Magnesium Stearate and Stearic Acid – Hazardous Ingredients In Supplements

Magnesium stearate is a substance completely useless to the human body. It is a derivative of magnesium and the human body can’t absorb it. Corporations that produce nutritional supplements, for some time intentionally mislead customers that the use of this additive is good for our health. The truth is more frightening and the additive – quite dangerous.

Magnesium stearate is a combination of two stearic acid molecules and one magnesium molecule. Practically, stearic acid is a toxin – a combination of hydrogenated oils- which starts killing cells almost immediately after it enters our body. The bad news is that it is found in more than 90% of tablets and pills on the markets. On the one hand, this is due to equipment, which is used for producing the pills, and sometimes due to the willingness of corporations to squeeze the last drop of profit from their machines.

How and why magnesium stearate makes its way into your supplements? Well, it’s a production tool that is used for quicker manufacturing of tablets and other pressed pills, as well as diluent (a volume filling of tablets). To be more precise, magnesium stearate is a product of hydrogenated oils and like these is used for lubrication of machinery that produces those same tablets. So, as magnesium stearate and hydrogenated oils are used in each process of pill production, these are found in each ounce of your supplements, reaching the level of 5% at 1000mg capsule. This volume not only takes up valuable space in supplements (this way companies can produce more pills), but it lowers their effectiveness.

Despite the reduced effect of pills, there is one detail that many companies “miss” to check and control. It comes to the fact that stearic acid, which is the main component of magnesium stearate, is produced by hydrogenated oil which on the other hand is derived from pesticide-treated cottonseed. In addition, under the influence of extremely high temperature and direct contact with metal catalysts, fatty acids in the structure of the stearic acid start vigorous reactions. As an effect of those reactions, the toxicity risk dramatically rises. Taking all those numerous toxic sub-additives, do you think that you are taking care of your health? Well, think again!

While companies, which produce vitamins and nutritional supplements, want you to believe that using magnesium stearate and stearic acid in pills is safe, the reality is not fooling anyone.

As a finale to this article, I want to add that there is one more grim touch to the picture with magnesium stearate – despite the fact that they were treated with pesticides, a large part of the cottonseed that is used for the production of stearic acid, magnesium stearate, and hydrogenated fats come from countries which use genetically modified cotton.