Alpha Brain Lawsuit Claims Brain Supplements Pushed by Joe Rogan Don’t Work as Advertised

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Alpha Brain products are at the center of a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the supplements are misleadingly advertised given that they do not improve memory, focus or mental processing speed.

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The 16-page Alpha Brain lawsuit contends that the marketing of the supplements, co-founded and promoted by podcaster Joe Rogan, is “blatantly false and deceptive” since even a flawed clinical study commissioned by defendant Onnit Labs contradicts the claims that the products bolster memory or brain health.

The case, filed in New York on April 23, highlights that two Alpha Brain competitors in the “brain-health hucksterism” arena, Prevagen, sold by Quincy Bioscience, and Neuriva, sold by Reckitt Benckiser, have each been sued in class action lawsuits and forced to remit cash to defrauded consumers and “throttle back their baseless claims.” The result of the litigation was up to $36 million in a claims-made settlement whereby Quincy Bioscience agreed to refund a percentage of the purchase price to defrauded consumers and a roughly $8 million settlement whereby Neuriva similarly agreed to refund buyers, the lawsuit shares.

With regard to Onnit Labs, which was sold to Unilever in 2021, the complaint says that the lone 2016 study, funded by the company itself, on which it bases its memory-, brain- and mental acuity-boosting marketing claims describes merely “a very slight improvement only in one aspect of memory and no improvement in other ‘cognitive domains,’” such as general memory, learning, attention, concentration and processing speed, among others.

“In summary, Alpha Brain’s claims that it improves focus, mental speed and memory generally are false as demonstrated by its own Onnit Funded study,” the suit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, the Onnit-funded study administered 26 cognitive tests to participants. In the only test where the Alpha Brain group of participants outperformed the placebo group, a version of a California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), Long Delay, the group was asked to learn a 16-item shopping list and then recall the information after 20 minutes, the case says.

However, no overall boost in memory can be claimed from the Onnit-funded study since the placebo group “actually outperformed the Alpha Brain group” in the CVLT Total Score and the CVLT Short Delay test, the case states.

“So Alpha Brain cannot claim that it improves memory generally when its own study did not find that Alpha Brain improved memory generally without qualification,” the suit summarizes.

In the other 25 tests, the lawsuit continues, there was no statistically significant difference between the Alpha Brain group and the placebo group, and in many cases the placebo group outperformed the former.

“Significantly, of those tests that were designed to measure attention, concentration and processing speed, there was no statistically significant difference between the Alpha BRAIN® group and the placebo group, which renders Alpha BRAIN®’s claim to help focus and mental speed demonstrably false and its claim to generally improve memory misleading. Again, the Onnit Funded Study clearly admits that fact by stating that ‘[n]o other group effects [other than the CVLT Long Delay test] reached statistical significance.’”

The plaintiff, a New York consumer, claims to have bought Alpha Brain supplements, which cost roughly $487 to $649 per year, on the belief that the products would improve his memory, focus and mental processing speed, backed by clinical support. The man experienced none of these advertised benefits and alleges the marketing and advertising of Alpha Brain is “designed to mislead a reasonable consumer.”

The lawsuit looks to cover all consumers who, within the applicable statute of limitations period, purchased in New York Alpha Brain supplements made, marketed, distributed and/or sold by Onnit Labs.

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