Vitamins and supplements have gotten a bad rap. Despite a mountain of research demonstrating the effectiveness of supplementation, and a lot more pointing to the rampant vitamin and mineral deficiency in our country, suspicions still run high.
In defense of anti-supplement voices, they’re not entirely incorrect when they criticize supplements as “ineffective.” In fact, their critique is completely warranted for the vast majority of products out there.
As we discussed in another article, most multivitamins are utterly worthless, either because they’re formulated incorrectly, or because your body just can’t absorb enough of their constituent nutrients to make any difference in your health.
This absorbability issue—also known as low bioavailability—is a problem even in well-formulated products, as well as isolated vitamins and minerals.
Some nutrients are harder to absorb than others, particularly synthetic vitamins and certain plant polyphenols, but nearly all supplements are effected to some degree. Even plant-derived supplements, while much better than synthetic products, are only absorbable up to a certain point.
Hence the widespread belief that “vitamins are useless—you just pee most of them out anyway.”
New “deliverability system” increases bioavailability
For all the shenanigans perpetrated by medical science, it’s certainly tenacious when it comes to engineering solutions for pharmacological problems. For decades, researchers have tried to develop a “delivery system” that allowed for increased bioavailability of nutrients—and they’ve finally just about perfected it.
This is just one of many methods for getting the most out of your supplements, but it’s one that’s making big waves because of its incredible effectiveness and increasing ease of access.
It’s called liposomal delivery (and the process by which the product is made more absorbable is thus called liposomalization). It may sound complicated, but here’s the punchline: it’s a state-of-the-art process that makes vitamins more absorbable [1] Some sources claim as much as a 1500% increase in the nutrient bioavailability! [2]
This is revolutionary—you can feel the difference between regular and liposomal supplements almost immediately, and you can see for yourself how much your body is absorbing (because liposomal products don’t turn your urine yellow like regular vitamins).
I’ve been blown away by the positive effects that liposomal products have had on my life, especially liposomal vitamin C, glutathione, and turmeric.
So here’s how it works
There are a number of reasons why your body’s cells won’t readily absorb many nutrients. Primarily, though, the problem arises either because the nutrient is identified as a foreign agent, or because it is water-soluble rather than fat soluble (your cells’ membranes are made of lipids (fats), so water-soluble substances have a very difficult time passing through them).
This is where liposomes come in (the word literally means “fat body” in Greek). Through a number of different patented processes used to mix nutrients together with phospholipids, the phospholipids are made to form a protective barrier around the nutrient. The result is a microscopic liquid-filled bubble surrounded by fat—a liposome.
Liposomes’ membranes are very similar to the makeup of your body’s cell membranes, so they’re able to pass through your cells with much greater facility. Once inside the cells, they can deliver the nutrients they contain, and your body can put them to use rather than excreting them.
The process of making liposomes is ultimately nothing new—it’s actually how the body ensures that the nutrients in breast milk are delivered to nursing children. It’s just taken us a while to learn how to mimic this natural and intelligent design.
Why liposomal absorption provides major advantages
The bottom line is traditional supplements do not have the bioavailability advantages of the liposomal technology. Liposomal absorption is quite different from intestinal absorption.
With intestinal absorption…
- In order for your food and nutrients to be used, they first have to be broken down by your digestive system…
- Once they are broken down to smaller fragments, your body can then absorb them…
- Finally, these nutrients enter your bloodstream and your body is able to utilize them.
But with liposomal technology…
- The tiny particles of the phospholipid-coated nutrient create molecules of the nutrient coated with a substance similar to the cell walls themselves…
- The coated nutrient molecules can more readily be absorbed.
Another factor is the human digestive system itself. Enzymes in the mouth and stomach, digestive juices, bile salts (to neutralize the digestive acids), and various flora in the intestines can break-down and degrade the supplement.
Lipsomal technology protects the nutrient from being destroyed in your stomach.
The phospholipid shield that is created around the nutrient is resistant to digestive juices, alkaline solutions and salts found in the human body. This nutrient “shield” protects the nutrient from oxidation and degradation. Most importantly, this protective barrier stays intact until the contents have been delivered to the cells where the contents will be used.
To better understand how liposomal technology works, watch this short video below from Dr. Mercola:
How to put liposomes to work for you
Liposomal supplements are still a relatively new development, but they’re gaining momentum quickly. A number of fantastic products are already available, online and in well-stocked health food stores.
When selecting products, just make sure that the company can verify the existence of liposomes in their formula. There’s a few tell-tale signs to watch for (e.g. products in aqueous solution are much more likely to contain true and lasting liposomes).
If a company does not detail the process by which they create liposomes (some companies omit this information in order to protect their proprietary processes), just make sure they can offer some kind of proof that their product is what they say it is.
If you’re looking for a place to start, be sure to try liposomal turmeric. There’s perhaps no other single substance that offers so many benefits across the entire spectrum of health—pain relief, stress resistance, relief from fatigue, immune support, disease resistance, and more. Thousands of studies have demonstrated its effectiveness against nearly every prevalent health condition, including cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Turmeric’s one weakness, however, is its low bioavailability (this is especially true of curcumin, the constituent that’s given the most attention by researchers)—but liposomalization solves this problem perfectly.
We recommend this liposomal turmeric extract —it’s affordable, impeccably formulated, and incredibly potent. It’s a great way to enter the wonderful world of liposomal supplements…once you try them, you’ll never go back to regular supplements again!
- Ryan Greendyk a professional health journalist and writer from Santa Fe, NM. Yoga teacher and meditator, he is most passionate about helping others discover the gift of of holistic health, teaching others how to take responsibility for their own health and changing the World.
References
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634921/
[2] http://www.sovereignlaboratories.com/info_LDBIOAVAILABILITY.html
