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What’s the difference between herbal and synthetic ingredients? Are synthetic ingredients better?

Great question! It’s a pretty straightforward answer. Herbal ingredients are exactly that, herbs. They’re all-natural and plant-based. On the other hand, synthetic ingredients, although derived from nature, are artificially created in a lab. Synthetics offer some advantages over herbal ingredients. First off, synthetic ingredients are only one active chemical (usually the most potent active chemical) found in a given plant or herb. Therefore, it’s much easier to get the desired benefi cial effects and consistent dosing from synthetics versus herbals. It’s much harder to accurately standardize every herbal ingredient for a specific percentage of a given chemical, and to do so consistently from batch to batch of ingredients. That’s why synthetic supplement ingredients (especially stimulants) often have much more powerful effects than their herbal counterparts.

For example, let’s take a look at the fat-loss ingredient synephrine. In nature, it can be found in Citrus aurantium (aka bitter orange), but usually it can only be standardized to 10 to 20 percent max. So, you’re going to need about 200 milligrams of Citrus aurantium just to get the effective 30-milligram dose of synephrine. But with the variance of each herbal dose, who knows how much synephrine you’re really getting each time? Instead, you could just take synthetically created synephrine HCl, and get a precise and effective fat-burning dose of synephrine every time.  When it comes to stimulants such as synephrine and ephedrine, for the best results I prefer the synthetic versions.