People dismiss herbs as if they can't contain the most powerful drugs/chemicals.
I'm just skeptical Tongkat can raise test to that degree in an old man with long term suppression of the HPTA. It's interesting though but trying to figure out what was actually going on would require more testing. I can't recall the reason but Tongkat is banned in Europe. That poster on Reddit owns a supp company out of Arizona and it seems like he really knows his shit wrt analytical testing of herbs and so on. I mean I can't really judge like you could but he impressed me because a while back a hundred supp companies were selling "Turkesterone" (from Turkestanica Ajuga plant) and this guy came out and said NONE were selling actual Turkesterone! They didn't know what testing was actually needed, the different types of methods, to confirm the plant plus actives and so on. He said when pressed the Chinese said they either didn't know what they were selling either or knew it was something else. The supp industry is dirty as hell and even the honest players can get fooled.
Just in case you have time to waste and feel like skimming this, does this guy know what
he's talking about? If I'm not mistaken he's not a chemist or a scientist himself but learned along the way when he started selling nootropic drugs and research chemicals way back (and was busted by the Feds). Now no more grey area stuff.
The guy in the vid has a lot of equipment, but you can buy everything he described for about $2M max. On the surface he is correct- you use HPLC and GC-mass spec to analyze and separate drugs we. The spectrophotometers he showed- UV/Vis and FTIR are used throughout analytical chemistry- nothing fancy there.
i see they are located in Tempe, AZ. Not exactly a pharma hot spot unless you are involved in the cartels. You will find most legit pharmaceutical operations are located in clusters because of the logistical support and talent pool needed. It is a very expensive business.
They say they provide a certificate of analysis for their products. As long as it matches the lot number on the bottle, its legit. Lots of times companies give you a "typical COA" meaning it was done on a batch a while back. If you can guarantee traceability using an outside auditor then you are the real deal.
As far as being CGMP certified, that's meaningless. You self certify CGMP- meaning the company does it internally. I was involved in the CGMP process at the startup. I actually certified the equipment and that's all boiler plate.
The ISO certification is real but you need that to manufacture supplements anyway. It doesn't guarantee purity - it just means you document your processes.
The pharma company I worked for as late as August 2025 burned through 15 million on just one product - and they still haven't been able to come to market. They have all the equipment pictured in Notropics vid. In fact a lot more, as I specced, bought and actually installed all the pharma grade manufacturing equipment!
So my take is Notropics Depot is a reseller with a lot of bells and whistles to convince you they are better. Unless they absolutely guarantee their products with a lot number based certificate of analysis, they are no different than Amazon.
