magnesium stearate and titanium dioxide in all our supplements...

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/22/is-your-multivitamin-toxic.aspx?e_cid=20110822_DNL_art_1

basically ALL my supps have one or the other in them and ive been taking these for half a year now..

He's saying that

"magnesium stearate can cause a biofilm to be created in your intestine, which will prevent the absorption of nutrients. The only purpose of it in the supplement is to help the raw materials become more slippery and easily flow through the machines that create the supplements"

"Magnesium stearate is not a supplemental source of magnesium but rather a form of stearic acid. It's essentially chalk, and previous research has shown that it suppresses your natural killer cells, which are a key component of your immune system. Unfortunately, this chalk filler stimulates your gut to form a biofilm – a sort of sludge lining – that acts as an effective barrier to the absorption of not only that particular vitamin but all the nutrients you'd normally get from food sources as well. "


????......where do we find supps without any of the fillers?...everything on iherb contains fillers..

Not everything on iherb contains fillers, for example some supplements made from whole food (like raw vitamin C) do not contain any fillers. Also, the supplements sold by the guys that own this forum have a "No preservatives" policy.

You should always choose a supplement based on whole food instead of a synthetic one (http://healthyfixx.com/21/choosing-the-best-multivitamin)

As much as I like Mercola I think he can sensationalize things a bit.

However it is probably better to be better safe than sorry and go for as many non-crap filler supps as possible. Especially if you are like me and take A LOT of supplements.

Luckily, the Ortho Nutrition products do not contain any of these questionable fillers.

Also, if you are only taking a few supps, it's may not be an issue.

https://immortalhair.forumotion.com/t2002-cs-magnesium-stearate-silicon-dioxide-silica

Im taking a lot thats the problem hah.

I looked at the immortalhair stuff and the labels say modified cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose. How much microcrystallinecellulose is there? What if someone finds out that the microcrystalline cellulose is bad for you too . is the microcrystalline cellulose a flowing agent also?

Hi ailin--

We made a conscious effort when putting these supplements together to explicitly prevent the addition of fillers such as Magnesium Stearate and other junk. In fact, I'll let you guys in on a little supplement trade industry "secret". Magnesium Stearate isn't used as filler just for the sake of filling the capsule...if that were the case, everyone would just use microcrystalline cellulose exclusively, because it's incredibly cheap stuff. The real reason that fillers like Stearate are used, is that it makes it easier for encapsulation machines to move the actives into the capsules. In other words, there's less product waste as a result of using stearate, thus saving these companies more money, at the potential expense of your health, if stearate is truly bad for you.

Microcrystalline cellulose is simply vegetable fibre, and is completely 100% safe. More information can be found here:

http://www.nbent.com/details.htm

Is there a way to get rid of the junk put into supplements?
Of course, the best option is to take supplements that do not contain any additives, but unfortunately some needed supps come only with added junk.

For example, I found on a site someone saying about Vit C:

"Today, I just filled a glass full of water and plopped in 4 X 500 gm tablets of ascorbic acid. Then I just added 1/4 to 1/2 teasoon of baking soda to it. It fizzed away and dissolved for about three minutes and then the tablets simply disappeared into solution as Sodium Ascorbate -- a bit like Alka-Seltzer !!

Then I just scraped off the residue of bubbles off the top of the solution (which contains all the insoluble binder additives like mag stearate, calcium Trihosphate, micro-cellulose, starch etc.) and drank it down."

I tried it with Metabolic C and there is residue on top of the solution, but it was also on the bottom. I removed that, and since I know Vit C is water soluble (the same goes for the B vits as well) I think I got most part of what I needed (Vit C) and avoided the additives (insolubles, according to the quote above). Does this sound right?

Is there a better method to avoid the junk put into supplements?

Thank you

titanium dioxide is another story but I dont think mag. stearate is a problem. There is a lot of stearic acid in a lot of foods we eat everyday, in fact many times more than what one can get from capsules or tablets. Ray Sahelian writes:

Stearic acid is a common fatty acid found in significant amounts in meat, poultry, fish, eggs, butter, grains, and milk products. Some websites have misleading information regarding the safety of magnesium stearate. Some of these sites claim magnesium stearate, even in as small an amount as a few milligrams. as found in dietary supplement capsules, is dangerous. There is no evidence this is true, particularly the tiny amounts found in supplements. I am not aware of any human studies that show MS, in the small amounts found in capsules, has any side effects or causes any harm. There is no evidence that small amounts of stearic acid are harmful. If anyone knows of a human study that indicates magnesium stearate, in the small amounts found in capsules, has shown to have harmful effects, email me. I have searched extensively and not seen any such clinical trials. I believe there is misinformation on web sites that claim this substance is harmful. Much of this mis-information is posted by companies who are trying to differentiate themselves from other vitamin companies by providing products that are free of mag stearate, perhaps because they are not able to compete solely on the actual effectiveness of their products. If anyone tells you magnesium stearate in the extremely small amounts found in capsules is harmful, challenge them to provide you with a human study that proves their point -- they will not be able to. For some consumers this whole issue has become almost a psychological obsession going way beyond any logical reasoning. Some people regularly eat a piece of pie, cookie, or other sweet or junk food, or consume chocolate (which has tons of stearic acid) without any concerns, but get all worked up about insignificant amounts found in capsules. It defies logic.
Most dietary supplement capsules have about 500 mg of herbs or nutrients and perhaps 10 mg or less of magnesium stearate. Since magnesium mineral is part of the overall weight of the molecule, the amount of stearate alone is even less than 10 mg. One kilogram equals 1000 grams, and one gram equals 1000 mg. A few milligrams is an insignificant amount compared to the millions of milligrams of food we consume a day.
I have been taking dietary supplements for more than thirty years and I know older patients who have been taking a handful of vitamin capsules with magnesium stearate every day for more than 40 or 50 years and they are in their 80s and 90s (even a few who are over a 100 years old) and in good health. If MS was so toxic as some claim, how come none of these vitamin users have become ill after consuming these ms-containing capsules daily for several decades?

read the rest here:
http://www.raysahelian.com/magnesiumstearate.html