Left turn Clyde.
After reviewing natural T boosters for a while you start to notice the same things. You start to spot the usual suspects on the ingredients list.
In good brands this is because they’ve done the research and know what works. In the bad it’s because they know the kind of garbage they think they can get away with.
Ever now and again though, a formula goes pretty much it’s own way. And when reviews aren’t terrible that makes it all the more interesting. This is the case with A-HD Elite from BPI Sports.
A-HD Elite’s goals are familiar enough though.
It’s a the same old tune, but it’s music to our ears. The only question is how well can it deliver on it’s promise.
Well, we get off to a bad start. It’ll be hard to say exactly because frustratingly this brand hides some detail behind a needless proprietary blend. For those of you who don’t know what a proprietary blend is, it’s a way of obscuring the formula so we don’t have dosages. Just a names list and overall volume.
There are 5 names in that blend and 5oomg, so we could take a shot and say 100mg for each, but there’s absolutely no reason why you should have to guess this stuff. It’s your body, it’s your money, they’re your facts! Let’s take a look anyway….
Even if you’re familiar with the booster market we’re betting some of those are new faces. We’ll let you know if they’re welcome right after the scores
For some reason I expected a lot more from A-HD Elite than I actually got. Even reviewers aren’t immune to a bit of media buzz you know.
The idea of going a different way altogether with your recipe is intriguing, but in reality this is just a small selection of pretty under researched herbs, which for the most part may increase stamina or libido. There’s really no stand out T booster here at all.
Zinc is always welcome and is really the only solidly proven choice. But even there they’ve been a little mean with the amount and so you probably won’t get quite the edge you would from other, better products. Hard to see how half a gram once a day of this mix will help in any lasting way.
$30 is not expensive for a booster, in fact it’s almost leaning towards a bargain. Or at least it would be if we were dealing with a better effort.
I’ve said it a hundred times, there’s a difference between cheap and value for money. Sometimes it’s better to just hold fire with that cash and wait for a brand you’re going to get far more out of in the long run.
BPI Sports is a high profile company so if there were any big safety concerns, they wouldn’t be hard to find. All clear on that score then, but in just about every other department they could do much better.
For starters using a proprietary blend, like we say there’s just no need. The label of something you’re going to put into your body shouldn’t leave you with more questions than answers.
Next there’s the largely unproven choices. Only a few ingredients here appear to have had much in the way of human trials. Okay they’re from traditional medicine, but not all of that stuff is a miracle. These things need tested a little better before you start charging. There are no noticeable direct T boosters at all really.
For all we were unimpressed, actually on sites like Bodybuilding.com it scores pretty highly. There are a few customers who were disappointed but generally customers do report noticing improvements.
A-HD Elite is supposed to be taken alongside exercise, so it’s difficult to say what is down to the supplement and what’s down to work ethic in the gym. What would help us say for sure is a detailed official testimonial section on their website. We don’t have one sadly so it’s just user reviews, lack detail.
BPI Sports are a company based in Florida with a massive range of supplements and several high profile bodybuilder ambassadors to their name. Their range of products is divided into strength, performance and weight loss. Everything under that umbrella is on offer.
On the website they also offer help with exercise plans and you can buy merchandise. We’d like to see a bit more company background and obviously we take issue with some formula choices, but overall, you can’t fault them on professionalism.
Users take 1 serving of 1 capsule a day on a full stomach. Do this for 1 or 2 months then take a month off.
We’re not a fan of single serve supplements. Just because there’s no way one dose a day can keep you going for 8-12 hours. Your metabolism just doesn’t work like that. Especially not when you’re only getting just over half a gram a day.
This is another place A-HD Elite breaks with tradition. The most effective boosters favour 3-4 servings a day, evenly spaced across a number of hours to keep active ingredients topped up and working at their peak.
We can’t see anything here that would have us worrying about side effects. Generally this boosters problem is it’s not strong enough, not too strong or dangerous in any way.
Users can find a month’s supply at Bodybuilding.com for $29.99. If you’re in the U.K you can find it for around £50 (!) on Amazon.co.uk.
This is the one classic that makes the cut. You can’t make a grunge playlist without at least one Nirvana song, right?
Zinc is a must have because it promotes all the main building blocks for healthy T production. Luteinizing, human growth and folicle stimulating hormones all rely on you getting enough. And that isn’t always easy from diet alone.
15mg in the single serving you take a day is okay, but considering how important it is and the fact that daily tolerance is as high as 40mg, it’d be nice to see maybe twice this amount.
A member of the daisy family originally from Mexico, this flower has been used in traditional medicine to stimulate libido.
There’s not much in the way of clinical trials on humans at the moment, but admittedly at least one study found that at high levels, when the lab rat cage was rockin’ researchers shouldn’t come knockin’.
That said, until A-HD Elite ups the dose dramatically and we get a taller, less hairy studies done, we’re not convinced.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15159142
The A-HD Elite marketing rightly says this has been used in traditional medicine and pitches it here as help with stamina. We couldn’t find a lot of evidence for that, but did find a study suggesting it might have some anti-estrogen qualities.
Limiting estrogen is important because it’s at the opposite end of your hormonal balance to T. If one’s up the other one down. However there have been no human studies yet and there are better ways to control the female hormone.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763242/
This African herb has two main uses. Firstly it appears to help blood flow, meaning it can boost energy and potentially act as an alternative treatment for erectile dysfunction.
In lab rats at least it also seems to spark libido. But when it’s battling for a think slice of the 500mg, we’re unsure it will do the same for you.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18164568
This is the active ingredient in the spice Tumeric and it actually has a number of general health benefits. These include anti-oxidation and possible anti-cancer properties.
Where it might be useful in a booster though is it seems to raise nitric oxide levels in the body, again potentially helping blood flow and energy. It does this at a dose of around 80-100mg so it’s not out of the question you might get enough from a 500mg blend. As always though, we cannot say for sure.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23013352
This is an adaptogen, meaning it helps the body adapt to stress, prolonging exercise and improving performance. Most studies so far have been carried out on rats though, and at quite a high dose. The furry little subjects were given 500mg/kg of body weight.
Scale that up for humans and that’s a lot more than we’ve got here, so we’re not particularly hopeful this will be much help to be honest.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11931841
Well seeing as A-HD Elite has gone a completely different way with with it’s formula – pretty unsuccessfully in our opinion – it’s missing all the classics.
No vitamin D3, no D-Aspartic Acid, no magnesium or boron. Vitamin B6 is missing too, which would help keep estrogen in check.
You know when you go to see a band you love and they don’t play any of the numbers which makes them great, instead it’s all new stuff that’s just not very good?
Yeah, we are that guy standing up the back of the hall shouting for the hits. Come on guys, give us something we can be sure works. Mother nature has plenty to choose from.
BPI Sports A-HD Elite is cheap enough and has good enough reviews from some that it might be worth a shot. But from what we’ve seen there are better uses of your time and money.
