Hazardous ingredients in vitamins

[want2bike]

I have an number of vitamins and mineral supplements magnesium stearate in them. Should I be concerned? Is there any information showing that magnesium stearate is safe? Are there supplements without these chemicals in them?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... _DNL_art_1

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/magnesiu ... fects.html

http://preventdisease.com/news/09/04280 ... rate.shtml

http://www.nutritional-supplement-truth ... inder.html

[jimmylegs]

there appear to be arguments for and against mag stearate. i'm still on the fence. it's in a couple of my products but no ill effects to date. still need more data to decide.

[want2bike]

If you are following Dr. Swanks diet the hydrogneated oil that the stearate comes from is forbidden. Do you know of any brand of vitamin which does not use this stuff?

[jimmylegs]

stearic acid is a saturated fatty acid, but i would tend to consider the amount in supplements negligible. the body converts it to oleic acid anyway, from what i've read so far.

some info... http://jas.fass.org/content/86/12/3575.full

"Of the SFA, myristic and palmitic acids have the greatest impact on increasing serum cholesterol, but stearic acid has no effect on blood cholesterol (Ahrens et al., 1957; Hegsted et al., 1965; Keys et al., 1965)."

"Data from the current study illustrate that the difference in SFA was primarily due to a greater concentration of stearic acid (18:0) in grass-fed ground beef compared with control ground beef"

interesting.. when i pick up my locally raised, grass-fed beef this fall, apparently it will have more stearic acid than if i bought it at the grocery store. however:

"Williams et al. (1983) found that grass-fed steers, which were leaner than conventionally fed animals, had greater concentrations of Zn, Fe, P, Na, and K. Ground beef samples had significantly lesser levels of Mg, P, and K, and significantly greater levels of Na, Zn, and vitamin B12 than did strip steak samples"

anyway. regardless of diets like swank, i don't actually think saturated fats are the root of all evil, just because we have societally tended to overdo them and ignore PUFAs. i'll eat my grass fed steak for dinner knowing it contains more zinc and b12 than the grocery store alternative, and deal with whatever stearic acid might be coming along for the ride. then it will be vegetarian night, then salmon night, etc. imho, it's all about balance

as for mag stearate free supps, here's an article with some options.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/26328 ... -stearate/

i just checked the nature's way site, looked at the label info for their women's multi, and it has both stearic acid and magnesium stearate listed, so take that livestrong article with a large grain of salt.

[jimmylegs]

just ran across another tidbit on stearic acid:

Effects of dietary fatty acids and carbohydrates on the ratio of serum total to HDL cholesterol and on serum lipids and apolipoproteins: a meta-analysis of 60 controlled trials
http://www.ajcn.org/content/77/5/1146.f ... 3566#ref-2
"stearic acid is hypocholesterolemic compared with other SFAs"
"Although lauric acid was the most potent total and LDL cholesterol–raising SFA (Table 2⇓ and Figure 3⇓), it actually decreased total:HDL cholesterol relative to carbohydrates. Thus, the cholesterol-raising effect of lauric acid is proportionally higher for HDL than for LDL. The ratio of total to HDL cholesterol was less affected by the other 3 SFAs, although it was somewhat more favorably affected by stearic acid than by myristic or palmitic acid."

(cites this one:)
Quantitative effects of dietary fat on serum cholesterol in man (no abstract)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5846 ... t=Abstract