The right dietary supplements can help you to age better and maintain your health longer, but the effectiveness of a supplement depends on its bioavailability, which is your body’s ability to absorb it.
If you’re over 50 and in good health, chances are, you’re doing whatever you can to stay that way. Approximately 75% of older adults take one or more dietary supplements each day to stay healthy. Multivitamins are the frontrunners, but more and more people are also using special nutraceutical supplements to slow down the effects of aging.
Nutraceutical supplements contain powerful, standardized doses of health-promoting compounds derived from plant and animal sources. They can benefit you by improving cognitive function, maintaining healthy eyesight, reducing inflammation, and providing antioxidant protection. Some examples of nutraceutical supplements include astaxanthin, a compound found in sea algae, and pink-red flesh fish like salmon; resveratrol, found in grapes and wine; lutein, which comes from leafy green vegetables; and curcumin, which comes from turmeric root.
Taking the right supplements can help to slow the aging process and allow you to maintain your health and quality of life for as long as possible. Most people are confident that their supplement is safe, but it’s hard to know how well it works. As anyone who has shopped for supplements knows, the choices are overwhelming. You may wonder if there are differences between different brands, doses, or if one formulation is more effective than another. You’re smart to compare products, because they’re not all the same.
When choosing a supplement, the most important thing to consider is how bioavailable it is.
What is bioavailability?
Bioavailability is how well a supplement is digested, absorbed into your cells, and how long it remains in your body so it can do its job. The effectiveness of any type of supplement, whether it’s a vitamin, mineral, or nutraceutical compound, depends on how bioavailable it is, and that can be impacted by several factors:
- Is the active ingredient able to withstand the acid in your stomach, or does that reduce its effectiveness? A supplement that’s “packaged” to make it past the stomach may be more effective.
- Does the compound require water, or fat to dissolve? A supplement that dissolves in water will pass through the walls of the intestine and be absorbed more easily. One that can’t won’t pass through the intestinal walls won’t be effective.
- How quickly does the supplement pass through or break down in your body? If it’s too fast, your body won’t have time to absorb it, which makes it ineffective.
- Does your body break down and use the active ingredient just like everyone else? Differences in diet, health conditions or medication interactions can all play a role in how a supplement is metabolized from person to person.
Unfortunately, many supplements have poor bioavailability, which means you’ll get very little benefit from the active compound. Some people try to compensate for poor bioavailability by taking a higher dose, or a second dose of their supplement later in the day, but if the active ingredient in a supplement can’t be digested or absorbed, more won’t be any more effective. The supplement will just pass through your system. Selecting a supplement that’s formulated to have improved bioavailability is a much better choice.
Methods of enhancing bioavailability and supplement effectiveness
There are a few ways to improve a dietary supplement’s bioavailability, so that works better for you.
- The active ingredient can be combined with other compounds that help carry it across the intestinal wall, boosting absorption
- Ingredients can be micronized, or reduced to very tiny particles so they can be absorbed more easily
- A supplement’s micronized ingredients can be encapsulated, or surrounded by a special capsule-like coating which allows for a slower release, and more time for the supplement to work
MicroActiveⓇ technology uses all of these methods to improve bioavailability. Nutraceutical supplements trademarked under the MicroActiveⓇ brand contain active ingredients that are micronized for easier and more uniform absorption. They’re also combined with special carriers that help the ingredients move through the intestinal wall, and they’re encapsulated with a natural starch product that allows them to be dispersed in water, and consistently released into the body over a longer period of time. MicroActive products have you covered in every way possible, ensuring that you get the maximum benefit from your supplement.
Learn more about how the MicroActiveⓇ patented process works and why it helps to improve the bioavailability of the important anti-aging supplement astaxanthin.
A comparison of AUC of Astaxanthin in individual subjects.
Several human studies on the MicroActive® formulation, including the one used with Astaxanthin showed improved absorption. It was better absorbed in ALL subjects, not just a few, and it wasn’t just a little bit better, but 3.6 times better than the Astaxanthin in oil product sold by other companies.
If you want to ensure that the supplements you’re taking are working the way you want them to, make sure you ask about bioavailability, and understand that you don’t need to take more, you just need a supplement that’s better.