Millions of people take supplements but very few know of
the potential dangers lurking in vitamins that stem from their
manufacturing process. Magnesium Stearate is a lubricant and
absolutely useless to your body, yet it is found in more than
90% of all vitamin supplements.
Magnesium Stearate or Stearic Acid is basically a toxin made
by hydrogenating cottonseed or palm oil that has no other
purpose than to coat the active ingredients as a lubricant.
This essentially decreases the absorption and automatically
presents a hydrogentated substance to every vitamin capsule.
Supplement companies use Magnesium Stearate or Stearic Acid
primarily to boost their profit margins. By increasing the
availability of this flowing agent, the production machinery
will run at maximum speeds when all raw materials are added.
How Much Hydrogenated Lubricant Oils Are You Getting With
Your Supplements?
Up to 5% of the average 1000 mg capsule or tablet is magnesium
stearate. That’s 50 milligrams. Suppose you take 8 capsules
or tablets a day. That’s 250 a month – or 12,500
mg of this hydrogenated oil, nearly half an ounce. That works
out to about 6 ounces of hydrogenated oils a year, from just
8 pills a day. Many people take more supplements, and ingest
pounds of this toxic oil we try to avoid in our diets –
while directly inhibiting the utilization of the nutrients
they’re supplementing!
Magnesium Stearate is considered a Hazardous Substance
Companies that manufacture and transport magnesium stearate
must file a Material Safety Data Sheet with the Environmental
Protection Agency because concentrated magnesium stearate
is classified as a hazardous substance. Under the heading
“Regulatory Information,” the
paper states, “This product is hazardous under the
criteria of the Federal OSHA Hazard Communication Standard.”
This information may be viewed at the web
Its uses are listed as “ammunition, dusting powder, paint
and varnish drier, binder, and emulsifier.” The section
“Human Health Data” states that “Inhalation
may irritate the respiratory tract” and “Acute ingestion
may cause gastroenteritis.”
Pesticides and Metal Catalysts
If it's not bad enough that you're ingesting a toxin, Magnesium
Stearate may be loaded with pesticides that are used on cottonseed
or palm oil that has been hydrogenated. In addition, the chemical
structure of the fatty acids in Stearic Acid having been altered
through close contact with various metal catalysts at extremely
high temperatures. This introduces countless toxic compounds
into your body as a result.
Absorption
Magnesium Stearate has been proven to prevent from 60 percent
to 100 percent of the absorption of the nutrients of the pill.
A study in the Journal of AOAC International in 2006 showed
that after the manufacturing process is complete, a large
percentage of magnesium stearate exceeds the safe dosages
designed to optimize absorption of nutrients that is established
in research.
Bottom Line
If you take into account all of the negatives associated with
Magnesium Stearate, it's outright irresponsible for any company
to include this substance in any health supplement. It's a
hazardous substance, a lubricant, hydrogenated oil and it
decreases absorption....need we say more?
