Plate V.
In plain words
Three capsules that work on wear rather than illness.
These are food supplements, not medicines and not immune boosters. Two of them supply nutrients with an authorised European sentence about protecting cells from oxidative stress. The third is described only by what is in it, because European law has authorised no wording for curcumin at all.
Astazandra
Soft capsule, 30
Astaxanthin from algae with 60 mg of vitamin C and 10 mg of vitamin E.
Dynamin Forte
Capsule, 20
Seven essential amino acids with vitamins A, C, D, E and the B group.
Longimin
Capsule, 30 and 60. The 60 is one month.
125 mg per capsule of a turmeric preparation standardised to 40 per cent curcuminoids, in a lipid matrix. Two capsules a day.
How many, and when
Two capsules daily for Longimin, which is 250 mg of Maxicuma and 100 mg of curcuminoids. For Astazandra and Dynamin Forte the daily amount is on the carton and not yet on this page.
What these will not do
None of these prevents or treats an infection, and none of them is a substitute for rest, food or medical attention. Turmeric carries one caution worth reading properly rather than in the abstract. Curcumin has been associated with liver injury, and the reported cases mostly involved 500 to over 1,000 milligrams a day, usually after one to four months of taking it. Longimin carries 100 milligrams of curcuminoids a day, which is at the bottom of that range, and the piperine that appears in many of those reports is not in it. If you have liver disease, take a medicine that affects the liver, or are on a blood thinner, ask a doctor before taking it.
00 / The body’s own defences
The word this category runs on
is not a word we may use.
Every product in this segment would ordinarily be sold as an antioxidant. Antioxidant is not a permitted claim. It appears nowhere in the list of authorised nutrition claims, and no health claim using it has ever been approved. So this page is about what is left once the word is taken away, which turns out to be one sentence and a lot of arithmetic.
01 / What is authorised
One sentence, six nutrients.
European law authorises a single wording for protection against oxidative damage, and it attaches to six named nutrients rather than to the idea. A product may use it only if it supplies at least fifteen per cent of the European reference value for whichever of the six it is relying on.
Vitamin C contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Vitamin E contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Selenium contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Copper contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Manganese contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Riboflavin contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress
Astaxanthin is not on that list. Neither is curcumin, nor any carotenoid, nor any polyphenol. Applications have been made and none has succeeded. That is not a comment on the science, which is a separate argument. It is a statement about what has been authorised, which is the only thing a label may rely on.
02 / The three
What each one actually contains.
Three products, and only two of them can carry the sentence above. The third is described by its composition, because that is all the law allows and all we are prepared to write.
01
Astazandra
Soft capsule · 30
Astaxanthin from Haematococcus pluvialis algae, with 60 mg of vitamin C and 10 mg of vitamin E. Vitamin C contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. Vitamin E contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. Both clear the fifteen per cent threshold comfortably.
Not claimed: anything at all for the astaxanthin, which is the ingredient the product is named after and the reason it exists. It has no authorised claim in Europe.
02
Dynamin Forte
Capsule · 20
Seven essential amino acids with vitamins A, C, D, E and the B group. Vitamin C and vitamin E each contribute to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. Several of the B vitamins carry authorised claims for energy-yielding metabolism and for the reduction of tiredness and fatigue.
Not claimed: anything at all for the amino acids, which are seven of the nine the body cannot build for itself and the reason the capsule exists. None of them carries an authorised European claim.
03
Longimin
Capsule · 30 and 60
125 mg of Maxicuma per capsule, a turmeric preparation standardised to 40 per cent curcuminoids in a lecithin matrix, taken as two capsules daily. One hundred milligrams of curcuminoids a day, against three hundred and eighty in the formulation it replaces.
Not claimed: anything at all for the curcumin. Turmeric sits on the on-hold list, which means no wording has been authorised and none may be used. What we can state is how much of it reaches the blood, and that is a measurement of the product rather than a claim about the body.
04 / What is in it
Less curcumin. More of it absorbed.
One active, named and standardised, in a lipid matrix that changes how much of it arrives. The extract is identified rather than described, because an unnamed extract is a question a practitioner cannot answer.
Longimin, one capsule. The daily dose is two.
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Maxicuma curcumin dry extract, 40% curcuminoids
125 mg
no NRV
no minimum
The formulation this one replaces carried four hundred milligrams of a ninety-five per cent extract, which is three hundred and eighty milligrams of curcuminoids, together with piperine and medium chain triglycerides to help absorb it, in a single daily capsule. The dose here is two capsules, which is two hundred and fifty milligrams of Maxicuma and one hundred milligrams of curcuminoids. Scaling the study above to those two doses, this one delivers close to twice the free curcumin from nearly four times less curcuminoid. Piperine was removed deliberately: it raises curcumin absorption sharply, and the case reports of liver injury with curcumin cluster in exactly those enhanced absorption formulations. One question about this preparation is still open. Whether the encapsulation and particle size reduction used to make it bring it inside the novel food regulation is not settled, it is listed on our corrections page, and it will stay there until it is answered.
Free curcumin in plasma, area under the curve
Micronised curcumin, 95%
863
Maxicuma, 40%
2,686
Equal weights of material, fifteen hundred milligrams of each, in a crossover study in fourteen healthy adults. Measured as free unconjugated curcumin rather than as total curcuminoids, which is the fraction that reaches tissue. Three point one one times.
Four things about the evidence above. The study is open-label and it is not randomised. It was funded by India Glycols, which makes the ingredient. It is published in a journal whose publisher appears on the Beall archive of potential predatory publishers, and it is not indexed in PubMed. We show it because it is the only human data on this preparation and because the quantity it measures, free unconjugated curcumin rather than total curcuminoids, is the right one. A practitioner who decides that a single sponsor-funded open-label study is not enough would be reading it correctly.
05 / What is in Dynamin Forte
Seven amino acids, eleven vitamins, one removal.
The change in this formulation is a subtraction. 2-amino-5-hydroxybenzoic acid has been taken out. It had no standing as a food supplement ingredient in the European Union and no dossier we could read, and it has been an open item on our corrections page since we found it. What is left is a capsule that can be read line by line.
Dynamin Forte, one capsule. The amino acids.
Amino acid and form
In ours
Claim
L-lysine hydrochloride
25.0 mg
none
L-methionine
18.4 mg
none
L-leucine
18.3 mg
none
L-valine
6.7 mg
none
L-isoleucine
5.9 mg
none
L-tryptophan
5.0 mg
none
L-threonine
4.2 mg
none
Seven of the nine amino acids a human body cannot build for itself. Not one of them carries an authorised European claim, so we say what is in the capsule and stop there. The previous formulation also carried phenylalanine; it is not in this one.
Dynamin Forte, one capsule. The vitamins.
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Vitamin B12, cyanocobalamin
25 mcg
1000%
0.38 mcg
Thiamin, from thiamine mononitrate
4.05 mg
368%
0.17 mg
Niacin, as nicotinamide
25 mg
156%
2.4 mg
Riboflavin
3.0 mg
214%
0.21 mg
Folate, as folic acid
400 mcg
200%
30 mcg
Vitamin D3, colecalciferol
5 mcg
100%
0.75 mcg
Vitamin A, as retinyl palmitate
750 mcg RE
94%
120 mcg
Vitamin B6, from pyridoxine hydrochloride
1.23 mg
88%
0.21 mg
Pantothenic acid, from calcium D-pantothenate
4.6 mg
77%
0.9 mg
Vitamin C, ascorbic acid
40 mg
50%
12 mg
Vitamin E, from dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate
5.0 mg
42%
1.8 mg
Four of these figures are conversions rather than transcriptions of the manufacturing sheet. Thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride and calcium D-pantothenate are salts, and European labelling asks for the vitamin rather than the salt, so 5.0 mg of the salt becomes 4.05 mg of thiamin, 1.5 mg becomes 1.23 mg of vitamin B6, and 5.0 mg becomes 4.6 mg of pantothenic acid. Vitamin E is supplied as 7.5 international units of dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate, which is 5.0 mg expressed as alpha-tocopherol equivalent. We show the converted number because that is the number a label has to carry.
Five of the eleven sit below their reference value and all five clear the fifteen per cent threshold, which is the line at which a nutrient may be declared at all. Two sit well above it. Vitamin B12 at twenty-five micrograms is ten times what the previous formulation carried and there is no upper limit set for it; thiamin has no upper limit either. Neither is an accident and neither is a claim.
06 / What is in Astazandra
Named after the thing it may not mention.
Astaxanthin is the reason this product exists and the reason it is called what it is. It carries no authorised European wording, so every permitted sentence on this page comes from the vitamin C and the vitamin E sitting beneath it. That is an awkward thing to design a label around and we would rather name the awkwardness than work around it.
Astazandra, one capsule
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
AstaReal Haematococcus pluvialis powder 84 mg, providing astaxanthin
4 mg
no NRV
no minimum
Vitamin E, as D-alpha-tocopherol
10 mg
83%
1.8 mg
Vitamin C, ascorbic acid
60 mg
75%
12 mg
The astaxanthin is named to its source and its marker: 84 milligrams of Haematococcus pluvialis powder delivering 4 milligrams of astaxanthin. An algal powder quoted without its astaxanthin content is a weight, not a dose. The vitamin E is the natural D-alpha form rather than the synthetic acetate used in Dynamin Forte, and the reasoning for preferring it is set out on the skin barrier page.
07 / The curcumin safety signal, in full
A susceptibility more than a dose.
The warning most curcumin products give, where they give one at all, is that liver injury has been reported. That is true and it is not useful, because it tells a prescriber nothing about who is at risk or at what intake. Here is what the published series actually say.
What was measured
Reported
In Longimin
Daily curcumin in the reported cases
500 to 1,000 mg
100 mg
Range across the whole literature
100 to over 1,000 mg
100 mg
Time to onset
1 to 4 months
Cases, Italian phytovigilance
37
Cases, US DILIN series, 2011 to 2022
10
HLA-B 35:01 in cases against controls
over 70% vs 10 to 15%
The HLA finding is the one that changes how the risk should be read. In the American series, HLA-B 35:01 was carried by more than seven in ten cases against one in eight of the general population. That points to an idiosyncratic immune-mediated reaction in a susceptible minority rather than a straightforward relationship between dose and toxicity, which is why cases appear at 500 milligrams while very large numbers of people take more with no effect at all. No dose makes it zero.
The dose here, 100 milligrams of curcuminoids a day, sits at the bottom of the reported range, and the piperine that appears in most of the cited cases is not in the formulation. Maxicuma is also a high-bioavailability preparation, and enhanced-bioavailability preparations are the class the case reports cluster around. Lowest reported dose, highest risk formulation class.
Practical consequence. Do not take Longimin alongside another curcumin supplement. The EFSA acceptable daily intake is 3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, which is 180 milligrams for a 60 kilogram adult, and two curcumin products taken together will cross it. If jaundice, dark urine, pain under the right ribs or unexplained fatigue appear, stop and see a doctor. Most reported cases resolved within one to three months of stopping. A few did not.
03 / The line
What will we not write?
We will not call any of these an antioxidant. We will not say that any of them neutralises free radicals, fights oxidative damage, slows ageing or supports immunity beyond the wordings authorised for the specific nutrients that carry them. Every one of those sentences is standard in this category and none of them is permitted.
An ingredient we cannot describe is not the same as an ingredient that does nothing.
Astaxanthin has a real literature behind it. So does curcumin. Neither has an authorised European claim, and the honest reading of that is not that the science is absent but that nobody has yet taken a dossier through to the end. Until somebody does, the difference between what we believe and what we may print stays visible on this page rather than quietly closed.