positive changes in your behavior. If you really want to get measurable data, you can track bowel movements, how often you are able to get out of bed earlier, increases in your exercise results, and so forth.

Final Thoughts on AG1

Admittedly, we’ve been rather critical of AG1 in this review. We aren’t trying to say that it’s a completely worthless form of supplementation or that you won’t notice any positive results from consuming it. You may very well gain some health benefits with AG1. But it’s important to examine supplements with a critical eye. There is virtually no regulation on supplements in the United States. Companies can get away with a lot so long as they slap on that DSHEA disclaimer.

Thankfully, Athletic Greens does not seem to be one of those sketchy companies. They seem to be very concerned about the safety of AG1. It’s NSF certified. You might be wondering what that is. The NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) is a nonprofit testing agency for various products. To be NSF certified means a product has been tested by this third party and found to be safe for consumption and to be actually what the company claims it to be. So good on Athletic Greens for doing that for AG1. This means that what’s on the label is actually what’s in the product.

But whether you really need to be taking a scoop of AG1 (or other greens powders) every single day for the rest of your life is a different story. Ultimately, we urge caution. Caution with your health, and caution with your wallet. Be critical of any company that says you need to use their expensive product every single day, regardless of how promising the results seem to be.