Indian ginseng or Ashwagandha is an Indian Ayurvedic herb that has been used for medicinal purposes over centuries. and it is derived from a small shrub grown in India, the Middle East, and parts of Africa.
The Sanskrit word "ashwa" means horse and "gandha" mean aroma so it technically represents a fragrant root that is mainly used in various Ayurvedic products.
This herb has been known for centuries but is only now experiencing major growth worldwide because of a burst of recent studies in pharmacology and medicine. Ashwagandha promotes balance in the body. It is an adaptogenic herb that helps the body successfully adapt to stressful conditions. Ashwagandha is one of the few herbs with significant effects on both psychological and physiological aspects of human functioning.
Some 0f the benefits in relation to the Health & Fitness Industry, which made this supplement very popular.
1. IMPROVING MUSCLE STRENGTH, RECOVERY AND TESTOSTERONE LEVELS
Ashwagandha supplementation is associated with significant increases in muscle mass and strength and suggests that ashwagandha supplementation may be useful in conjunction with a resistance training program.
a. Strength & Muscle Size
These are the study results where you can see that there is a significant increase in the 1 Rep-Max Strength and the muscle size of the groups who consumed Ashwagandha for 8 weeks.
b.Recovery & Testosterone Levels
Over the eight weeks, there was a significant increase in serum testosterone level in the ashwagandha treatment group relative to the placebo group (Table 5; Fig. 3). The increase in testosterone level was significantly greater with ashwagandha supplementation than with the placebo.
Higher Serum Creatine Kinase in the blood post 24 to 48hrs of exercise means slower recovery but we can clearly see the decline in their levels post-intervention.
2. IMPROVING CARDIO RESPIRATORY ENDURANCE
Ashwagandha Supplementation is associated with a significant increase in cardiorespiratory endurance which can help athletes to improve their overall stamina and endurance with different sports and strength training.
The test was done by conducting a 20m Shuttle Run at baseline and after 8 & 12 weeks of consumption of Ashwagandha.
Study Link: Efficacy of Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera [L.] Dunal) in improving cardiorespiratory endurance in healthy athletic adults
3. STRESS/WEIGHT MANAGEMENT CONNECTION
It is seen that as the ashwagandha helps in the reduction of overall stress levels by reducing the cortisol levels, this trait also helps in a weight reduction of many individuals who are also dealing with stress and anxiety issues.
The study was done on the individuals who had a Perceived Stress Scale(PSS) of over 20 and a BMI index between 25 and 39.9.
4. IMPROVES SLEEP QUALITY
People dealing with stress, anxiety or having insomnia symptoms, having difficulty in falling asleep found great help with ashwagandha supplements and even their sleep quality improved along with increased mental alertness and quality of life.
THERE ARE ALSO MANY OTHER BENEFITS OF ASHWAGANDHA SUCH AS :
Helps reduce stress and anxiety
Helps enhance memory and cognition
Helps maintain normal thyroid.
Helps maintain healthy testosterone in men
Helps promote sexual function in men and women
Now with all these benefits and no such significant side effects its pretty obvious that the demands for these supplements have increased a lot, and in the stores and online platform you can find a range of Ashwagandha Supplements with different prices and compositions which can be really confusing to choose.
Which one to buy?
Given that the leaves are plentiful and easily accessible, what reason would Ayurveda practitioners have to go through all the trouble to dig up the root if not their strong belief that the root is better? The pursuit of the ashwagandha root is notable indeed in Ayurveda. Even the very name of the herb (“ashwa” for horse and “gandha” for smell) is owing to the root which smells like a horse, according to Ayurveda texts.
KSM-66 Ashwagandha is a branded, full-spectrum extract, with the highest concentration of all major root-only extracts available on the market today. It is produced using a unique proprietary extraction process, based on “Green Chemistry” principles, without using alcohol or any other chemical solvent.
About KSM-66 Ashwagandha
KSM-66 is Ixoreal’s ashwagandha extract, created via a process that took 14 years of R&D to develop and refine. KSM-66 is the best ashwagandha extract on the world market today in the sense that it is the highest concentration full-spectrum extract available today. A “full-spectrum” extract is an extract that maintains the balance of the various constituents as in the original herb, without over-representing any one constituent. The ashwagandha herb’s efficacy is believed to be derived from a complex blend of active constituents. All the constituents need to be present in their natural proportions, which is why it is important for an extract to be full-spectrum. However, producing a high concentration full-spectrum extract is technologically very challenging. Only Ixoreal has managed to create a process that surmounts these challenges, and that too only after many years of R&D. The Ixoreal science team sought to introduce to the world the true quintessence of ashwagandha with all its benefits. Convinced that the essence of the ashwagandha root could be extracted without losing its potency, the science team dedicated itself to learning the nuances of plant chemistry and did what no one was able to achieve until then. With `Green Chemistry` processing, they were able to holistically extract all the root essence while preserving its natural healing potency. This proved to be immensely successful.
KSM-66’s extraction process entails pre-treating the ashwagandha roots with milk. For this reason, it contains milk constituents. Such pre-treatment is consistent with the process described by traditional Ayurveda healers and texts. However, the traditional process does not scale up very well. Ixoreal has taken this traditional method and refined it greatly so that it produces high-quality ashwagandha in a scalable manner, combining the traditional with the modern. Therein lies Ixoreal’s “secret sauce”, a highly proprietary process that took 14 years to develop and implement. The milk pre-treatment is important in our extraction process because this is in fact what leads to retention of both hydrophilic components and lipophilic components of the raw root, which in turn leads to a full-spectrum extract of such high potency. For formulators targeting products at consumers who are vegan or for other reasons want to avoid milk, we also have a version of KSM-66 where the milk pretreatment is skipped: this version of KSM-66 is vegan and milk-free.
KSM-66 is the botanical with the highest number of certifications. KSM-66 and its manufacturing have gone through the most extensive inspections and safety assessments in our industry.
These certifications make us clear about the purity and the potency of the KSM-66 Ashwagandha which uses only the root extract in the manufacturing process.
How & When to consume?
If we consider the study on muscle strength, size and endurance all the subjects were given 600 mg dosage per day for at least 8-12 weeks by dividing the dosage into 2 doses of 300mg once in the morning as soon as they wake up and other before going to bed at night.
From the study, we can conclude that we have to consume at least 600 mg per day consistently for at least 8-12 weeks to see some benefits out of this supplement.
300 mg twice: Early morning & Before bed
600 mg once: Early morning or Before bed
Which products use KSM-66 extract in India?
As per most studies,600mg of Ashwagandha consumption for at least 8 to 12 weeks have been seen to be beneficial, here are few products where you will get to see 300-600 mg of KSM-66 pure Ashwagandha Extract.
For more detailed information on Ashwagandha make sure to watch this video:
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