Magnesium Stearate in vitamin and mineral supplements?
Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at
10:10 AM
Is it safe and used simply as a preservative or filler or does the ingestion of magnesium stearate in supplements suppress the immune system and eventually lead to collapse of T cell membrane function and cell death ??
There too much conflicting information out there so it would be nice to get informed opinions from those who have extensive knowledge on this subject please.
Thanks for any help.
peace
Filed under: Magnesium
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OldTimeKid gave you a great answer…
I have looked at a bunch of material saftey data sheets from various sources, and it would seem that not enough is known about its ingestation to form an "educated opinion".
In the first link (with links to many databases) you’ll see its not listed in those many data bases
http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC36147
The Food and Drug Administration here in the states has no tolerable upper limit on how much can be used - as it is "generally recognized as safe"
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;rgn=div8;view=text;node=21%3A3.0.1.1.14.2.1.119;idno=21;cc=ecfr
And the only rat study I found where there was health detriment was where the dietary intake would be the equivalent of humans eating 2500mg/per kilo of body weight….which is far more than any human I know could eat in a day (lets just say rats are real pigs!) (there could be more studies - I didn’t look all that deep)
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;rgn=div8;view=text;node=21%3A3.0.1.1.14.2.1.119;idno=21;cc=ecfr
So until there IS more evidence either way, I don’t think there is any harm in avoiding it if you feel the need to do so….
Be well
Tink
Unfortunately, you’re exactly right… there is a lot of conflicting information and it makes it very confusing. I’ll try to clear up as much as I can, but we’ve had this question more times than I would care to count.
It makes it tough because some doctors (both respected and unknown) are marketing products without MS (Magnesium Stearate) and writing up articles with them that say how bad MS is, most without citing any information so the consumer just has to trust them. It’s even tougher when it’s someone like Dr. Mercola (one of the bigger proponents that sells the MS-free products) that some people trust and some people greatly distrust… he has a lot of good information, but a number of his articles are rather self-serving as they focus on praising a new product he has and condemns the alternative products/brands.
What I’ve seen is that there is no adverse effects from MS. After Dr. Mercola put out an article that said MS would coat the intestines and prevent absorption of nutrients (with a new product line that had no MS), our company consulted a few different independent expert toxicologists to find out what was the truth based on impartial facts. The following is what came from that (from our info tabs in our system):
Magnesium Stearate is the magnesium salt of stearic acid, a long-chain saturated fatty acid unique in that it is the only saturated fatty acid that does not increase blood cholesterol or LDL. Stearic acid is found naturally in meat, poultry, fish, grains, cocoa butter and milk products.
While some supplements may contain up to 20 mg of stearic acid (as mag stearate), consider that this is a very low amount compared to the 5 grams (5,000 mg) that can be found in a single common chocolate bar. Furthermore, in rat model studies, magnesium stearate has been shown to have no effect at levels up to 2,500 mg per kg of body weight.
Recently, claims have been made that magnesium stearate causes formation of biofilms. According to the independent toxicology report: “Claims that magensium stearate can facilitate or form biofilms have no basis in the scientific literature and in fact, current scientific data indicate that stearic acid actually inhibits biofilm formation.”
Personally, I like the line about how much is in a chocolate bar… I never knew that before this came out. LOL! Yes, there is a lot of conflicting information out there, but that’s why we consulted outside, independent toxicologists so there would be no bias to give a positive result. I hope I helped!