Last modified on August 10th, 2023
Vitamin C is an essential water-soluble vitamin, and your body can’t produce it alone. It’s recommended that women have at least 75 mg daily, and men should have at least 90 mg. You might consider a supplement if you can’t get enough from your diet.
There’s a lot of debate about the benefits of taking vitamin supplements because they aren’t well-absorbed. Supplement makers overcome this challenge by making liposomal supplements and vitamins.
We’ll talk in more detail about the differences between a liposomal supplement and a regular one below.
The key takeaway is that liposomal supplements are more absorbable and bioavailable in your body. The vitamin is encased in microscopic liposomes, the same barrier protecting our cell membranes.
Vitamin C is otherwise water soluble, so you lose most of it in urine and are not well-absorbed. When liposomal technology is used, it becomes a fat-soluble vitamin so that it can be easily transported into the cells and used.
Plasma concentrations can be significantly higher with liposomal delivery than with standard vitamin C.
What’s The Difference Between Regular and Liposomal Vitamin C?
When you take supplements, particularly certain vitamins, if your body doesn’t use or absorb the full dose, you may end up excreting what’s left through urine.
Liposomal vitamins, including liposomal vitamin C, may be a way to get more of the vitamin into your body. Liposomal vitamins don’t use tablets, powders, or capsules to deliver the nutrients. Rather, the vitamin is put into fat cells called liposomes. Then, it helps your body absorb them better.
The idea of liposomal vitamins isn’t new. Liposomal delivery has been around since the 1960s as a way to deliver medicine, vaccines, and gene therapies.
Liposomes are made up of something called phospholipids.
A phospholipid is the building block of cell membranes, and they are made from cholesterol and different types of fat. The phospholipids bond to cell membranes quickly, ensuring they’re better absorbed so the delivery of nutrients is optimized.
There have been a few studies that show some of the potential benefits of getting your vitamins in liposomal form.
For example, one study showed the use of liposomal delivery systems could allow higher concentrations to circulate in the body compared to a supplement that didn’t have the same encapsulation.
There was another study recently published showed something similar.
An article published in Integrative Medicine found that liposomal vitamins increased cellular delivery and made them more bioavailable and absorbable than other forms of supplements taken orally.
One of the most popular types of liposomal supplements right now is liposomal vitamin C.
This may be because, typically, when you take vitamin C in a traditional supplement form, it absorbs slowly in the body.
When you take vitamin C, and it’s encapsulated in a liposome, some researchers believe it could speed up the absorption and improve how much is absorbed. One particular research study looked at the ingestion of vitamin C in liposomes to determine if taking the supplement in this way could increase the level of circulating vitamin C in the body.
These researchers did find that the liposomal delivery increased the circulating concentrations of the vitamin compared to taking it orally and in a non-liposomal form.
Why Is Vitamin C So Important?
As was touched on, vitamin C is so important to our bodies because we can’t produce it on our own.
We have to rely on the foods we eat or supplements such as vitamin C in the liposomal form to get enough.
It is necessary for the production of neurotransmitters, including norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a hormone and neurotransmitter that helps our body fight stress, and it plays a pivotal role in our fight-or-flight response, as well as our emotions, sleep-wake cycle, memory, and focus.
If you don’t have enough, it could interfere with your body’s ability to produce norepinephrine.
Vitamin C supports collagen production and skin health.
Collage is the structural element of our skin, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels. Collagen also helps support wound healing.
Of course, one of the things that we feel is most beneficial about vitamin C is its ability to help support the healthy functioning of our immune systems. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that can help fight diseases and infections. Not only does it help with bacterial and viral infections, but it can also help prevent cardiovascular disease.
5 Benefits of Liposomal Supplements
Taking liposomal vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, has more benefits than a traditional supplement. Many benefits are similar to getting intravenous vitamin C; otherwise, most vitamin C supplements are flushed out quickly in your urine.
Bioavailability
Bioavailability is a term that’s important to understand with many vitamins and supplements. Liposomal C tends to be significantly more bioavailable than standard forms.
Bioavailability references how well your system absorbs something.
Taking a liposomal vitamin supplement lets your small intestine absorb more of the actual vitamin than it would if you took a traditional supplement.
Intravenous vitamin C is the only other form that has more bioavailability than a liposomal supplement. There are downsides to intravenous vitamin C, however. For example, it’s costly, time-consuming, and requires that you go to a special facility or clinic to receive it.
Boost Your Cardiovascular and Brain Health
When you take a vitamin C supplement, there is some evidence that you can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease. It can also improve ejection fraction and what’s called endothelial function.
Endothelial function is how your blood vessels contract and relax, and it’s an important component of your immune system, blood clotting, and the healthy formation of platelets.
If you’ve ever suffered from a heart attack or stroke, you also want to work on ways to heal and repair the damaged tissue from a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
The use of vitamin C can help with this by reducing free radicals, which can lead to oxidative stress.
Vitamin C can also impact mood and cognitive function because it helps synthesize neurotransmitters, including norepinephrine and dopamine. Liposomal vitamins can cross the blood-brain barrier, immediately regulating and supporting your mood and mental health.
Reduce Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress occurs in many chronic illnesses, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes mellitus, among many others.
The use of vitamin C supplementation may help reduce oxidative stress and the damage it can cause throughout the body.
Other benefits of liposomal vitamin C include:
- The unique liposomal delivery system helps more of the vitamin reach the tissues, organs, and cells because it protects against the acid in the GI system.
- It’s a non-invasive way to get high doses of vitamin C as compared to intravenous vitamin C
- Many people find that the use of liposomal vitamin C helps reduce the gastrointestinal symptoms they experience when they’re using standard types of oral vitamin C
Lower Inflammation
It’s worth noting there is research indicating vitamin C supplementation can help reduce inflammation. Inflammation is linked to nearly every chronic disease, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
For example, there was one particular study that found 1 gram of vitamin C helped reduce inflammatory markers among diabetic obese adults and hypertensive adults. Based on their study, the researchers summarized that a moderate amount of vitamin C could “significantly treat and reduce inflammation.”
Liposomal Supplements Are Easier on the Gut
Since liposomal vitamin C is better absorbed, it can raise your blood levels of the vitamin more effectively. Liposomes are also thought to be easier on your gut, so this can reduce side effects that can occur with other forms of vitamin C, like diarrhea and bloating.
These digestive symptoms are why taking high doses of vitamin C orally is hard, but high doses are often recommended for certain conditions, like cancer.
Are There Drawbacks of Liposomal Vitamins?
Vitamin C, regardless of the form you take, can have side effects in very large doses, such as flushing and stomach upset. These side effects are much less likely with a liposomal version, however.
The downsides that can be specific to a liposomal vitamin include:
- It’s more expensive per dose.
- You have to make sure you’re choosing a quality company to buy from because the particle size could be wrong, or the company could use a subpar manufacturing process.
- The supplement can be unstable, and that means the fat used to make it could go bad, leading to side effects or less effectiveness.
Is Traditional Vitamin C a Waste of Money?
Vitamin C is incredibly important, and you might not be getting enough of it; plus, mega-doses tend to have unique benefits. As a result, we won’t say that traditional vitamin C is a waste of money, but you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck with a liposomal supplement. This isn’t exclusive to vitamin C—it’s true with any supplement.
How To Choose a Quality Liposomal Vitamin C Supplement
When comparing supplements, you should look at a few key things.
First, you want to look for purity. Avoid fillers and additives when possible. You can read the label to make sure there aren’t unnecessary ingredients.
You also want to look for a company that takes research and testing seriously to ensure effectiveness and consistently delivers high-quality products.
The Top Liposomal Vitamin C Supplements
The following are liposomal versions of the vitamin that I have personally used and feel are the highest quality, and I’ve tried many.
LivOn Laboratories Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C
After going through liposomal vitamin C reviews and trying different products on our own, our pick for the best liposomal vitamin C on Amazon is the lypo-spheric vitamin C from LivOn Laboratories.
LivOn Laboratories offers a selection of other liposomal vitamins, including a B complex, and they have products like liposomal R-Alpha lipoic acid and lypo-spheric glutathione.
The liposomal vitamin C product from LivOn Laboratories can be taken once or twice a day. It’s a gel-like product that comes in a small packet and doesn’t dissolve, but you mix it into a drink to take it most simply.
According to liposomal vitamin C reviews about this product, customers feel it helps them in many ways. First, the taste is pretty neutral, and reviews say that regular use of this vitamin C supplement has helped them reduce the likelihood of getting sick, improve their energy, and reduce brain fog.
Other reviews say that the product has helped customers beat chronic infections.
Dr. Mercola Liposomal Vitamin C Liquid
My top pick will also be the product from LivOn Laboratories, but if you want something less expensive, I also like the liquid liposomal supplement from Dr. Mercola. It contains 1,000 mg of the vitamin per serving and is soy-free.
There’s a nice flavor; you can add it to smoothies and other beverages. Plus, all of the products from Dr. Mercola are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Aurora Nutrascience Liposomal Vitamin C
I like this product because you get 3,000 mg of the vitamin per serving, plus it’s sugar-free. The taste isn’t bad, and Aurora Nutrascience generally produces high-grade supplements and vitamin products.
Final Thoughts
Vitamin C seems like a basic nutrient, but the reality is that it has some potentially powerful, compelling health benefits.
For example, researchers are looking at high-dose vitamin C used intravenously as a potential adjunctive treatment for certain types of cancer. Vitamin C can also benefit your immune system, reduce inflammation, and help your mental health.
The big downside of taking a supplement with ascorbic acid is typically that it’s water-soluble and not that well-absorbed. You’re not getting a lot of it because you excrete it quickly.
Luckily, liposomal vitamin supplements have found a way to combat this issue by improving bioavailability and absorption.
Many of the benefits of liposomal vitamins are similar to receiving them intravenously, but that’s less convenient and more expensive.
Ashley Sutphin Watkins
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