Exploding the Vitamin Myth!

You may have heard the old wives’ tale about the worthlessness of vitamin supplements because “they just make expensive urine” or “you just pee them out” or other variations on a similar theme.

It’s not hard to understand where this myth came from. Anytime you take a multivitamin or a B complex, you’re going to get some vitamin B2 (riboflavin) or vitamin C (ascorbic Acid). B2 markedly changes the color of our urine, usually making it a fluorescent yellow-green. Vitamin C can give urine more of an orange hue. Thus, when someone visits the bathroom an hour or so after taking their vitamin supplement, it’s understandable why they might suppose that their vitamins have been wasted and have not been absorbed by their body.

But neither is the case. 

Vitamins from supplements are absorbed the same way as vitamins from food sources; they have the same outcome. No vitamin, whether from food or supplements, can go directly from the stomach to the bladder. The only way vitamins can transform the appearance of urine is if they have been filtered from the bloodstream by the kidneys. The only way that can occur is if the supplement has been absorbed from the digestive tract, and the only way that can occur is if the supplement breaks down easily or is otherwise made to be bio-available.

So, contrary to the myth,  when you see color changes in your urine associated with your supplement, it’s not evidence of it being wasted, it’s confirmation that it’s been broken down, absorbed and made available to body tissues. According to The Physician’s Desk Reference, some pill and tablet forms of vitamin supplements may only have a 20% absorption rate while liquid vitamins have a 98% absorption rate.

Therefore, the key to nutrient effectiveness is directly related to the amount of active ingredients and the rate of their delivery and assimilation into the bloodstream. When nutrients are taken in this liquid form, the bio-availability (the percent of active ingredients that actually reaches the bloodstream) is very high and very effective.