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Bacopa
A plant also known as brahmi or water hyssop, used as an extract standardised to its bacosides. It has no authorised EU health claim, it is in one of our formulas at 300 mg, and the trials behind it ran for 12 weeks, not an afternoon. Rare liver injury is documented, and that is behind most of the warnings on this page.
WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SAY
Nothing. There is no claim to quote.
Regulation (EU) 432/2012 lists no authorised health claim for bacopa, so there is nothing on the register for us to quote here. Our file records no EMA monograph for it either. We are not going to fill the space with something that sounds like a claim.Regulation (EU) 432/2012 lists no authorised health claim for bacopa, and our file records no EMA monograph for it. There is nothing for us to quote here.
You will read that bacopa sharpens memory. None of that is an authorised claim. The systematic review on file covers six trials, all 12 weeks long, at 300–450 mg of extract a day, most of them on memory, and it calls the research still in its infancy. That is a reason to include it at 300 mg, not a permission to promise anything.
WHY A STANDARDISED EXTRACT
No salt to choose. A bacoside content to meet.
Bacopa is a plant, so the choice is not between salts but about what the extract is standardised to. The active part is a group of saponins, bacosides A and B, and we specify an extract at 50% bacosides. It dissolves in water and tastes neutral, which suits a liquid, but our file also marks it as not stable in a liquid, and we would rather tell you that than leave it out.
Bacopa monnieri, also sold as brahmi, water hyssop or herb of grace. The parts above ground, from the whole plant, are used.
Bacosides A and B, triterpene saponins, are what the extract is measured by. Our file sets at least 45%; we specify 50%.
Water-soluble and neutral in taste. Our file records it as not stable in a liquid, and a concentrated form, at half the volume, is available.
There is no authorised claim for any bacopa extract, standardised or not, so the bacoside figure is not a claim argument and we do not use it as one. It fixes what is in each 300 mg, and it matches the kind of standardised extract used in the trials on file.There is no authorised claim for any bacopa extract, standardised or not. The bacoside figure fixes what is in each 300 mg, nothing more.
WHERE IT APPEARS
One of the twenty-nine carries bacopa.
It is in Cognition & memory, a base formula taken in the morning, at 300 mg. That is the dose used in the 12-week trial behind it and the lowest effective dose our library lists. Our file says to take it with food, because on an empty stomach it tends to upset the stomach, and to keep it away from the evening, because some people report vivid dreams.
THE CEILING
No upper limit set. Our own cap is 600 mg.
EFSA has not set a tolerable upper intake level for bacopa, and our file records no EMA monograph to give a daily dose. Our file sets its own cap instead: 600 mg of extract a day, added up across every formula in your plan. That is the top of the usual 300–600 mg range. Today only one formula carries it, at 300 mg. No limit is not the same as no risk.EFSA has not set an upper intake level for bacopa. Our file caps it at 600 mg of extract a day, across every formula in your plan. No limit is not the same as no risk.
Bacopa from every formula in your plan counts towards the same 600 mg a day. With one formula at 300 mg, you are at half of it. Our file also allows no more than two strong nootropics in one formula, and names ginkgo and alpha-GPC as overlaps.
Nausea, cramps, diarrhoea and more frequent stools, mostly on an empty stomach. Also a mildly slow heart rate and a dry mouth. Rare liver injury is documented in case reports.
Avoid it if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, for lack of data, or if you have an intestinal obstruction. Ask a doctor first if you have liver disease, asthma or COPD, heart disease, a slow heart rate, an arrhythmia, heart block (AV block) or WPW, an underactive thyroid or an active stomach ulcer. Under 18, only with supervision. Take it with food, and stop at any sign of liver trouble: yellowing skin, unusual tiredness, abdominal pain or dark urine. Liver disease rules out the formula that carries it. It contains none of the fourteen allergens that must be declared in the EU.
WHAT IT REACTS WITH
Three documented pairs. The rest are flags from its file.
Bacopa is one of the 140 ingredients in our library, so it has 139 possible partners. We have documented 3 of them, out of the 443 pairs on file: GABA, ginkgo and huperzia, all classed as low-severity matches. Its medication interactions, which are the ones that matter most, come from its own file rather than from our drug table.
Our pair table classes both as low-severity matches that can be combined. The evidence behind them is rated preliminary, and a match is not a reason to add one.
Our pair table records bacopa and huperzia as a low-severity match, compatible in a cognition BOOST. Bacopa's own file rates huperzia, alpha-GPC and citicoline as a mild added cholinergic effect, because they work on the same pathway. Until the two are reconciled, we show you both.
Anticholinergics such as oxybutynin and atropine work against it, and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as donepezil and rivastigmine add to it; both are rated moderate. So is a lower level of phenytoin, an epilepsy medicine, seen in preclinical work. Sedatives and benzodiazepines can add to drowsiness, calcium-channel blockers can add to a slow heart rate, and in animals it raised the body's own thyroid hormone, which matters if you take thyroid hormone; those are rated mild. Our file also lists it as a modulator of CYP2D6, and a weak one of CYP3A4, two liver enzymes that clear many medicines. No major interaction with anticoagulants is on file. The app asks about medication before this ingredient is ever assigned.
None of bacopa's medication interactions is in our drug table yet, and neither are the pairs its file lists with alpha-GPC, citicoline, ashwagandha, rhodiola and DHA: those come from its own file, not from documented pairs. Across the library, 443 of the 9,730 possible pairs are documented, which is 4.55%. The rest are not "safe", they are simply unchecked, and we would rather write that down than let the number look like a badge.None of bacopa's medication interactions is in our drug table yet. Across the library, 443 of the 9,730 possible pairs are documented, which is 4.55%. The rest are not safe, they are simply unchecked.
SOURCES
Everything on this page, with its reference.
Reviewed by VION nutrition team · last reviewed 16 September 2026
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