I have been asked on many occasions to share my thoughts about naturally sourced vitamins and minerals, specifically why I prefer them when designing new product formulations. My thinking on this subject has evolved over several decades from the point where I assumed equivalency between naturals and synthetics, to where I am today. When I first started into analytical chemistry in the 1980s, it was accepted practice to use synthetic vitamins as the standard when analyzing and quantifying vitamins from both natural and synthetic sources. This was because the analytical methods commonly employed at the time were based on relatively simple chromatographic equipment that could not distinguish natural from synthetic. Both compounds co-eluted using these methods, so it was assumed that they must be the same. It didn’t occur to me (or others) at the time that this could be due to a limitation of our methods rather than an absolute “truth” about the equivalency of natural and synthetic vitamins.
This is how it is with science. Based on information and equipment that simply was not available when I developed my original thoughts on the subject, I now realize several factors that certainly could make a significant difference in how natural and synthetic vitamins perform in actual living beings. While these differences are still in the early stage of being defined, I personally believe that there is something important we have been missing, and it will not be a simple matter to sort it out. We have to accept that science is always a work in progress and what we may “know” about our technology at one time could be radically different several decades into the future because of factors that we didn’t know about or take into serious consideration.
Technology Now Distinguishes Natural and Synthetic Vitamins
The first thing that helped change my thinking about natural versus synthetic vitamins was the wider availability of better analytical technology. There are analytical machines readily available today, including those in Mannatech’s own R&D laboratory, that can blindly distinguish plant-sourced compounds from “bioidentical” compounds synthesized from fossil fuels such as coal tar or petroleum. These analytical machines are equipped with mass-selective detectors that can determine the ratio of isotopes in a particular compound. Carbon-based compounds such as vitamins and phytochemicals are all made up predominantly of two stable carbon isotopes (C12and C13) and one unstable isotope (C14), but the ratios differ depending on whether the material is derived from fresh plant material or from fossil fuel sources. Beyond this, we get into heavy chemistry. But suffice it to say that if we have two samples of a pure compound, such as beta-carotene, one of which is from a plant and the other synthesized from fossil fuels, it is possible to tell the difference. So, these two sources are not strictly identical as previously assumed. So the next question is, is this difference biologically important?
Organisms Distinguish Natural from Synthetic
Strictly speaking, the “chemistry” of an element is primarily dictated by the outer valence electrons of an atom. So, according to this thought, stable isotopes such as C12 and C13 should theoretically behave the same. In biological systems, there are some notable exceptions to this rule. A clear example of this occurs with the two major stable isotopes of hydrogen, which are “normal hydrogen,” with one proton, and deuterium, which has one proton and one neutron. Chemically, they should behave the same because they both have one valence electron, and in fact they do form analogous compounds with other elements. However, the way these compounds behave in biological systems can be very different. For example H20 (normal water) is chemically similar to D2O (heavy water) and behaves similarly under most conditions, but whereas H20 is non-toxic to living organisms, D2O at elevated concentrations above its natural abundance has toxicity toward plants and animals. Obviously, the complex metabolic processes present within living organisms do not see these stable isotopes as equivalent.
Another well-documented example of “isotopic discrimination” in living organisms involves the carbon isotopes C12 and C13. Certain types of plants such as cactus and other succulents have a unique type of photosynthesis called Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM). This photosynthetic process, which has many steps, results in measurable enrichment of carbon isotopes and is thought to be due to the combined effects of diffusion and selective affinity of certain enzymes for specific carbon isotopes. First discovered in the plant kingdom in the early 1970s and more thoroughly studied in subsequent decades, this example shows that discrimination of carbon isotopes by living organisms can, and does, actually have biological relevance.
Much more recently, it was found that human enzymes involved in normal metabolism can also have certain carbon isotope preferences. In a study by Ludke et al. published in the Journal of Lipid Research in 2008, it was found that HMGR, a major enzyme involved in the production of steroid hormones like estrogen and testosterone, showed a statistically measurable preference for C12 over C13. This taken with other evidence, such as the fact that the pool of lipids in the body is typically around 8% depleted in C13, suggests that, at least in some human biological processes such as lipid and steroid synthesis, carbon isotope discrimination is significant and is probably important. So does this prove for certain that natural, plant-derived vitamins function better in humans than those synthesized from fossil fuels? It does not. But it does put forward a new hypothesis that might further explain some of the results that were recently compiled [l1] regarding the performance of natural vitamins versus synthetics. As would be expected, the carbon isotope ratios of natural vitamins derived from recently harvested organisms are quite different from those of vitamins synthesized from fossil fuels. After all, fossil fuels have decomposed over millions of years under severe heat and pressure conditions, so they would be expected to be quite different in composition from organic compounds of contemporary origin.
Natural Vitamins Appear to Be Absorbed Better and Retained Longer
Admittedly, research specifically focusing on the advantages of natural vitamins is still quite young and the evidence is far from conclusive, but some interesting data is emerging. In a peer-reviewed article published in 2000 in the journal Medical Hypothesis, author R.J. Thiel summarizes some interesting data culled from numerous studies on naturally sourced vitamins. Some of his findings from animal studies include:
“Natural food complex vitamin B1 was absorbed 1.38 times more into the blood and was retained 1.27 times more [l2] in the liver than an isolated USP thiamin hydrochloride.”
“Natural food complex vitamin B2 was absorbed into the blood and was retained 1.92 times more in the liver than an isolated USP riboflavin.”
“Natural food complex niacinamide is 3.94 times more absorbed in the blood than USP niacinamide and 1.7 times more retained in the liver than isolated USP niacinamide.”
“Natural food complex B6 was absorbed 2.54 times more into the blood and was retained 1.56 times more in the liver than an isolated USP form.”
“Natural food complex folate was absorbed only 1.07 times more into the blood, yet was retained 2.13 times more in the liver than isolated USP folic acid.”
“Natural food complex vitamin B12 was absorbed 2.56 times more into the blood and was retained 1.59 times more in the liver than isolated USP cyanocobalamin.”
Numerous ideas have been put forward about why natural, food-sourced vitamins may have better absorption and retention than purified synthetics have. It is known to be the case that with many naturally sourced vitamins the vitamins are complexed with other naturally occurring “impurities” such as natural fats, oils or phytochemicals. These naturally occurring complexes are known in some cases to enhance the biological absorption and/or retention of vitamins over purified, single-component compounds. This makes perfect sense since vitamin complexes in living organisms must remain soluble, while synthetic vitamins crystallized out of a solvent mixture during a chemical process can have a wide range of solubility.
In summary, I believe that there are some performance differences between natural and synthetic vitamins. These differences are perhaps based on multiple scientific factors, some of which haven’t been considered up to this point and none of which have been explored thoroughly. It’s not alchemy and it’s not quackery. It’s just a branch of science that is fresh and new and important, much like genetics was in the ‘70s and glycobiology was in the ’90s. Science aside, I have found that when consumers are aware that there is a choice between naturally sourced vitamins and synthetic vitamins, they overwhelmingly prefer the natural vitamins. Their decisions may be based on some scientific knowledge or they may be based on intuition alone. I haven’t done that research yet, but one thing is clear: The consumer has a preference for natural vitamins, and it’s always good business to meet the consumer’s needs and desires—especially when you can be unique in doing so.
Dr. Rob Sinnott
Dr. Rob Sinnott is Co-CEO and Chief Science Officer for Mannatech, Incorporated.
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