Every day our body breaks down the food we eat into its molecular components. In this way we can make the fats, carbohydrates and proteins usable for ourselves. But all the secondary plant substances, minerals, vitamins and micronutrients also find their way into our body via the intestines. How exactly this works is complicated in detail. There are different absorption paths so that all molecules reach their place of action.
So that you know better in the future, Why, for example, the bioavailability of Magnesium varies between 4 and 80%, why we should add oil to certain secondary plant substances , what bioavailability actually is and which absorption pathways actually exist in our body, this article will give you information about it.
Absorption pathways – everything starts in the stomach
So that you can better imagine the different absorption paths, let's look at an example together. Let's say you eat an apple. This is already chopped up in the mouth and mixed with the first digestive enzymes. Generally speaking, digestive enzymes are helpers that can break down food into smaller pieces. Amylase can e.g.b cut the long chain carbohydrate chains into shorter pieces.
But back to our apple. This then ends up crushed in an acid bath – the stomach. In this harsh environment, as many germs as possible should be destroyed by the acid and the food should be further softened. But this is not the only job of the stomach. It also produces the Intrinsic Factor (IF). This protein is essential so that we can absorb Vitamin B12. Without the intrinsic factor this would hardly be possible.
200m2 Intestine for absorption
After our apple has already been digested by stomach acid, it now goes into the duodenum, where bile and pancreatic juice meet the chyme. The pancreatic secretion contains peptidases , which ensure that the proteins in our food are broken down into the individual amino acids.
Now that almost everything has been shredded, the crucial question still arises. How can we absorb the remaining molecules?
The answer to this question is hidden in our small intestine. This is a fascinating development of evolution. For an adult, it is about 5m long and its surface is more than 200m2, which is slightly less than an entire tennis court.
There are a lot of transporters spread across this huge area that help us absorb all the components that are important to us from food. For example, our intestinal cells have a special transporter to absorb iron ions. We need this for the red pigment in our blood, hemoglobin. However, we can also consume iron (in the form of hemoglobin) via the heme transporter, which is contained in meat.
First pass effect – the liver is in charge here
We have overcome the first hurdle. Our molecules have made the step from food, through the intestines, into our bodies. Via the portal vein – a vessel that collects all the blood from the digestive tract – they now reach the liver. It serves as the first detoxification point in the body.
All nutrients that have been absorbed through the intestines must first pass through the liver, where they are processed by the liver cells. The molecules are processed via various biochemical processes - and this definitely has consequences for the further course of the process. In medicine, this phenomenon is called First pass effect.
Maybe an example here will help you better understand the meaning of the first pass effect. Various forms of opioids are used in medicine. This class of medications binds to the opioid receptors, providing powerful pain relief. However, there is an opioid derivative that is not used against pain, but against diarrhea. Loperamide. This binds to the enterocytes (intestinal cells) in the intestine and thus ensures slower intestinal transit. However, like all other medications, it enters the bloodstream, where over 99% percent of it is eliminated in the liver and is hardly eliminated in the rest of the body shows effect.
Parenteral, sublingual, buccal and co. – who is who?
Our liver is a kind of upstream protective shield. Before a molecule gets to the brain or heart, it must pass the “entrance check” in the liver. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but is sometimes a hindrance in medicine. You can partially circumvent this first pass effect by increasing the concentration of the starting material so that the liver does not manage to “detoxify” all the molecules. However, this is often associated with some side effects.
In this case it is a little more elegant to change the type of application. Instead of the mouth, we have other parenteral (in addition to the intestine) absorption routes at our disposal. If things have to happen quickly, the buccale (via the cheek mucosa), or sublingual (under the tongue) application of medication. These are mainly pain medications that are taken in the mouth or dissolved under the tongue. These molecules reach directly to the heart via the blood vessels. The liver is bypassed in this way. So that you can understand the routes better, we have brought you a graphic.
This works in a very similar way with suppositories. The blood from the rectum no longer reaches the liver, but instead goes directly to the heart via the inferior vena cava. This is a popular method, especially in children, for passing active ingredients past the liver.
You probably know the last method from the hospital. We can also give medication directly through the vein. In this way we also avoid the liver and the first pass effect.
Liposomal vs. Hydrophilic
We've now made it into the bloodstream, but there are still more hurdles waiting for us. In principle, we can distinguish between molecules that are fat-soluble (lipophilic), such as the vitamins A,D,E,K and water-soluble ones such as vitamin C. Water-soluble substances can be transported easily in the blood, but have a more difficult time getting into the cells. With fat-soluble substances it is exactly the other way around. In the blood they often need special transport proteins, which makes it easier for them to get through the phospholipid layer of the cells.
If we talk about blood lipid levels, then these fat particles do not float around freely in the blood, but are bound to transport proteins, such as apolipoprotein B. These blood lipids can thus be made water-soluble. If you want to find out more about it and also which blood lipid levels are important for your longevity, then feel free to read read our article about it.
Bioavailability using the example of magnesium
Not everything we eat ends up in our blood in exactly the same way. Roughly simplified, you can imagine the bioavailability . You measure the concentration of the substance in the blood plasma (after it has passed through the liver) and compare it with the initial concentration. Significant differences can arise.
A good example is Magnesium. This occurs naturally in various compound forms, such as magnesium oxide, magnesium citrate or magnesium bisglycinate . The bioavailability of magnesium varies enormously between these compounds.
The well-known magnesium oxide has a bioavailability of just 4% up! This means that this form is quite suitable for constipation, but other forms are much more effective for supplementing magnesium.For example, Magnesium citrate and Magnesium bisglycinate are both absorbed by our body to 80% . In addition, magnesium bisglycinate can reach the brain via the blood-brain barrier.
Secondary plant substances – the difficulty with bioavailability
Secondary plant compounds have a number of health benefits. We have already given you an overview in a separate article.
The problem with secondary plant substances is, on the one hand, their concentration. Large amounts of the pure substance are used in studies. To e.g.b To consume the amount of Quercetin used there, we would need up to 100 apples – daily. For Resveratrol , depending on the study, there are 12l of red wine and with sulforaphane it would be up to 40kg broccoli – everything per day.
Some of the secondary plant substances, such as Resveratrol or quercetin, are fat-soluble. This makes it harder for us to absorb them for the reasons mentioned above and the bioavailability is low. To get around this, we can pack the molecules in a phospholipid layer and thus increase the bioavailability many times over.
For the blood sugar-lowering berberine this formulation can increase the bioavailability by 10-fold and at Quercetin is 20 times higher! This is made possible on the one hand by the combination of a lipid layer and on the other hand by the Addition of adjuvants, i.e. molecules that can help with absorption. For quercetin this is vitamin C and for berberine it is a mineral complex.
Bioavailable berberine with chromium and zinc in the mineral complex Berbersome
Absorption of secondary plant substances - the devil is in the details
Not only do quercetin and berberine need a little help to increase bioavailability, but also the sulforaphane found in broccoli. In the green vegetable, this anti-inflammatory molecule is still present in its precursor, glucoraphanin . This is converted into sulforaphane in our intestine with the help of the enzyme myrosinase. However, the efficiency is not very great – it is about 10% and usually even lower, since e.g.b The individual substances are washed out by cooking for too long.
For this reason, Sulforapro contains both glucoraphanin and myrosinase. And there is another trick to ensure that the active ingredient gets exactly where it is needed. In the intestines. The magic word here is: Stomach-resistant capsules.
Sulforaphane from molecular precursors combined with the finest broccoli extract - a natural source of sulforaphane
It's all about the right size
The molecules that we consume every day all come in very different sizes. Some of these are too large to be recorded directly - e.g.b Collagen and Hyaluron, both important molecules for skin health. These substances form long molecular chains that cannot be absorbed by our body. So if we want to get collagen or hyaluronic acid through food, we have to package the molecules smaller, in so-called peptide shells. These already contain crushed pieces of the starting substance. This is where things get a little complicated.
With collagen the studies have shown that it is advantageous if the fragments in the peptide shells if possible are small. With Hyaluron it is exactly the opposite. Larger fragments, so-called high molecular hyaluronic acid, were able to show better results in human studies.
Conclusion of absorption pathways
The path from food to our cells is not always as easy as you might imagine. Fat-soluble and water-soluble molecules are absorbed differently. The liver metabolizes many molecules before they even enter the bloodstream, and the bioavailability of the substances depends on the composition.
MoleQlar ONE combines the potential of 13 different longevity ingredients to fully promote health and longevity at the molecular level. The complex has positive effects on all twelve Hallmarks of Aging.
