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I’m prepared to guess you’ve been served an advert for Athletic Greens — often known as AG1. It’s inconceivable to flee them in podcasts, and it looks as if nearly each wellness influencer on each social media platform has completed an advert for them sooner or later.
AG1 is a greens powder containing over 70 elements. Most of it’s freeze-dried vegetable powder blends. Mainly, as an alternative of taking a multivitamin or consuming an precise vegetable, greens powders like AG1 declare to be a extra handy solution to be sure you’re getting all of your important vitamins. The proposed advantages are higher power ranges, intestine well being, digestion, focus, and immunity. You recognize, issues that pesky dieticians say will come from consuming a balanced food regimen.
I take AG1 very first thing within the morning earlier than work. I really feel a lot more healthy and higher in my physique, say yoga-set-wearing influencers, holding up a glass of murky inexperienced liquid. In recent ads, actor Hugh Jackman faucet dances, annoying his downstairs neighbors, as a result of the “high quality nutritional vitamins, probiotics, and superfoods” in AG1 give him boundless power. He should drink it each morning if he’s to do eight reveals on Broadway every week, Jackman says with a toothy, affable smile.
Wolverine isn’t the one one getting a lift. AG1 introduced in a football-themed ad that it’s “endorsing” three pupil well being researchers.
“At AG1, we imagine that if you’re clinically backed, it’s best to again analysis that strikes science ahead,” a baritone-voiced announcer intones, over footage of younger lecturers posing on the 50-yard line.
Not one of the different sensible, science-sounding phrases hit fairly as exhausting as “clinically backed.” Within the wellness wild west, you’ll see that descriptor plastered throughout a sea of promoting supplies and falling awkwardly from the mouths of celeb spokespersons. The implication is easy: In contrast to the snake oil salesmen, we care about science. We do the analysis. We are reliable.
However what does “clinically backed” truly imply?
Scrolling by AG1 movies on TikTok, I see some skeptical dieticians and health professionals. Taking AG1, they are saying, will simply end in costly pee. Even so, the final consensus is that whereas AG1 may be expensive and multivitamins aren’t mandatory for many wholesome individuals, they do conduct numerous analysis.
What sort of analysis? To seek out out, I hopped on over to AG1’s Research Studies webpage. I’m greeted by big textual content that reads, “The subsequent era of AG1 is clinically backed.” Within the accompanying blurb, there are phrases like “analysis” and “scientific discovery.” Any claims, it reads, are “substantiated by a number of our bodies of analysis on elements and the completed system.” I’m instructed that the affect of AG1 Subsequent Gen is measurable. Subsequent to this lofty blurb, a hand holds out a petri dish-like disc with a small mound of inexperienced powder within the center.
All through this web page you see wellness buzzwords like “biomarkers,” “bioavailability,” “microbiome.” From time to time, “clinically” is sprinkled in for good measure. There are little explainer blocks with much more science-sounding phrases like “randomized, placebo-controlled trials” and “gold customary.” Charts and graphs accompany every part. I’m proven skilled headshots of the analysis workforce, a lot of whom have “Dr.” in entrance of their names and an impressive-seeming jumble of letters after, denoting their varied bona fides. There are extra headshots of science and innovation advisers.
After scrolling for what appears like an eternity, I arrive at a piece titled “peer-reviewed analysis” that lists every revealed examine, a short descriptor, and a hyperlink.
If I had been the typical client, I might not get this far down the web page. If I did, this is able to look fairly legit. As a well being tech reviewer, there are a number of purple flags earlier than I even click on on a single examine hyperlink.
A basic wellness advertising and marketing technique is to stay a viral advertising and marketing label subsequent to precise scientific phrases or ideas with analysis behind them. On this case, a advertising and marketing label like “superfood” can dwell comfortably subsequent to phrases like “probiotics” and “microbiome.” The previous simply means “nutrient-dense meals.” The latter two check with a kind of residing micro organism and the ecosystem of microbes that dwell in your intestines. Add the phrase “scientific” and modern packaging, and it’s straightforward to persuade everybody your product isn’t only a complement. It’s scientifically confirmed, and subsequently, reliable.
However what’s the level of scientific research for a complement? Medical trials are a should for medication and medical remedies, however aren’t required of dietary supplements, as they’re not overseen by the Meals and Drug Administration. Scroll down far sufficient on AG1’s website, and also you’ll discover this disclaimer:
These statements haven’t been evaluated by the Meals and Drug Administration. This product shouldn’t be meant to diagnose, deal with, remedy or stop any illness. Data on this website is offered for informational functions solely.
“The time period ‘clinically examined’ is context-dependent and will signify a variety of proof high quality. Within the nutritional vitamins and dietary dietary supplements market, it’s regularly used as a advertising and marketing time period reasonably than a standardized scientific designation,” says Dr. Julia Adamian, an inside medication specialist at NYU Langone Well being.
“In some circumstances, ‘clinically examined’ might even be primarily based on buyer evaluations or restricted observational knowledge. As we all know, this isn’t probably the most dependable type of proof, particularly when incentives are provided for constructive suggestions.”
To judge a scientific examine’s trustworthiness, Adamian pointed me to a couple standards:
- Who performed and funded the examine?
- What particular outcomes had been evaluated?
- The place had been the outcomes revealed?
That’s a superb begin. In science reporting, we even have just a few different standards, like analyzing pattern dimension and reviewing methodology. Positive, AG1’s website supplies summaries, however in case you actually wish to vet a wellness firm’s trustworthiness, it’s a good suggestion to evaluation the outcomes your self.
Of the peer-reviewed journals listed on its website, AG1 lists Vitamins, Microorganisms, Present Points in Microbiology, Journal of Practical Meals, Journal of the Worldwide Society of Sports activities Vitamin, and Frontiers. These are, in truth, peer-reviewed journals and never white papers. (Wellness firms typically attempt to cross off inside analysis, or white papers, as peer-reviewed, which implies different scientists evaluation the work itself.) That mentioned, not all peer-reviewed journals are seen equally. Frontiers, for instance, has many offshoots and a combined fame amongst lecturers after it needed to retract 122 articles in 2025 for unethical actions like improperly disclosing conflicts of curiosity.
On that matter: Of the non-paywalled research — the typical client possible wouldn’t subscribe to a science journal — all had been funded by AG1, and a number of other authors had been additionally AG1 workers. That’s widespread in wellness, nevertheless it means these aren’t really unbiased research.
As for outcomes, the revealed research had pretty clear abstracts and had been fairly sincere of their findings. I say they had been sincere as a result of in a number of cases, the outcomes confirmed there was little to no affect of taking AG1.
In one study designed to measure the affect on the intestine microbiome, researchers discovered taking AG1 elevated the quantity of two probiotic strains… as a result of they had been elements in AG1. This, they concluded, meant the probiotics reached the intestines. This examine additionally discovered no adverse change to bowel actions. Which means, in case you had been hoping this is able to assist you poop higher, this examine is wholly inconclusive. That’s partly as a result of this examine had a small pattern dimension of 30 wholesome adults. Anybody affected by digestive points was additionally excluded from the examine, more likely to scale back variables. Meaning in case you do endure from gastrointestinal issues, these outcomes additionally might not apply to you.
In abstract, AG1’s revealed research boiled all the way down to this: It possible received’t damage you to take AG1. It simply possible received’t change your life both.
However there’s a catch. The revealed research are for the unique formulation of AG1. The flamboyant graphs and charts on the prime of the web page? They check with knowledge from new, unpublished research for AG1 Subsequent Gen — a reformulated model of AG1 that you may at the moment purchase on the location.
The one reviewable data for the brand new “clinically backed” AG1 Subsequent Gen are transient summaries that had been offered at conferences final yr and footnotes on the very backside of the web site. Not each abstract disclosed funding, however the ones that did confirmed AG1 paid for these research. In a collapsible menu that’s straightforward to scroll previous, AG1 says it might take years to totally publish every little thing in a peer-reviewed journal.
After I dove down the AG1 rabbit gap, the objective was to look at how truthful its product advertising and marketing was. Wellness branding typically slips into science-washing — and that may be extremely exhausting for the typical individual to identify within the age of influencer advertising and marketing. AG1 has a well-crafted, slick advertising and marketing web page. Its adverts inform a coherent story that’s based upon many years of wellness and complement developments. And, contemplating that doing any analysis for a complement isn’t required, AG1 is spending some huge cash to doc that its product does what you’d suppose a freeze-dried spinach powder does.
However calling it “clinically backed” isn’t the endorsement most individuals suppose it’s. If I had been to grade AG1’s trustworthiness, I’d merely say: This product is sus.
