The future of any field of advancement is not some distant horizon we are waiting to arrive at. It is occurring here, now, in the present moment of clinical practice. The current state of botanical supplementation stands on the shoulders of pioneers, innovators, and the slow accumulation of scientific advancement that came before, work that now allows both consumers and clinicians to meaningfully harness the benefits of ingredients that have been traditionally used for generations. What follows is a look at where that lineage of work stands today, and where three of the most commonly recommended botanicals in practice are headed next.
Every clinician who has recommended berberine, ashwagandha, or curcumin has run into the same wall. The pharmacology is sound. The clinical literature is often compelling. And yet the compound barely reaches the bloodstream in a form the body can use. Berberine’s oral bioavailability is famously below one percent. Curcumin is metabolized and excreted almost as fast as it is absorbed. Ashwagandha’s withanolides are poorly soluble and inconsistently extracted. The industry’s answer has been to wrap these molecules in something else: a micelle, a liposome, a phospholipid complex, or a co-administered enzyme inhibitor like piperine. Each of these approaches works by changing the physical or metabolic environment around the molecule. None of them change the molecule’s own energetic behavior.
0 Comments