Why NWC Naturals Uses Chelated Minerals

You take a mineral supplement every day. But how much of what's in that capsule does your body actually absorb?

That's a question I've become much more interested in over the years. A bottle may say it contains 200 mg of magnesium, zinc, iron or another mineral, but the number on the label doesn't tell the whole story. The form of that mineral can affect how available it is for your body to absorb and use.

That's one of the reasons that for many years, we've preferred chelated minerals at NWC Naturals.

What does "chelated" actually mean?

The word sounds more complicated than it is.

A chelated mineral is a mineral that has been bound to an organic molecule, typically an amino acid or peptide. That bond helps keep the mineral in a form the body can recognize and use as it moves through the digestive system.

Why does that matter? Because swallowing 100 milligrams of a mineral doesn't necessarily mean your body gets to use 100 milligrams of it. Before a mineral can do anything useful, it has to make it through digestion and be absorbed.

That's where bioavailability comes in. Bioavailability is simply a measure of how much of a nutrient is actually available for your body to absorb and use.

What's on the label isn't the whole story

As someone who takes supplements myself, this is one of the things I pay attention to when comparing products.

Two bottles can both say "Magnesium" on the front and list the same number of milligrams on the Supplement Facts panel. But if they contain different forms of magnesium, that doesn't necessarily mean your body will absorb and utilize them the same way.

The same principle applies to other minerals.

There is good science behind this. Different mineral compounds have different solubility and absorption characteristics, and researchers have studied the use of amino acids and peptides as carriers for minerals. Certain chelated forms have demonstrated advantages in bioavailability over less readily absorbed forms.

That doesn't mean every chelated mineral is automatically superior to every other form. Nutrition isn't quite that simple. The particular mineral, the compound it's bound to, the dose, other nutrients in the diet and the person taking it can all matter.

But it does mean that formulation matters.

Why chelate a mineral?

Our digestive system is already very familiar with amino acids and peptides. They're the building blocks we get from digesting protein.

Binding a mineral to one of these organic molecules can help protect the mineral from unwanted interactions in the digestive tract and help keep it available for absorption.

Think of it this way: we're not interested only in getting a mineral into the capsule. We're interested in giving your body a good opportunity to get that mineral out of the capsule and put it to use.

That's an important distinction.

More isn't necessarily better

The supplement business has a tendency to focus on big numbers.

If 100 mg sounds good, 200 mg must sound twice as good.

But that's not necessarily how nutrition works.

We would rather formulate around the quality, form and bioavailability of an ingredient than simply choose a large number that looks impressive on the front of a bottle.

That philosophy extends beyond minerals. When we're evaluating ingredients, we want to know where they come from, what form they're in, what the science says about them and whether they make sense as part of the overall formula.

Why NWC Naturals uses chelated minerals

Our philosophy is pretty simple: when we put a nutrient into a formula, we want to use a form that makes nutritional sense.

Chelated minerals generally cost more than basic mineral sources. From a manufacturing standpoint, using the least expensive form would certainly be easier.

But that's not how we want to make our supplements.

NWC Naturals has been making nutritional supplements since the 1990s, and one principle has remained pretty consistent: we'd rather make formulation decisions based on how an ingredient is likely to be absorbed and used by the body than on how impressive a number looks on a label.

That's why you'll see chelated minerals in NWC Naturals formulas.

It's not there because "chelated" sounds good on a label. It's there because quality ingredients, thoughtful formulation and bioavailability matter to us.

Live Happy, Live Healthy, Live Well.