Memocept Ingredients: Two Label Versions, Line by Line

The asset pack supplied for Memocept contains two label flats. Both are printed with the product name Memocept. Both give a serving size of one capsule and thirty servings per container. Both carry the same suggested-use sentence, word for word.

And then they diverge completely. One declares three B vitamins and a 151 mg proprietary blend of caffeine, tyrosine, theacrine, theobromine, bacopa, rhodiola and huperzia. The other declares niacin, calcium and five amino acids, every one of them quantified. There is no overlap. Not a single dietary ingredient appears on both panels.

They also name different companies. The teal wrap says Distributed by: LOJA EXPERIENCE LTDA, Aurora, CO 80011. The purple wrap says DISTRIBUTED BY: GEX CORPORATION LLP, PO BOX 12730, OGDEN, UT 84404. Different name, different state, different contact details.

There are ordinary explanations available. A reformulation, with both artworks still in circulation. A regional variant. Two products that ended up in one folder. All three happen, and we have no way to tell which of them this is, because nothing in the material we were given addresses it.

What we are not going to do is pick one. Choosing a panel and presenting it as the formula would be inventing a fact, and merging the two into a single seventeen-line ingredient list would be worse — it would describe a product that does not exist on either label.

So this page transcribes both, computes the ceilings for the one that needs them, and compares everything on both against the research. If you already have the bottle, read the column that matches it. If you do not, the sensible thing is to ask the order desk on +1 (507) 448-8190 which wrap ships before you pay.

The FDA's dietary supplement labeling guide sets out how a proprietary blend must be printed. “On the same line, you must list the total weight of all ‘other dietary ingredients’ contained in the blend,” and then, indented underneath it, those ingredients “in descending order of predominance by weight.”

Descending order is a real constraint, and it is the only one a reader gets. The first ingredient is the heaviest. The second is no heavier than the first. By the time you reach position seven, that ingredient can be no more than a seventh of the total, because if it were more, six heavier ingredients above it would overrun the 151 mg.

So: 151 ÷ n. Caffeine, first, at most 151 mg. L-tyrosine, second, at most 75.5 mg. Theacrine 50.3 mg. Theobromine 37.8 mg. Bacopa extract 30.2 mg. Rhodiola root 25.2 mg. Huperzia extract 21.6 mg.

Two of those become more useful still, because this label prints standardisations. Bacopa at 20% bacosides A&B means at most 6.04 mg of bacosides. Huperzia at 1% huperzine-A means at most 216 micrograms of huperzine A. Most blends do not print a standardisation at all, and those two figures are the difference between a ceiling on a powder and a ceiling on an active compound.

Now the sentence that matters more than all of the above. The rule constrains the order. It does not set a minimum. Every one of those seven ingredients could be present at a hundredth of a milligram, and the panel would still be printed correctly.

That is why this page never says an ingredient contains an amount. It says at most. Every comparison below is against the ceiling, which is the most generous possible reading of the label, and the real figures can only be smaller than the ones we have used.

Bacopa monnieri, fifth, at most 30.2 mg of extract. This is the blend's most substantial cognition ingredient and the position kills it. The professional monograph we read records that trial “dosages typically ranged from 300 to 450 mg/day” with durations “typically 12 weeks.” The ceiling here is a tenth of the bottom of that range, and at the printed 20% standardisation the bacosides come to at most 6 mg. The same source lists commonly reported adverse effects: flu-like symptoms, GI irritation, nausea, increased intestinal motility and muscle fatigue.

Rhodiola rosea root, sixth, at most 25.2 mg. Here the dose arithmetic is beside the point, because NCCIH's position comes first: “There isn't enough reliable evidence to determine whether rhodiola or its components are useful for any health-related purpose.” The same page records that rhodiola is possibly safe for up to twelve weeks, that side effects may include dizziness, headache, insomnia and dry mouth or excessive saliva, and that interactions between rhodiola and losartan have been reported. Losartan is prescribed for high blood pressure.

Huperzia serrata, seventh, at most 21.6 mg of extract. And here the arithmetic finally lands somewhere. At the printed 1% standardisation that is at most 216 micrograms of huperzine A, against the 0.2 to 0.4 mg/day the monograph records as studied for Alzheimer disease. The ceiling is inside the range.

We want to be careful about that last paragraph, because it is the only sentence on this page that reads like praise and it is not one. An ingredient present at a studied amount is an ingredient capable of acting like one. The same monograph records the cholinergic side effects seen in trials — hyperactivity, nasal obstruction, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, insomnia, anxiety, dizziness, thirst and constipation — and states that “concomitant use of huperzine A with cholinesterase inhibitors could lead to potentiation of adverse reactions.”

Cholinesterase inhibitors are prescribed for Alzheimer's disease. A supplement sold for memory is bought by people who are worried about their memory, and some of them already have a prescription for exactly that. The label's caution panel covers all of this with one general clause and names no drug at all.

And L-tyrosine, second, at most 75.5 mg. The monograph records that “manufacturers commonly recommend 500 to 1,500 mg/day”, and that the cognition study it describes gave participants 2 grams in orange juice. The ceiling here is about a seventh of the bottom of the retail range.

Start with what this panel does right, because it is genuinely uncommon. Every dietary ingredient carries a printed amount. There is no blend, no total with the contents concealed inside it, and nothing marked only with a dagger for want of a figure. Seven lines, seven numbers, and the panel can be added up by anyone with a calculator. Our addition comes to 665.5 mg per capsule.

And then disclosure does what disclosure does, which is let you check. The monograph we read puts arginine's “current daily dosage trends” at 6 to 30 grams orally in three divided doses. This capsule holds 400 mg counting both arginine forms, and counting the AKG fraction generously as if all of it were arginine. Fifteen capsules would reach the bottom of that range.

The NIH is blunter about whether the range is worth reaching: 2 to 20 grams a day of arginine has “little to no effect on performance”, and little to no effect on nitric oxide concentration or blood flow either.

Citrulline is the ingredient here with the best mechanistic claim, and it is furthest from a studied amount. The NIH records a protocol using 8 grams of citrulline malate, and gives the conversion: citrulline malate is 56.64% citrulline by weight, so the 100 mg on this panel is about 57 mg of citrulline. The panel carries a second citrulline line — 100 mg of the HCL salt — and none of our sources gives a conversion for that salt, so this site invents none.

Beta-alanine, at 40 mg, is one fortieth of the bottom of the 1.6 to 6.4 gram range the NIH records over four to eight weeks. The same source notes that beta-alanine causes tingling or burning at doses of at least 800 mg, so at 40 mg you will feel nothing — which is simultaneously a comfort and a measurement.

There is a category question underneath all of that. Arginine, arginine AKG, citrulline HCL, citrulline malate and beta-alanine are the standard contents of a pre-workout supplement, and four of the five have substantial entries in the NIH's fact sheet on exercise and athletic performance. NCCIH's digest on supplements and cognitive function reviews ginkgo, omega-3s, vitamin E, curcumin and B vitamins, and does not mention amino acids at all.

The niacin is the exception and deserves credit: 7.5 mg NE is about half an adult day's requirement, the printed 47% is arithmetically correct, and it is comfortably under the 35 mg upper limit for supplemental niacin. It is also the ingredient on this panel with the least to do with what the product is sold for.

And the calcium is the one printed figure across both of this product's panels that does not survive a recalculation. 18 mg against the FDA's 1,300 mg Daily Value is 1.4%, which to the nearest whole percent is 1%. The panel prints 1,5% — not the correct value, not a whole percent, and punctuated with a comma on a US label.