What are the active ingredients of tongkat ali
Version 1.0, August 2009
I understand that in recent months, a Malaysian producer of tongkat ali
extract has heavily promoted their product with claims of a scientific
standardization.
As if this were of scientific relevance, they stated that their product
is composed of 40% glycosaponins, 22% eurypeptides and 30%
polysaccharides.
Judging from the wide circulation of their product, it seems to be easy
indeed to fool people by using scientific-sounding terms.
The active components of tongkat ali (Eurycoma longifolia Jack) have of
course been scientifically established.
There is an excellent, impartial, not product-oriented scientific
source on the Internet:
http://www.ics.trieste.it/MAPs/MedicinalPlants
You can read a printscreen of the relevant section of the
above-mentioned page here:
_Plant.aspx?id=613
You can debunk yourself the pseudoscience of ”40% glycosaponins, 22%
eurypeptides and 30% polysaccharides”.
To start with, do the following:
On your browser, load the page:
Using Internet Explorer, click Edit / Find and run a search for the
following terms, one by one: glycosaponins, saponins, eurypeptides,
peptides, polysaccharide.
Only the term ”polysaccharide” is found on the page, listing the active
components of Eurycoma longifolia Jack (tongkat ali), but NOT as an
active chemical
http://www.ics.trieste.it/MAPs/MedicinalPlants_
Plant.aspx?id=613