How Core compares
Judge us on the same questions we'd judge anyone.
We don't compare on outcome claims or headline percentages. We compare on the things you can actually check: whether every dose is disclosed, whether the actives are dosed to the research, and whether the formula is built to be licensed where it's sold.
Four questions
The checklist we expect to be held to.
These are the same four questions we teach on the buyer's guide. Hold any focus stack to them — Core included.
Is there human evidence, or only lab and animal data?
Every active is graded against published human research, with the citations on its ingredient page.
Does the label dose match the studied dose?
Each active is specified at its own studied dose in the working formula, checked dose-for-dose against the research it cites.
Is every dose disclosed, or hidden in a proprietary blend?
No proprietary blends. Every milligram will be on the label — a blend that hides its doses can't be evaluated at all.
What are the honest cautions?
Published per ingredient — interactions, side effects, and who should be careful — before anyone is asked to buy.
Category patterns
Four common focus-stack patterns — and where Core stands.
Rather than name and out-claim competitors, here are the recurring shapes the category takes, the honest catch in each, and how Core is built against it.
| The pattern | The catch | Where Core stands |
|---|---|---|
| The proprietary-blend stack | Lists a blend's total milligrams but hides each ingredient's dose, so you cannot tell whether any active is at a studied dose or a fairy-dusted trace. | No proprietary blends, ever. Every active is named at its own disclosed dose. |
| The kitchen-sink stack | Twenty to thirty ingredients on the label reads as thorough, but the serving is spread thin and many actives land below the dose their own cited studies used. | A short list of actives, each chosen to sit at a dose the research actually studied — coverage of real roles, not a longer label. |
| The single-ingredient product | Honest and often well-made, but it fills one role — you end up assembling and dosing the rest of the stack yourself. | One formula that covers calm attention, mental energy, and stress-related fatigue together, each part graded on its own page. |
| The imported stack | Buying a supplement from abroad for personal use does not, by itself, tell you whether that specific product is authorized in Canada — it may or may not be. The label is what settles it: look for an eight-digit NPN and verify it in Health Canada's Licensed Natural Health Products Database. | Designed for Canadian licensing from the start — every active chosen to sit inside Health Canada's Cognitive Function monograph. No Natural Product Number has been issued yet; the point is that the formula is built to be filed, not adapted afterwards. |
For a named, label-by-label dose teardown of a specific competitor, see the cited-dose-versus-delivered-dose analysis on The Signal.
The Core actives
What's in the formula, at the doses studies used.
Four stimulant-free cognitive actives — no proprietary blend, and no passenger ingredients. Each is shown at the dose range its research actually used, with our own conservative evidence grade. The number in the bottle is finalized under regulatory review before launch.
| Active | Studied dose | Evidence grade |
|---|---|---|
| L-Theanine | 50–250 mg per serving across the trials cited here (Nobre 50 mg; Haskell 250 mg), most commonly 100–200 mg. | Evidence: Grade B |
| Citicoline | 250–500 mg per serving in many studies. | Evidence: Grade B |
| Bacopa Monnieri | 300–600 mg daily of a standardized extract (commonly ~50% bacosides). | Evidence: Grade B |
| Rhodiola Rosea | 100–170 mg daily of the SHR-5 standardized extract in the trials cited here; the wider literature spans roughly 100–600 mg daily. | Evidence: Grade C |
Built for where it's sold
A formula shaped by the rules of the market it's sold in.
Core is being built inside Health Canada's Cognitive Function monograph — every active chosen to sit at a dose that carries its own permitted claim, so the product can be licensed for the shelf it's sold on.
That's also why the formula is four actives rather than five: an ingredient earns its place by clearing the evidence bar at a dose that carries its own weight — the reasoning behind cutting a below-bar active is on The Evidence Standard.