Vitamin Supplement Delivery Systems: What to Look For

Choosing the right vitamin supplement is more than just looking at the ingredients. The form in which the supplement is in can make all the difference in the quality of the supplement you are receiving.

Normally, when you ingest a daily vitamin or nutritional supplement tablet, your body must work for up to four hours digesting and absorbing the vitamins and nutrients. During this lengthy breakdown process, a percentage of the nutritive value is lost. Even still, some supplement products do not even break down due to harsh fillers and binders, but pass to the small intestine. When this takes place, none of the contents of the supplement can be absorbed by the body. This is one reason the bioavailability of pills and capsules are significantly lower than isotonic-capable supplements.

Tablets & Capsules: One thing to watch out for in tablets and capsules are binders and fillers. Binders and fillers can include lubricants and disintegrates to aid the body in absorption, but these are added ingredients that your body does not need.

Gummies & Chewables: Gummy and chewable supplements can be appealing because of their colors and tastes, but most are very high in sugars and have fewer active ingredients, making them less effective in delivering the maximum benefit.

Liquids: If you do not like swallowing tablets or chewing chewables, a liquid supplement may be for you. Liquids may also have a great taste but, many liquid supplements include preservatives that can interfere with the active ingredients.

Isotonic: Isotonic, meaning “same pressure,” bears the same chemical resemblance of the body’s blood, plasma and tears. This means that the body has less work to do to obtain maximum absorption of the nutrients. The isotonic state of the suspension allows nutrients to pass directly into the small intestine and rapidly absorb into the bloodstream. Little nutritive value is lost, making the absorption of nutrients highly efficient while delivering maximum results with great flavor as well.

Everything you eat and drink, including nutritional supplements, must be made isotonic before passing into your small intestine where it can be absorbed.   When you eat food, drink a beverage, or take a pill or capsule, your stomach must first secrete diluting juices, enzymes, hydrochloric acid, and at least one vitamin-binding protein to continue the process of digestion. Muscular contractions of your stomach then mix the contents until a reasonably uniform solution is achieved. This process can take anywhere from 40 minutes to four hours.

The longer a supplement stays in the stomach, the longer the time before absorption can begin, because no appreciable absorption occurs from the stomach. Often the rate-limiting step in the absorption process is the time it takes for the tablet or capsule to disintegrate, and the nutrients to dissolve and equilibrate to the proper (isotonic) state to leave the stomach. When all this has been completed — up to 40 minutes after ingestion — the diluted, acid-attacked nutrients can enter the small intestine for absorption.

Nutrients that are already isotonic do not need to be broken down into an isotonic state. Therefore, gastric emptying occurs more rapidly. Biological sensors in the gastrointestinal tract detect that the ingested solution is isotonic and at a correct pH. This causes the pyloric valve at the lower end of the stomach to remain open, allowing the concentrated solution to be squirted into the small intestine by stomach contractions. Absorption of the nutrients by the intestinal mucosa then starts to occur.