Not All Vitamins Are The Same – Standard vs. Methylated

The Importance of Vitamins

Odds are if you have ever been to a doctor or seen certain commercials on TV, you have heard hype as to the importance of vitamins and how not having a balanced intake of them can cause problems in the long run. And if you haven’t, now you know.

But is it enough to just get a standard bottle of Vitamin B12? Or is there more to it than that? Well as with many things it turns out there is more to it than you’ve (likely) been informed of. Standard vitamins that you can purchase in the supermarket and are marketed as Vitamin B12 are in fact a form of the vitamin. However, there is another form that is much more efficient and offers a more in depth absorption when it enters into your body.

So what is Methylation?

Methylation is a chemical modification of DNA and other molecules that may be retained as cells divide to make more cells. When found in DNA, methylation can alter gene expression. In this process, chemical tags called methyl groups attach to a particular location within DNA where they turn a gene on or off, thereby regulating the production of proteins that the gene encodes.

It has long been acknowledged that DNA methylation levels are subject to modulation by environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle. Methylation of DNA is a biochemical process in which a methyl group is added to DNA nucleotides. Several B vitamins, including folate, riboflavin (B₂), pyridoxine (B₆), and B₁₂, act as key enzyme cofactors and play essential roles in methyl group metabolism and DNA methylation in particular

View National Institute of Health Article

The Importance

Two B vitamins are very important in that methylation pathway (along with other enzymes and nutrients); it’s folate and B12 that kick off the methylation process. They must be in their active forms of methylcobalamin and methylfolate. Having enough of these two vitamins ensures you can combat a sluggish folate pathway, MTHFR gene variations, high homocysteine, and other methylation issues. More about these in a minute.

The results can be catastrophic without enough folate and B12 working efficiently in your system or an impaired methylation system. We see birth defects like spina bifida, increased cases of Down’s syndrome, and miscarriages. Less than optimal methylation capabilities also contribute to the so-called “diseases of aging.”
Methylation relies heavily on other methyl-donor nutrients, such as B6, choline, riboflavin, and various enzymes.

Why Using Methylated Vitamins Is Recommended

Your digestive system is designed to keep things moving, and if a supplement is hard to break down, you won’t get much from it because it’s moved along too fast. There’s also the issue of bioavailability. When a nutrient is absorbed, can your body put it to work quickly? Or will it hit your bloodstream as a blob that isn’t very useful and just gets filtered out unused?

If you take your vitamins as tablets, you only get about 20% of what you paid for because they are hard for your stomach to break down. This is doubly true of minerals; some are about like swallowing a rock. Many years back, the supplement industry revolutionized how vitamins are taken with the creation of the gel cap. These were easier to swallow, didn’t need binders to hold them together, and had a higher absorption and bioavailability rate. Sadly, they both used fillers to make you feel like you were visibly getting more for your money even though, at most, you were getting about 50% of your investment back.

Bioavailability

Bioavailability refers to the extent a substance or drug becomes completely available to its intended biological destination(s). More accurately, bioavailability is a measure of the rate and fraction of the initial dose of a drug that successfully reaches either; the site of action or the bodily fluid domain from which the drug’s intended targets have unimpeded access.

For most purposes, bioavailability is defined as the fraction of the active form of a drug that reaches systemic circulation unaltered. This definition assumes 100% of the active drug that enters systemic circulation will successfully reach the target site. However, one should understand that this definition excludes drugs that do not require access to systemic circulation for function (eg, certain topical drugs). The bioavailability of these drugs is measured by different parameters discussed elsewhere.

Bioavailability is an integral part of the pharmacokinetics paradigm. Pharmacokinetics is the study of drug movement through the body and is often represented by the acronym ABCD which stands for administration, bioavailability, clearance, and distribution. Administration refers to the route and dosing of a drug. Clearance is the active form of a drug being removed from the systemic circulation. Distribution measures how widely a drug can travel to fluid compartments of the body; this definition assumes distribution follows absorption if taken orally

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Not All Vitamins Are The Same – Standard vs. Methylated

The Importance of Vitamins

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