Imagine an amount of a botanical extract about the average weight of a single small blueberry that can increase your vitality, relieve stress, enhance mental clarity, greatly improve sleep, boost energy and endurance and support overall sexual health and function. One botanical alone fits this description, and that is KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract.
Ashwagandha, Withania somnifera, is often referred to as the king of herbs for its unusually broad health-enhancing properties. As an adaptogen ashwagandha purportedly helps one to adapt to all forms of physical and mental stress with greater ease. But at what quantity or concentration is this so? In traditional texts of India’s ancient health care system Ayurveda, those who wish to avail themselves of ashwagandha’s great health benefits are directed to boil several grams of chopped or powdered Ashwagandha root in fatty buffalo milk, sweetened with jaggery, an unrefined cane sugar. Various recipes involving ashwagandha, milk, ghee, honey, sugar and other ingredients are recommended for various health purposes. Realistically, if this were the only way to benefit from ashwagandha in modern times, not so many would go through the trouble.
Thus, the question begs to be asked, how do you take a botanical that has been utilized by hundreds of millions of people for over 4000 years, and concentrate it in a modest package so cleverly crafted that you can deliver the health benefits of the much larger quantities of material as described in old texts? This is one of the questions that spurred the development of KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract.
How a plant is grown always starts the process of developing a fine botanical extract. In the case of KSM-66 the company has almost 1600 acres of certified organic farmland in Rajasthan India where the root is cultivated. Regenerative soil-building practices, natural composting and extraordinary care help to develop an ashwagandha with a rich concentration of biologically active phytochemicals, including the withanolides, to which KSM-66 is standardized to 5%. From here on, a bit of technological wizardry comes into play.
The development of the proprietary KSM-66 extraction method took fourteen years to develop. It is both a feat of engineering and of persistence. In fact, the “66” in KSM-66 refers to the 66th iteration of the extract recipe formula. It was at the 66th attempt that everything came together just right. Botanical extraction companies owe a great deal to the pharmaceutical world when it comes to technology. High tech distillation, percolation, evaporation and concentration methods deriving from the pharmaceutical sector help to transform raw or crude botanicals into standardized extracts. To make KSM-66 the company had to develop and make a purpose-designed system of custom extraction equipment of the highest possible standard of efficiency. Today five identical custom hi-tech extraction facilities make KSM-66, all according to a proprietary process that is state of the art.
Throughout the entire process of development, from field to finish, KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract undergoes continual testing, for levels of active constituents in the raw root and during various phases of extraction, to heavy metal, plate count and pesticide testing. After extensive testing in both the KSM-66 labs and in independent third-party facilities, the extract is finally finished. But that is not the end of the story. After all that expense, labor and development, the big question is does it work?
To answer this you need studies, real ones. And while many companies borrow science from others or investigate activity in a test tube, KSM-66 is assessed by gold standard means. KSM-66 is the single most extensively studied ashwagandha in the world in terms of efficacy. Over the course of ten years KSM-66 has been investigated in double-blind, placebo-controlled human studies for stress, sleep, strength and endurance, mental alertness and capacity and sexual health and function, with very good results. To date, twenty-six published studies, and two dozen more on the way, show that KSM-66 imparts impressive health benefits at a very modest 125 milligrams to 300 milligrams of extract twice a day.