What changed with this Supplement?

Raffa asks:

On one of my trips to Austria about eight years ago, I visited a health shop in Vienna which was owned by a professor in biochemistry called Dr. Georg Birkmayer. They sold what they called co-enzyme-1 which was developed by Dr. Georg Birkmayer himself and was a new product at that time. http://birkmayer-vet.com/408_EN.0.htm

They explained to me how their product works and supported it by the research that Dr. Georg Birkmayer did. Since I was in Austria for a couple of weeks, I had the chance to do my research about what they told me and I even asked to meet with Dr. Georg Birkmayer. Unfortunately due to my time schedule I could not have the honor of meeting with him. I, however, was totally convinced that those people were telling the truth and their supplement is safe and registered in Austria.

I then went back to the health shop ,bought the supplement and tried it for a month. I had excellent results regarding my energy and overall well being. The product that I used was called "Good Morning Enada". I also gave a box to a friend of mine to try but he never did because he was not totally convinced at that time. When I stopped using the supplement, the benefits stopped a couple of weeks later.

A few years later I found the same supplement sold in the U.S. under a different name and a lower concentration. http://www.enadh.com/

So, I tried it. I, however, could not get the same benefits nor the same feeling of well being that I had with the original product. Therefore, I am starting to think that either this formula is not the one that I got from the health shop in Vienna or I might have experience what they call a placebo effect (which I doubt).

sorry for the rather long introduction, but I wanted to be honest and to the point.

Please, comment on what I have mentioned above and I truly thank you for all the information that you post on your blog and the time that you spend in answering peoples questions about supplements and health.

Thank you in advance

Warren responds:

Some years ago our formulator Prof. Dr Munem Daoud talked about Dr Birkmayer and had positive things to say about him. He also talked about NADA although I confess that I have not studied it in detail.

It is possible that the product that you purchased in the US is not the same as the one you purchased in Austria. It may seem to have the same active ingredient and name but the manufacturing processes may be different and there may be differences in the raw ingredient itself. We come across situations all the time in which raw ingredients seem to be the same but on further analyses there are differences to the extent that one will work whereas another will not.

If products are being produced by a contract manufacturer they will use the cheapest ingredient that meet the spec’s provided by the marketers. Often the marketer does not know the difference which is why sometimes two products which seem the same may produce quite different results. Not saying that this is the situation in this case…but it maybe!

One last thought. The products may still be the same and what may have changed is your. What works for some people will not always work for others. The same principle can apply to the same person given a long enough time frame. I will contact Dr Birkmayer and see if I can find out more info as I am interested in this. By the way the references to CoQ10 on the US website applies to the ‘normal’ CoQ10 which is called Ubquinone which is oxidised. We use the non-oxidised form in our Omega 3 / QH Premium CoQ10. Many people find that very good for energy. May be worth you giving it a try?