Did you know that Citrizorb magnesium can be demonstrated to be almost ten times better value for money than Food State magnesium?
As many of you are aware, the activities of the nutritional health profession have never been more in the media spotlight. So often, the media reports that we have just discovered the latest wonder cure in the form of a new “medicinal compound” or, quite the opposite, they think we are potentially doing great harm to the nation. As we all know, the truth is often so much less dramatic.
There is no doubt in my mind that good nutrition is far more effective as a supportive measure rather than a curative, and a daily top up of key nutrients is highly advisable to support long term health and wellbeing. The word “nutrition” is used so generally these days and rarely will a journalist dig deep enough to truly inform the reader about key issues, whether positive or negative; “What’s a balanced diet?” “What is a portion of the suggested five a day?” “What is a truly effective multi-vitamin and mineral?”. Apart from the label claim, what is the product’s real ability to deliver its promised nutritional properties?
As a well known naturopathic practitioner and researcher into nutrition, I have spent many years reviewing some of the most wonderful, high quality, research papers on how nutrition can really support good health. There is no doubt that the research really stacks up and yet we still hear people of influence saying that they haven’t seen any research that backs this view. “All we can say is that they can’t have looked very hard!”
Could it be time to reconsider the products you recommend to your clients?
As practitioners it’s our job to select the very finest nutrients for our clients that we know will achieve the desired effect. However, when companies promote the attributes of a certain nutrient very few people know enough about the subject to ask the relevant biochemical questions like; “What levels of a certain nutrient were used in the research to achieve this result?” Often it is many times more than they are selling to you in the finished product and another very important question would also be “In what form was the nutrient delivered?”. An example of this would be magnesium. So often this important mineral is offered in the industry as a “Magnesium Oxide”, a truly synthetic, manmade and inorganic form of the mineral known to be poorly absorbed by the body. It can even act to neutralize our stomach acid or act as a mild laxative. By contrast, magnesium Citrizorb is a truly organic mineral that appears as it would in living tissue. Interestingly it is present in mother’s breast milk and is known to be much better absorbed than the cheaper oxide form. I also believe that Citrizorb magnesium would act very differently when it becomes available to the body.
There are an increasing number of companies that claim that their products are closer to food than others, due to their use of yeast, and they adopt names that suggest some added product advantage. They want to represent themselves in that way. To my mind this is just not so. To produce yeast that is highly enriched with one mineral, you must treat that yeast with a concentration of it that is quite unnatural for yeast to encounter. The yeast does not then necessarily react in a natural way. Then again, there are limits on how much of the mineral the yeast can be forced to absorb into its cells. Consequently there are concerns about consuming so much yeast, a potentially allergenic substance. We feel that the term “food state” is a real play on words. Their data usually compares their nutrients to the worst-absorbed forms of nutrient on the market, e.g. isolated synthetic nutrients like oxides, or rock like carbonates. They would compare much less favourably with proper organic minerals, in particular Citrizorb minerals.
It’s true to say that food state minerals are in an organic form, but they don’t mention that so are many other forms on the market, such as acetates, citrates, aspartates and other salts of organic acids. An example of this is our natural, yeast free, low toxicity, high absorption, organic Citrizorb form of mineral. We believe that our Citrizorb minerals will outperform many of those claimed to be closer to food form. This applies both to absorption performance and value for money. Citrizorb minerals are also much less bulky and so can deliver much more of the mineral in each capsule or tablet.
As an example by which to make the comparison, I offer the following figures concerning Cytoplan’s Food State magnesium (4084) which only delivers 30mg of magnesium per tablet compared to our 100mg per capsule of Citrizorb. In this example both forms are organic, although we know that the Citrizorb form would be better absorbed, than the food state form.
We can make a simple value-for money-comparison:
Cytoplan “Food State” magnesium (4084) offers:
Magnesium (elemental) 30mg tablet = for approximately 18 pence per tablet. The standard consumer price, excluding special offers, is £10.82 per pot of 60. (Correct at the time publishing.)
Nutrigold offer a Citrizorb Magnesium 625mg of magnesium citrate (NC012), delivering 100mg of organic elemental magnesium. The cost is approximately 14 pence per capsule, £8.27 per pot of 60, excluding any special offers or discounts. Please remember that to produce vegetarian and vegan capsules is a much more expensive process than producing tablets.
So it is easy to work out that, of the two, our product delivers 3.3 times more elemental magnesium for less money. Actually, the “Food State” product also costs more. So the price comparison per milligram of elemental magnesium shows the Nutrigold product to be 4.3 times better value.
However, when you also take into account the absorbability difference the gap in terms of value for money is even greater. Wait for it, this is the punch line, as you most probably do not already know the extent of this difference…
Comparing both forms to the oxide, our Citrizorb magnesium product is 4 – 4.5 times better absorbed than oxide (here I shall call it 4.25 times), compared to the 1.83 times in the case of Food State magnesium. For the studies concerned see the references at the end, i.e. Vinson, regarding Food State and Lindberg et al (1990) regarding citrate. Note that the value of 1.83 times for Food State is the figure that is quoted by the suppliers of it.
One can then work out a value-for-money comparison of the two products in terms of their real nutritional benefit.
We can derive from the above that our 100mgs of Citrizorb is more than twice as well absorbed as the Food State magnesium. In fact, it is better absorbed by a factor of 4.25/1.83 = 2.3 times better. We are already delivering 3.3 times as much quantity. So, 3.3 x 2.3 gives us seven and a half times more nutritional benefit.
Now take the price difference into account as well, which adds a further factor to the value-for-money calculation. The price factor is 10.82 / 8.27 = 1.3. Due to this price difference, the value-for-money that we offer here at Nutrigold is 7.5 x 1.3 = 9.75 times greater.
There are several reasons why these points are particularly relevant now.
The first of course is that we are in the middle of a recession and as always we need to deliver the most effective nutrients, in the most cost effective way. Secondly as many of you know, soon the new upper safety levels for long term use of food supplements will become enforceable. If we are, as practitioners, going to be limited to an upper safety level limit of 350mg – 400mg for magnesium, surely it’s important that we use the most biologically active form? So forget the hype about Food State. Remember Citrizorb minerals are as close to food as anyone else’s and are often better absorbed and value for money than other mineral forms .
Vinson, J.A., (undated), “Comparison of the absorption of different forms of magnesium, unpublished data on human studies”, quoted in Natures Own / Cytoplan literature.
Lindberg, J. S., Zobitz, M.M., Poindexter, J.R. Pak, C.Y., “Magnesium bioavailability from magnesium citrate and magnesium oxide”, J Am Coll Nutr. Feb; 9 (1): 48-55 (1990).
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