Alpha Brain Supplements Provide No Brain-Enhancing Benefits, Class Action Says [DISMISSED]

The proposed class action lawsuit detailed on this page was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by the plaintiff on October 20, 2023. 

Days prior to the plaintiff filing a three-page notice of voluntary dismissal, United States District Judge Fred W. Slaughter on October 18 granted Onnit Labs’ August 14 motion to dismiss the case. In a 12-page dismissal order, Judge Slaughter said that the court agreed with Onnit Labs’ contention that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the company’s marketing claims violated California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act. 

In particular, the judge found that several scientific studies cited by the plaintiff did not disprove the defendant’s marketing claim that Alpha Brain “supports memory, focus, and cognitive processing speed.” 

Judge Slaughter said the studies “did not test the Supplement itself or comparable supplements with the same active ingredients in similar doses,” meaning the studies’ findings could not plausibly support the plaintiff’s argument that the Alpha Brain ingredients cannot provide the claimed benefits. Secondly, the judge wrote that the parameters of the studies did not analyze participants’ memory, focus and cognitive processing speed, and instead focused on whether supplements could prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, whether supplements “modulated inflammatory processes in rat brains,” and whether energy drinks helped video game players’ performance. 

“Studies concerning specific medical conditions do not contradict Defendant’s representation about the Supplement that it generally supports ‘memory, focus, and cognitive processing speed,’” the order reads, adding that a study testing energy drinks’ effects on video gamers’ performance also does not “directly conflict” with the defendant’s marketing claim. 

The judge also found that the plaintiff’s allegations regarding her personal experience with the supplement “lack sufficient detail” and cannot, on their own, establish that the company’s marketing claims are false. 

Although Judge Slaughter granted the plaintiff leave to file a second amended complaint, the consumer instead voluntarily dropped the lawsuit. 

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