Liposomal supplements wrap nutrients in a cell-like structure to deliver through the and absorb in the cells. Learn how and why liposomal supplements work, and how to identify ones that support cell health.
Liposomal supplements surround nutrients with a cell-like ingredient which protects them through your digestive system, carries them to your bloodstream, and delivers them into your cells. Because of their elite absorption, liposomal supplements offer a potent way to meet nutritional demands and support cellular health.
What Is a Liposome?
Liposomes are microscopic lipid spheres that surround a nutrient and deliver it to the cells.
Think of a liposome as a miniature cell.
The cells in your body are surrounded by a double layer of phosphatidylcholine lipid molecules that favor water solubility on the outer surfaces and fat solubility on the inside.
Liposomes are identical. This composition protects the structures inside the cell, and the nutrients inside the liposome.
How Liposomal Supplements Work
Due to its fat-favoring core and small circumference, the liposome easily absorbs in the lymphatic drainage of intestinal cells before they circulate into the blood.
From there, the liposome can can merge into any cell in the body, becoming part of the cell wall while depositing its contents (like vitamin C) into the cytoplasm where they go to work.
That process is called reverse pinocytosis, and it does not require additional energy.
WHY TAKE LIPOSOMAL SUPPLEMENTS
- Liposomal supplements support cellular and mitochondrial health by delivering the vital nutrients where they are needed, as well as reinforcing each cell with phosphatidylcholine.
- Liposomal supplements can help avoid nutrient deficiencies by facilitating cellular absorption.
- Liposomal supplements may support absorption despite digestive challenges due to aging, mediation use, or gut dysfunction.
Benefits of Liposomal Supplements
Because of their cell-like structure and composition, liposomal supplements benefit the body in four major ways: enabling cell-level nutrient absorption, supporting cell health, minimizing digestive discomfort, and conserving energy.
Liposomal supplements support nutrient absorption in the cells
Many nutrients, including vitamin C and magnesium, do their vital work inside the cells.
Your body is designed to absorb 20 mg of vitamin C from an orange, not 1,000 mg from a pill. The sheer volume overwhelms your body’s nutrient transport system, causing you to pass most of the pill’s nutrient content as waste without reaching your cells.
Since liposomal supplements bypass these systems, your cells can absorb a meaningful amount of these nutrients.
When you absorb more of the encapsulated nutrients, your body has more to use for vital processes that keep you healthy. Stress, illness, injury, exposure to contaminants, use of medications or alcohol, pregnancy, and strenuous exercise can deplete various nutrients or increase your needs, making efficient absorption critical.
Liposomal supplements enable absorption without energy expenditure
Since the liposome merges with the cell, it doesn’t require energy stores inside the cell for transport across the cell wall and into the cytoplasm.
Health relies on optimal energy levels in all cells and spaces. ATP, the energy your cells produce, fuels almost every process in your body from the immune system to nervous system to detoxification to cell repair.
Substances like vitamin C, B vitamins, alpha lipoic acid, and magnesium assist your cells in producing energy. When you take them encapsulated in liposomes, you are not wasting valuable energy on absorption.
Liposomal supplements support cell health
The phosphatidylcholine that makes up the liposomes continuously repairs cells from damage inflicted by toxins, oxidants, and pathogens. Unfortunately, this phospholipid becomes depleted with age, necessitating a constant influx from diet. When true liposomal supplements assimilate with the cell, they not only deliver the encapsulated nutrients, but also these essential phospholipids. In addition to repairing cells, phosphatidylcholine:
- Supports healthy liver function*
- Is required to produce the chemical messengers that let your brain communicate with your body*
- Helps to maintain healthy cholesterol*
- Acts as an antioxidant in fats*
- Supports circulation*
- Supports exercise tolerance*
Fewer digestive side effects
With increased absorption, you have less need for excretion. High doses of regular supplements can flood your digestive system with way more nutrients than you can absorb, leading to gastric distress.
Liposomal Supplements vs Traditional Supplements
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Liposomal |
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Which Nutrients Benefit from Liposomal Delivery?
Encapsulating nutrients in liposomes is not easy, quick, or cheap. Many nutrients absorb easily in the gut when taken in pill form and don’t require cell-level delivery. Nutrients that benefit from liposome encapsulation are:
- Water-soluble: Because your body can’t story water-soluble supplements, any content that isn’t immediately absorbed is passed as waste.
- Difficult to absorb in meaningful amounts: Vitamin C, for example, follows a difficult path to the cells, depending on multiple types of transporter proteins that are in short supply. Glutathione, when taken in pill form, disassembles into amino acids in the gut and requires valuable energy to then be reassembled into the master antioxidant.
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Essential for life: Not all nutrients are required in substantial quantities in the cells. Essential nutrients are those the body does not produce, so must be consumed in food and supplements. Other compounds, like alpha lipoic acid, are produced in your body, but difficult to consume in meaningful amounts from food.
Who can Benefit from Liposomal Supplements?
Anyone seeking true cellular health can benefit from liposomal supplements — assuming the right nutrients are encapsulated in the right substances.
Specifically, people who have difficulty absorbing nutrients or increased nutritional demands may benefit from liposomal supplements.
- Athletes
- Older adults
- People taking medications
- Frequent travelers
- People with high stress
- People with difficulty absorbing traditional supplements
How do I choose the right liposomal supplement?
Only true liposomal supplements, made with the right ingredients through a legitimate liposome encapsulation process deliver these benefits. LivOn Labs owns the patent on liposome encapsulation for supplements. Keep that in mind when deciding whether any other brand can offer true liposome encapsulation.
Read the label beyond the liposomal claim
Make sure the following are listed on the Supplement Facts panel:
- Water: Phospholipids require water to form liposomes.
- Phospholipids: The best liposomal supplements have at least as many phospholipids as key nutrients to ensure sufficient material for encapsulation. On the label, compare the vitamin/mineral content to that of the phospholipids.
- Phosphatidylcholine: If the liposomes in the supplement contain this beneficial nutrient, the label will say so. If phosphatidylcholine is not listed in the Supplement Facts panel, the liposomal supplement will not confer the brain, liver, and circulatory benefits of liposomes made with this powerful phospholipid.
- No sugar: An effective liposomal supplement does not require sugar or artificial flavors.
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Few other ingredients: In addition to the water, phospholipids, and encapsulated nutrients described above, liposomal supplements require a preservative (usually a minuscule amount of ethanol a.k.a., alcohol) and possibly an acidity regulator (like citric acid or potassium hydroxide).
True liposomal supplements do not dissolve in water
A liposomal supplement is not doing its job of protecting a water-soluble nutrient if the supplement dissolves in your glass of water. A good liposomal supplement will be a gooey blob when placed into a liquid, thus easy to take as a shot.
Liposomal supplements should be individually packaged
Liposomes are sensitive to light and air. When a liposomal supplement is packaged in a large jar containing a month of servings, it is exposed to oxygen upon each opening, degrading the liposomes and making them less effective. Single-dose packets keep liposomal supplements fresh and in the best condition to maximize absorption. Liposomal supplements can be a powerful way to meet nutrient needs. Just make sure you buy the real ones.
WHERE DID LIPOSOMAL SUPPLEMENTS COME FROM
The pharmaceutical industry developed liposomes in a lab in the 1960s, with the intention of being a less toxic and efficient way to deliver cancer drugs to diseased cells.
After Dr. Alec Bangham, a British biophysicist, discovered that phospholipids form bi-layer liposomes when in a water-based substance in 1965, the pharmaceutical industry adopted the technology for drug delivery in the 1970s. The FDA approved the first liposomal drug, Doxil, in 1995 for cancer treatment.
While the UC-Berkeley biochemist Dr. Michael Gregor proposed the idea to encapsulate Vitamin C in liposomes in the 1970s, the first liposomal Vitamin C supplement did not become available until LivOn Labs introduced Lypo-Spheric® Vitamin C in 2004.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Liposomal supplements are structured like and made of the same material as your cells to deliver vital nutrients that absorb without using energy.
The pharmaceutical industry created liposomes in the 1960s and originally used them to target delivery of cancer drugs to diseased cells.
LivOn Labs patented the liposome encapsulation process for supplements in 2004, after figuring out how to use this life-saving technology to deliver life-sustaining nutrients.
Liposomal supplements are beneficial for supporting absorption and overall cell and mitochondrial health.
Look for supplements that use real liposome encapsulation technology for absorption benefits and phosphatidylcholine in the ingredients for the cell health benefits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of liposomal supplements?
Liposomal supplements are designed to facilitate absorption of difficult-to-absorb nutrients in the cells.
Do liposomal supplements have side effects?
Liposomal supplements usually do not have side effects due to the liposomes themselves, but some people may have reactions due to the potent delivery of encapsulated nutrients. For example, some people may experience a powerful detoxication reaction to liposomal glutathione.
