Many liquid supplement manufacturers claim that because their product is in a liquid form it is more bioavailable.
Bioavailability is defined as the degree and rate at which a substance (as a drug) is absorbed into a living system – or more correctly, the degree or rate at which it is ultimately made available at the site of physiological activity. Different vitamins and minerals have different absorption rates regardless of whether they come from a tablet, liquid, powder, or food. Calcium, for example, has a fairly standard absorption rate (25-35%), and the form does not generally make a significant difference.
A well-made tablet provides a very effective delivery system and is the chosen form of most pharmaceutical medications. This is because tablets have been confirmed, through years of carefully controlled studies, as a reliable and efficient delivery system for medications. Why would vitamin and mineral supplements be any different? Does anyone doubt that an aspirin tablet is ineffective because it comes in a tablet?
Tableted products can also provide an increased amount of active ingredient (almost 3x as much as a capsule and much more than a liquid or spray). In general, the stability of tablets is also superior to liquids.
USANA tablets are formulated to meet United States Pharmacopoeia standards, which require full disintegration within 30-45 min. They are also formulated to meet standards for dissolution. Innovative formulations have been developed to optimize nutrient bioavailability. Each lot of USANA tablets is tested against finished product specifications to ensure that standards are met for identity, target weight, hardness, thickness, disintegration, potency, purity, and microbial counts.
Finally, liquid supplement promoters often contend that liquids are better because they don’t contain fillers (excipients used in tablets for disintegration, form, binding, coating, etc). This is perhaps the most illogical argument of all, since liquid supplements require many more “other” ingredients, including emulsifiers, solvents, preservatives, stabilizing agents, coloring, flavoring, and more. Generally speaking, the more vitamin and mineral ingredients there are in a liquid supplement, the more excipients that product will require.
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Thanks for reading!
The Smile Acapulco Team
