I was recently asked the question, why does our Immunity blend contain Ascorbyl Palmitate rather than any other form of Vitamin C? So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to explore fat-soluble versus water-soluble vitamin C here. Firstly, vitamins come in two possible forms, either fat-soluble or water-soluble. Water-soluble vitamin C and B complex are excreted in urine, when taken in excess, and therefor not stored in the body for later use. Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K accumulate within the fat stores of the body and within the liver.
Although most animals produce their own vitamin C, humans, primates and guinea pigs have lost this ability over time. Since your body can’t manufacture vitamin C, it must be obtained through diet and supplementation.
Ascorbyl Palmitate is a fat-soluble form of vitamin C
Simply put, Ascorbyl Palmitate is a fat-soluble form of vitamin C, which is better absorbed than ascorbic acid, the water-soluble form. It offers all the benefits of ascorbic acid, plus it won’t flush out of the body as quickly as ascorbic acid, and can be stored in the cell membranes until the body needs it. Ascorbyl Palmitate is an amphipathic molecule, which means one end is water-soluble and the other end is fat-soluble. This dual solubility ensures that when it is incorporated into the cell membranes of human red blood cells, ascorbyl palmitate protects the cells from oxidative damage and also helps protect vitamin E, a fat-soluble antioxidant, from oxidation by roaming free radicals.
Ascorbyl Palmitate is a powerful antioxidant
Ascorbyl Palmitate also has powerful antioxidant properties, helping to maintain normal connective tissue, believed to potentially reduce the risk of certain cancers as well as coronary artery disease, and helps in the healing of wounds and damaged tissue.
The many health benefits of vitamin C
What else does vitamin C do? Well, as many of us may already know, vitamin C is an important asset in your immune system’s capability to fight against bacteria and viruses. It also helps to protect unsaturated fatty acids from being oxidized, therefore protecting their potency. A protective vitamin essential to over-all body health, vitamin C is especially important for neutralizing free radicals. It has a wide variety of benefits including aiding in the production of collagen and maintenance of healthy skin and blood vessels, promoting the healing of scar tissue and fractures, giving strength to blood vessels, helping to prevent and treat the common cold, promoting healthy teeth and gums, helps the body utilise and absorb iron and folic acid and aiding in the absorption of iron and the formation of red blood cells – amongst other things!
A severe deficiency of vitamin C can result in bleeding gums, swollen or painful joints, slow healing of wounds and fractures, the tendency to bruise or bleed in any part of the body, scurvy and cardiovascular disease.
The advantages of taking Ascorbyl Palmitate supplements
One of the advantages of taking a nutritional supplement that contains ascorbyl palmitate is that you should require a smaller dosage because Ascorbyl Palmitate doesn’t flush out of your system as quickly as water-soluble vitamin C. More importantly, exciting new research indicates that Ascorbyl Palmitate may act as a preventative against stomach cancer and colon cancer, stimulates collagen synthesis at lower doses than ascorbic acid and is a powerful scavenger of free radicals in the body.
The reason why many supplements contain little or no ascorbyl palmitate, is because it is much more expensive than regular ascorbic acid. However, both the fat-soluble and water-soluble forms of vitamin C each have unique properties, and so it makes sense to obtain our supplemental vitamin C from both forms. Take our Atone Immunity supplement to get your daily dose of the fat-soluble version of vitamin C, Ascorbyl Palmitate.
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