Brain supplements are an effective way to help people maintain optimal mental functions and brain cell health, and they can be especially useful for people who have stressful jobs or those starting to experience the mild cognitive impairment that sometimes comes with old age.
Brain supplements are not all the same though and they offer varied benefits, like preventing memory loss and subjective cognitive impairment, removing toxic brain cells, or enhancing brain and neuron function. This range can make picking the best brain supplement hard.
Some people will just pick popular options, such Neuriva and Prevagen, but this isn't always the best way to go. That is why we have decided to analyse Prevagen vs Neuriva directly, to help you see if one of these or another brain supplement would be the best choice for you.
The Neuriva brain health supplement from Schiff Vitamins is available as a capsule, gummy, or tablet. Each of them is designed to improve brain function, concentration, and focus, support mood, boost cellular communication and mental accuracy, and prevent impaired learning.
The two Neuriva ingredients that make up its simple yet professional formula are coffee fruit extract and phosphatidylserine, each of which is present in a dosage of 100 mg and fits into a serving size of just one tablet, capsule, or gummy a day.
Coffee fruit extract, also called whole coffee cherry extract and coffee berry extract, is sourced from the fruit of the coffee plant.
Coffee fruit extract is said to be full of antioxidants, minerals, and chlorogenic acid, which allow it to enhance cognitive function while improving brain health. Coffee fruit also has no caffeine, unlike coffee beans, so won't cause any crashes.
Supporters of coffee fruit claim it can fight free radicals, prevent oxidative damage, cognitive decline, damage to brain cell membranes, and issues like dementia and alzheimer's disease.
They also say it can boost overall cognitive function, immune function, and weight loss, and reduce blood pressure, the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and the impact of aging (1).
Unfortunately, coffee fruit extract is still going through clinical studies and its reported benefits have not yet been proven. This makes using Neuriva a big risk.
Phosphatidylserine is a fatty acid called a phospholipid that is found in healthy nerve cell membranes and is essential for optimal cognitive functioning.
Taking it as a dietary supplement is claimed to improve memory, prevent cell death and cognitive decline, improve cognitive function, and reduce stress levels.
The issue is, clinical research has only proven that supplemental phosphatidylserine can boost brain performance in the elderly. Although, healthy adults should get enough in their diet to support their cognitive performance, making phosphatidylserine supplements less effective, it's a decent ingredient even in this case (2).
This means none of the ingredients in Neuriva are proven to support brain health, which is bad in all supplements but especially in ones like Neuriva that are quite expensive.
The Prevagen brain supplement is made to improve recall, prevent memory loss, enhance brain cell health and functions, reduce stress levels, and promote a sharper, clearer mind.
The two Prevagen ingredients in its de stress formula are apoaequorin and vitamin d, which are packed into a single daily capsule or tablet.
The most abundant of the Prevagen ingredients, apoaequorin, is dosed at 10 mg in Prevagen Regular Strength and 20 mg in Prevagen Extra Strength, while vitamin d is present in 50 mcg doses in both versions.
Apoaequorin, is a type of recombinant protein first found in jellyfish, which is said to bind to the calcium in your blood. It is claimed to offer brain health benefits like being able to improve memory, learning, and nerve and brain functions, and prevent memory loss.
Unfortunately, not only are all of these purported benefits yet to be proven conclusively, but it has also been linked to side effects like constipation, edemas, headaches, hypertension, nausea, and stomach upset (3).
Vitamin d is easily the most studied and proven compound on either of the Prevagen and Neuriva ingredients lists. It is known to improve neuron health and brain derived neurotrophic factor, protect brain cells, and prevent impaired brain performance and brain fog.
And whilst 50 mcg is double the recommended daily dose of vitamin d this at least isn't likely to cause an issue, but can actually be supplemented far higher for increased benefit. Although, if you're older and on other medication then it does pose a great risk of causing side effects like blood calcium build ups, blood toxicity, heart problems, and severe itching although this is only likely to be an issue. (4).
Prevagen Regular Strength is admittedly quite reasonably priced, but Prevagen Extra Strength gets expensive very quickly and has a price tag similar to other far more potent nootropics. So in general we don't recommend it at all in most cases.
Neuriva is fuelled by coffee cherry extract and phosphatidylserine and supported by rice bran, microcrystalline cellulose, silicon dioxide, and a vegetable capsule made of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, carrageenan, titanium dioxide, and French melon concentrate pectin. Which means that it is looking a bit better than Prevagen's key ingredients are apoaequorin and vitamin d, in that there's at least one good ingredient in here (the nootropics that make our best list typically have a lot more for your money).
These are then supported by microcrystalline cellulose, sugar, acacia gum Arabic, casein peptones, modified corn starch, lactose, salt, vegetable magnesium stearate, medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) from vegetable oil, soy peptones, dl-a-tocopherol, tricalcium phosphate, water, and a vegetable capsule made of cellulose and water.
When looking at the ingredients in Neuriva and prevagen, it is hard to say which is better.
Both revolve around ingredients not clinically proven to effect your overall brain health, like coffee cherry extract.
In fact, the only ingredients in either supplement that is actually proven to benefit the human brain, vitamin d and phosphatidylserine. Which are present in better doses in cheaper supplements.
When it comes to the capsules themselves and the bulking, emulsifying, and stabilising ingredients, Neuriva is slightly better as it contains fewer and is the only one of the two to be suitable for vegetarians.
In reality though, the formula's of both Neuriva and Prevagen leave a lot to be desired, to the point that, if you aren't dead set on using one or the other, you would be better off looking for another vegetarian friendly brain supplement entirely, like Hunter Focus (which we currently rate as number one on the market), this has both of the two functional ingredients along with a dozen more that have actually been proven to work and in their effective dosages, unfortunately Neuriva and Prevagen have much larger marketing budgets so more people end up trying them.
Prevagen claims to be able to enhance memory and mental clarity and sharpness, prevent mild memory loss, boost brain functions and health, and reduce stress levels.
Other benefits also linked to the Prevagen ingredients include aiding memory recall, verbal learning, and brain cell, nerve, and neuron functions and health, preventing decreased brain performance and brain fog, and improving your overall health.
Neuriva's stated benefits include improving your concentration, focus, concentration, mental accuracy, mood, and ability to learn.
Its ingredients can then fight free radicals, prevent oxidative damage, mental decline, brain cell damage, alzheimer's disease, and dementia, improve immune and brain function, memory, and weight loss, and reduce blood pressure levels, stress, the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and the impact of aging.
The benefits that Neuriva and Prevagen both claim to offer are very similar, especially since they don't contain any of the same nutrients.
Unfortunately, these similarities also extend into the fact that both greatly rely on unproven ingredients.
As Prevagen is the only product that contains any proven ingredients in vitamin d, we therefore have to give it the win in this category by default, as neither showers itself in glory.
Neuriva Vs Prevagen Brain Supplement Serving Sizes
Both Prevagen and Neuriva use a serving size of just one capsule per day, so there is no difference at all between the two supplements in this category.
As for the gummy version of Neuriva, the serving size for that is two gummies per day, but this does not factor in to our direct comparison.
Which is Better Neuriva or Prevagen Brain Supplements Price?
Comparing the price of Neuriva and Prevagen may not be the deciding factor in your decision but it will likely still play its part.
Prevagen Regular Strength is easily the most affordable of the three supplements and is even one of the more affordable brain health supplements on the market overall.
The price does then go up substantially when it comes to Prevagen Max Strength though.
However, neither version of Prevagen comes close to the price of Neuriva, which is one of the more expensive supplements of its kind on the market.
Given that Prevagen Regular Strength is quite weak and both of the other options are very expensive, if price and value are big issues for you, you would be much better spending your money on more clinically proven brain supplements, such as Hunter Focus.
Neuriva Vs Prevagen Brain Supplement Side Effects
The side effects linked to the ingredients in Prevagen are fairly minimal. They are edemas, hypertension, headaches, constipation, nausea, severe itching, calcium build up in the blood, heart problems, an upset stomach, and blood toxicity.
Most of these are admittedly quite rare, although those caused by vitamin d are very likely as there is a massive dose present in each serving.
The list of side effects linked to the ingredients in Neuriva, however, is fairly lengthy.
It includes insomnia, nervousness, restlessness, stomach problems, nausea, vomiting, fast breathing and heart rates, headaches, anxiety, agitation, ringing in the ears, irregular heartbeats, diarrhea, calcium and magnesium deficiencies, issues with blood clotting, a flushed face, muscle tension, depression, fatigue, a lack of focus, and insomnia.
This would make it seem like Prevagen is a safer option, as the list of potential side effects is much shorter. However, the side effects linked to Neuriva are quite rare and some only occur if taking a dose of the ingredients far greater than is present here.
This leads us to believe that Neuriva is actually the better choice when it comes to side effects, as you are much less likely to experience them.
Prevagen Vs Neuriva Availability
Both Prevagen and Neuriva can easily be obtained online or at pharmacies and health food stores, and there is absolutely nothing to separate the two in this area.
However, as Neuriva also comes as a gummy form, we feel it is slightly more "available", as it is accessible for use by a greater range of people with different needs, such as those who can't or don't want to swallow capsules or tablets.
Neuriva customer reviews seem positive at first, as it has an average rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon.
However, when analysing the individual reviews, the positive reviews seem to almost all be from older people who say it helped them with mild memory loss.
Younger users, on the other hand, routinely said they experienced no benefits, while even those who did get some said that they were minimal and not worth the money.
Prevagen Regular Strength has an identical average rating score of 4.3 out of 5 stars, while Prevagen Extra Strength has a slightly lower average score of 4 out of 5 stars.
However, almost all of the positive reviews of Prevagen Regular Strength relate to its low price and the positive "reviews" on Preveagen Max Strength were just star ratings, rather than actual reviews.
In terms of the negative Prevagen reviews though, regardless of version, most users claimed that it did nothing at all.
This suggests that the customer experience with both products is equally disappointing.
Neuriva is made by Schiff Vitamins, a subsidiary of Schiff Nutrition.
Schiff have spent over 80 years producing supplements devised by teams of health professionals and containing only heavily analysed ingredients from around the world that are backed up by scientific evidence.
Prevagen is made by Quincy Bioscience, a biotechnology company from Maddison, Wisconsin.
Quincy Bioscience are "dedicated to discovering, developing, and commercialising ingredients, technologies, and supplements to support cognitive function and combat the mental decline associated with aging".
Being a smaller company by no means suggests that you can't produce great products, but very little is known about Quincy Bioscience, especially compared to Schiff Vitamins.
When deciding which of these two manufacturers is more trustworthy, we therefore simply have to go with Schiff Vitamins and their Neuriva brain supplement.
In this article we set out to determine whether Neuriva or Prevagen was the better brain health supplement. However, after doing a detailed analysis, we have concluded that they are both virtually as ineffective as each other.
With both relying on unproven ingredients, using sketchy studies to back their claims, being likely to cause side effects and to top it off they're far too expensive., Given what they can actually achieve, neither is worth risking your health or your money on. That is why we recommend you give Hunter Focus a try instead.
Formulated with nothing but optimal doses of proven ingredients, it will cost you pretty much the same, but it actually uses ingredients that work and has them correctly dosed. The supplement is welll known to actually enhance your brain health and not cause any side effects. This leads to it simply being a far better choice in virtually every way.
Or alternatively check out our best brain supplements list
here
.