We all know that vitamin-C is a very important antioxidant. But what’s the deal with liposomal vitamin C? Is it as effective as regular vitamin C or even more, as many people claim? We will evaluate the claims on liposomal vitamin-C in this article.
Vitamin-C is a potent antioxidant. Just a little amount of this vitamin can offer potent defense against harmful compounds that could damage your body cells. More so, this vitamin is essential for optimal immune function. It is also a necessary cofactor for many reactions involving enzymes in your body.
No sane person would doubt the benefits of this amazing vitamin. But then, experts have told us that the form in which you get vitamin C could make the ultimate difference in its bioavailability. This term refers to how much of it your body would absorb and be able to use.
Your body typically absorbs about 14 to 30 percent of vitamin-C from regular supplements. This seems quite low. So some experts developed liposomal vitamin-C in an attempt to increase vitamin C’s bioavailability.
More so, the absorption of vitamin C, when taken orally, decreases as the dosage increases. It is due to a phenomenon that experts call bowel tolerance. This means that your guts can get so saturated with vitamin C that it stops absorbing it.
This is where the liposomal variety of vitamin C is of great value. Liposomes are phospholipids. Experts thought of using them to encapsulate medications and supplements. When they do, the absorption of the medication or supplement, as well as its bioavailability would improve greatly.
What Are Liposomal Vitamin C Supplements?
You might already know what vitamin-C is. But then, do you know what liposomes are? The outer shell of liposomes contains the same phospholipids in your cell membranes. So they are phospholipid compounds that mimic the cell membrane.
So when you hear “liposomal” vitamin C, what it means is that these phospholipids were used to encapsulate vitamin-C. And because liposomes have a similar structure to that of your gut lining (as with other cell membranes), your body would absorb it faster and more easily.
This means because liposomes will attach to your gut membrane and bypass vitamin C receptors to pass into your blood. As such, nothing will regulate or slow down the absorption and reduce the supplement’s bioavailability.
Taking liposomal vitamin-C is, therefore, more efficient and effective than traditional supplements. It increases the supplement’s bioavailability. That’s why liposomal vitamin C is a more powerful antioxidant than the regular variety.
A study in 2016 examined 11 people and found that vitamin-C that’s encapsulated within liposomes is better. It makes 50% more vitamin C available than the same dosage of non-liposomal, regular vitamin-C supplements.
The only form of vitamin C that has a higher bioavailability of liposomal vitamin-C is intravenous vitamin C. Its bioavailability is 100 percent. But it comes with the disadvantage of being more invasive. It would require the insertion of a needle.
More so, you need a trained professional to administer the injection. Another disadvantage with IV vitamin C is that it must be slowly infused for about 1-3 hours. It’s not like liposomal vitamin-C that you can swallow at once.
Liposomal Vitamin-C Antioxidant Benefits
When we say that vitamin C is an antioxidant, what does it mean? What are the antioxidant benefits that it has?
As an antioxidant, this vitamin is quite versatile. The benefits are many. It supports human health in a lot of ways.
To start with, it strengthens the natural defenses of your body and boosts your immune system. This hangs on the fact that as an antioxidant, vitamin C protects your body cells from free radicals.
The problem with free radicals is that when they accumulate, they would promote the state of oxidative stress. This state promotes several chronic diseases. What vitamin C does is that it increases blood antioxidants by about 30%.
With that boost in blood antioxidants, the natural defense of your body would be highly effective. You will be able to fight off inflammation.
Aside from that, vitamin C also boosts the defense system of your skin. Your body naturally transports it actively to your skin. Its antioxidant function can help strengthen your skin’s barriers.
The antioxidant properties of Vitamin C also help mental health, it improves memory, cognition, and thinking with age. Low vitamin C levels would cause impairment in cognition and memory.
Remember, however, that vitamin C can only be good, to the extent that it can get to where your body needs it. High bioavailability confers the best benefits. This makes liposomal vitamin C superior for nutrient delivery.
Why is this so? The supplement would be hidden or masked with the liposomes. That way, your body absorbs the entire thing as a liposome. And the absorption of liposomes is very fast and easy because it has the same structure as the gut’s inner lining.
Are There Any Safety Concerns with Liposomal Vitamin-C?
Experts recommend that you take only 90mg of vitamin C per day if you’re an adult man. For adult women, the dosage limit is 75mg of vitamin C daily. The maximum dose, however, is 2,000mg daily. These values include both supplemental and dietary vitamin C.
If you are a healthy individual, you should be getting enough vitamin C in your diet alone. This is assuming that your normal diet includes fruits and veggies.
But if you are not getting enough, you might need help from liposomal vitamin-C supplements. However, because liposomal vitamin-C has high absorption, it could help treat specific maladies. Its effectiveness is way higher than that of regular vitamin-C supplements.
These liposomal supplements are generally considered to be safe. Generally, they contain only 3 components. These include pure vitamin-C, the phospholipid liposome, and sterile water. These components are generally safe, and the FDA recognizes them as such.
But make sure you read the product label. Be sure you can trust the components of the product, and there are no suspicious ingredients. If you do this, the liposomal vitamin C supplement should be safe and deliver maximal antioxidant benefits to your body.