It’s opt or drop time. And what are we analyzing today? Aspire Bio-clear. I was asked by an autism dad if this was a good supplement. He sent me a message. Now, I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to detox. He said that this powder was recommended by the company’s website for autistic children, and he wanted to know my thoughts on the powder form because his son is 4 years old and has autism.
Aspire Nutrition Bio-Clear
I have to say I had never heard of it before, so I googled it, and bought it – it’s brand new, right here. When I start looking at it, it’s a daily supplement that is in the detox category.
Ingredients
There’s
- a brand of broccoli seed extract
- Bilberry fruit extract
- white mustard seed powder
- brussels sprout powder
- collard leaf powder, and
- wasabi root powder
So lots of powders. Kind of sounds like dried vegetables right? Okay, so how does this support detoxification? Well, it has to do with broccoli and all of that.
Sulforaphane is the molecule that this product is targeting along with some other powdered form of veggies. And it seems like a good thing. But let’s look at it, and see if this is actually worth $50. Let’s break it down.
The broccoli seed extract used here is a brand name, a very specific one, and it contains glucoraphanin, which is a precursor to sulforaphane. Please note that glucoraphanin is not sulforaphane. It requires the enzyme myrosinase to convert glucose into sulforaphane, which typically occurs when broccoli seeds or sprouts are chewed, crushed, or cooked. However, some products that use this brand type of broccoli may not contain the active myrosinase enzyme, meaning the body relies on gut bacteria to convert the glucoraphane to sulforaphane. And obviously that can be less efficient.
Mustard seed typically contains this enzyme, so that’s probably why it’s in here as an ingredient. You’re taking one compound, you’re adding an enzyme, and you’re converting it into sulforaphane. The effectiveness of glucoraphanin depends on the amount of it and whether or not this enzyme is present or available for that conversion process. It is known for delivering a relatively high dose of glucoraphanin but the conversion to sulforaphane can vary among individuals.
Sulforaphane
You might be thinking, wait, what is sulforaphane? Let’s start with the basics. Sulforaphane is a powerful compound found in vegetables like broccoli and broccoli sprouts, and it’s known for its ability to fight oxidative stress and inflammation. Let’s simplify that.
Oxidative stress
Oxidative stress happens when there’s an imbalance between harmful molecules called free radicals and the body’s ability to detoxify them. You need them to be in balance. In children with autism, research shows that oxidative stress is often higher than normal leading to inflammation, and many times neuroinflammation. Neuroinflammation impacts how your child develops and functions.
A variety of pre-clinical research regarding the role of sulforaphane in neuroprotection has been conducted with promising results. Only a few human trials regarding the neuroprotective effects of sulforaphane in the nervous system have been done. However, sulforaphane has very strong antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties which allow it to dramatically reduce cytotoxicity in the nervous system with apparently very little toxicity of its own.
Sulforaphane helps by activating certain protective pathways in the body, specifically the NRF2 pathway. So think of that pathway as a switch that turns on your body’s natural defenses, reducing oxidative stress, calming inflammation, and helping the brain function better.
The Role of Sulforaphane and Autism
There have been several research studies exploring the effects of sulforaphane on autism. Remember I’m talking about sulforaphane and what’s in Aspire Bio-Clear is not sulforaphane.
2014 study
In 2014, there was a randomized double-blind placebo control study involving 40 males with moderate to severe autism aged 13 to 27. Participants who received sulforaphane supplements showed significant improvement in social interaction, abnormal behaviors, and verbal communication compared to those who received a placebo.
After 18 weeks, the sulforaphane group had noticeable improvement but the benefit decreased when the treatment was stopped. That’s not good.
In 2017 a follow-up study was done and it re-examined those original participants from the 2014 study to observe the long-term effects of sulforaphane. The researchers found that the improvement in behavior and communication observed during that initial study when they were receiving sulforaphane was not present when the participants stopped taking the sulforaphane. So this emphasized the need for continuous use of sulforaphane to maintain positive effects.
Now I do not like that. That is not what I want to hear. You’ve always got to find the root cause, what’s the cause of the inflammation. You just don’t want to keep taking a pill to reduce the inflammation. Find out what’s causing the inflammation and work together to do that.
2023 study
In 2023, there was a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of those with autism aged 3 to 7 years old. And it was a 36-week-long trial. These children were given sulforaphane and the researchers concluded there was no change measurable.
How confusing! So does sulforaphane work or not? It took me some time to read each publication and look at what the researchers did. I used to work on clinical trial design when I was a medical strategist for the pharmaceutical industry, so I do have some familiarity with clinical trial design. So when I went into the details, the dosing is different between the different clinical trials.
The study in 2014 showed results had a dosing of 50 to 150 micromoles, whereas the 2023 clinical trial had a dosing of a maximum of 50 micromoles. So you can see the difference, right? And you might be curious, what does that mean in milligrams, because things listed on the bottles are not listed in micromoles. So if you do some chemistry conversions, 50-150 micromoles is 8-26 mg of a daily dose of sulforaphane.
Dosing and duration
You can see dosing matters. Studies show that sulforaphane can improve key symptoms like irritability, hyperactivity and social interaction. One study even found improvement in social responsiveness in children with autism after just 12 weeks of sulforaphane supplementation. So please keep in mind the time frame and dosing, those are the two things you really want to focus on when you’re working on improving something specific.
For the duration, the absolute minimum that I would give it to see if it was impactful was 12 weeks. That would be the minimum that I would plan to use it.
And then you also have to keep in mind dosage. You will likely need a higher dose if you haven’t addressed what the root cause is yet. If your child is getting toxicity every day and inflammation is increasing, you would need a higher dose to decrease that inflammation and see a measurable change in that.
So there are many different things to think about – timing, dosing, and also the environment that your child is in.
Dosing is always very important.
Opening up Bio-Clear
Let’s open this baby up and see what it looks like. Oh, it’s green. Oh, I was wondering what color is it gonna be. Well, it’s kind of like clay. Ugh.
You know, sometimes I am just like a little picky eater, kid. I see this and I’m like, “Ugh, no, I don’t want to drink that.”
Let’s see if this is unflavored. So for dosing, it says if you’re over 100 lbs, you need to take a full scoop. So I have about 8-ish ounces of water here. I’ll put one scoop in it.
Look, taste and smell
Oh, wow, look at that. It’s turning purple. Wow. Green, purple. Making me not want to drink it even more. Alrighty. Swirl, Swirl, Swirl. Mix it up. Oh, it’s like we got powder floating on top. That’s gross. So you might need more liquid. But then you gotta drink all this and I don’t want to drink all this.
Oh, it smells. Oh, no, it’s unflavored but it smells. If you gave this to your child, first off, look at the color. You’re not gonna hide this. If you gave this to your child, it has a broccoli smell to it. You know when you cook broccoli and it just kind of like smells up the entire house?
The good note is that it did all dissolve in. Let me taste it. There isn’t actually much of a flavor. There’s more of a smell than a flavor, which is interesting. Definitely a smell. If you gave this to your child, they would be like, “what did you do?”
Taste-wise, it is not bad. It’s actually not bad whatsoever. It’s just, I don’t know how you would kind of mask that.
A different trial
You know what? Let me try something else. I’ll just do a little experiment. The dad was asking for a four-year-old. I’m going to assume the four-year-old is less than 100 lbs.
This is like maybe 3 ounces of water. I’m going to put half a scoop. Swirl, swirl, swirl. Definitely got to swirl. It does dissolve. You just have to be patient and swirl it.
Okay, let me see if I just, like, drank this, you know, if it was like, ah, just drink it. Just drink it. Here’s, you know, you get a little something afterward and see if I can just kind of chug it.
The thing is, it doesn’t taste like anything, which is awesome. The smell is still there, although I’m getting used to it. So it’s just in my head, I’m like, “ew, I’m drinking broccoli”. I like broccoli and I like healthy stuff, but I don’t know, sometimes my brain is just “Don’t do it!”
You know what? You could probably make this pretty appealing because it doesn’t have a taste, which is nice, I’ve got to say. That is really nice. There is a bit of a smell though.
Opt or drop?
All right, so is this an opt or a drop? The only good thing about this is that it is powdered formulation, and I think that’s a great option to have. It is unflavored and it truly is unflavored, which is great. So you can kind of put it in things, but it’s going to turn things purple. So you might introduce it as like some new type of drink. You could put a little flavoring in it.
Personally, I would prefer to take sulforaphane directly and not have to be concerned about how my body would convert something into sulforaphane. The unflavored powdered is great, but I would actually just take sulforaphane directly. So for me, this is a drop.
