Polyphenol Blend
The polyphenol blend is really the bulk of our Vital Reds review, the first thing we need to establish is that typically proprietary blends are listed in order of largest ingredient to smallest (this is a legal requirement in some countries that vital reds is sold in) meaning that by the time we get past the beet powder the ingredients are likely to be in such small doses that they shouldn't be of any consequence. It's also quite likely that the beet powder itself isn't going to be in a higher enough dose to have the best effects as it really needs to be above 1000mg and there's more than 10 ingredients ahead of it in the vital reds blend which contains a total of 1760mg. Unfortunately it's not likely to be enough to have there known effects on cholesterol and blood pressure as some people may hope from vital reds.
That means that we're really looking at the carrot, organic apple peal, grape skin extract, aronia berry and flax seed.
The health benefits of carrots are pretty well known, generally it's good for skin health and the immune system, but not much beyond that. We'll assume it's within a high enough dose to be effective for this. The apple peal doesn't really do all too much. Grape Skin Extract however is particularly interesting. This contains resveratrol, which has numerous health benefits. It's been shown to be effective at relieving joint pain, and it has numerous applications as a cognitive booster, making its way into most of the best memory supplements and nootropics on the market right now, it's being studied for numerous medical applications and typically only needs to be dosed in and around 100mg to have an impact, so this is a nice touch for vital reds. Flax seed is a source of Omega 3, although unlike algae or fish, it is made up of ALA (one of the 3 main types of omega acid, the other being DHA and EPA), unfortunately ALA has to be converted by the body into either DHA or EPA and a lot of it is lost. So whilst flax seed are good, an algae source would've been better.
It also includes, acai fruit extract, blueberry fruit concentrate, grape seed extract, black currant, cranberry fruit extract, mango, mulberry fruit, papaya and a host of other fruits and vegetables in tiny amounts that largely only function to add another ingredient to their list.
Metabolic enhancing blend
The only thing in here that actually aids with weight loss is the green tea leaf extract, and that's not the most potent of weight loss aids. Generally speaking anything that comes in a powdered form is at a disadvantage as they can't use glucomannan as it expands and solidifies when mixed with water. Glucomannan being one of the most effective weight loss ingredients in dedicated fat burners. The green tea leaf extract is a reasonable addition, but it's generally a B tier ingredient in products that are designed specifically for this purpose.
And whilst turmeric has a number of health benefits, it doesn't really do an awful lot to help you lose weight. It's a great anti inflammatory, and helps your bowel, joints and even "ahem" has some impact on the gentlemen's region, but, it's not effective for aiding weight loss. The only evidence that showed that it had a benefit for this was in cases of metabolic syndrome. There is also the fact that the dosages for any benefits from Turmeric tend to need to be around the 500mg mark, and the entire metabolic enhancing blend is only 365mg.
In short there's some good ingredients with a lot of overall health benefits in here, just Vital Reds claims that this blend will boost your metabolism aren't true. Typically speaking the most effective over the counter metabolism booster is caffeine, and capsaicin brings up the rear, other effective weight loss supplements focus on reducing appetite or cravings or simply encouraging your body to move more (and caffeine is also the winner of the latter). There just aren't many natural fat burning ingredients in here.
As for the rest of the ingredients, black pepper fruit does help you absorb other nutrients more efficiently, but doesn't do much else, bitter melon fruit extract has been debunked, and ginger root requires dosages more like 3 grams to do much of anything so they don't really add all too much to vital reds.
Digestive support blend
This is a pretty standard probiotic blend, sure it will help a little bit, but like many things in our vital reds review it's nothing special. Taking a dedicated probiotic would lead to better digestion. And seeing as a lot of people combine reds powders with greens powders the latter typically contain slightly better blends. Get a cheap probiotic pill instead if that's what you're looking for.
