Cordyseps sinensis capsules or pills

If you’ve looked for products in the nutraceuticals sector, you’ll probably come across a lot of products, not just cordyceps sinensis but a lot of minerals and vitamins come in pill or capsule form, but not a lot of people ever get a straight answer when you ask the counter lady/man about what the difference is.

Well – Having looked and tried a range of products, it would seem that there are plenty of options in all kinds of forms but interesting there has been several studies on effectiveness of both types for ingestion by the patient/user. Pills usually come in two forms, most common is the hard type which you find for most vitamins and in particular, cordyceps Sinensis usually comes in pill form when bought in large amounts (Usually in bottles which feature 50 units (pills) or more in one bottle. Other kinds of pills are in chewable form but non so far has surfaced for cordyceps Sinensis, but are available for vitamins and minerals.

The form in which cordyceps Sinensis or any other herbal remedy/food supplement is made into is important because the encapsulating materials properties, chemical properties of its coatings and constituents and oral bioavailability determine whether the active ingredient is appropriate for a tablet or capsule. This is important to consider, as the delivery method (pill or capsule) determines how fast or slow the final product is broken down and released – the active constituents, even if completely but slowly absorbed may not exhibit any therapeutic or affirmative effects or show any response at all because the concentrations needed for the desired effect is never achieved, whilst a pill or capsule which is readily broken down and its active ingredients rapidly absorbed would attain concentrations levels easily so that therapeutic benefits are elicited and can be seen/felt.

Pills, in particular make use of magnesium stearate is used as an agent to stop caking and generally the pills from sticking together. This is sometimes called Stearic acid and is used in 90%+ of pills in the herbal and vitamin markets. Although marked (sometimes) as an inactive ingriediant, magnesium stearate is a metal byproduct which is used in pill manufacture, not only to speed up production but to provide ease of ingestion with aid of a slippery coating and also to mask/neutralise smells, this is not just magnesium stearate but other excipients like titanium dioxide used as a ‘natural’ whitening agent or benzoic acid, commonly sused as an anti oxidant and preservative. Adding all of these materials could constitute 5%+ of the pill.

If we talk about cordyceps Sinensis, I have noticed that the milligrams in the pills vary widely, from 500mg to 2 grams a pill. Having found out about its filler agents I found out that magnesium stearate could diminish the effects of the pill, not just cordyceps but vitamins and other supplements in pill form! Check out these articles on magnesium stearate for more information.

Also when in pill form, because all of the ingriediants have been compressed together, it contributes to a ‘timed’ release mechanism for the pill but may contribute to a lessening of its effects. Al Czap of Thorne Research and publisher of the peer reviewed journal Alternative Medicine Review has commented about magnesium stearate ability to impede the body’s absorption of the supplements active ingredients. Whilst others may dismiss this, I particularly do not like the idea that I am getting less because of the agents used to - even if unintentionally – bulk out a pill, but also be listed as an inactive ingriediant. Why would you want to pay for something inactive and doesn’t work for your body?

Capules on the other hand have been observed to be the delivery method of choice, particularly in the herbal market, with an astounding 74% of consumers giving a preference to capsules, along with its ease of swallowing making up 66% as the dominant reason. Capsules come in several forms from gelatine (from collagen in animals) to vegecaps (derived from vegetable sources) to even capsules derived from fish (derived from fish gelatine). Because the product is not compressed, it does not need additional agents to make the ‘active pharmaceutical ingriediants’ to stick together. Which means more product for your money and without the worry of having mysterious inactive ingredients being included in your product. Capsules are only used when the product is in powder form and cannot be compressed, in the case of cordyceps Sinensis – it comes in pill and capsule form but we go with the general consensus that if we sell a product it must be as close to its natural form as possible, in this case it ‘was’ a mushroom and ‘now’ its powdered and inside a capsule. This seems much more effective for absorbtion and as a way to reassure you that what you are paying for and consuming is 100% cordyceps Sinensis with no other bulking or filler agent.

Now, cordyceps sinensis comes in capsule form as well, we stock cordyceps sinensis capsules in our shop, this is because we found that there are studies which show that patients prefer the use of capsules in any course of treatment. When looking at ‘pill burden’ and medication compliance (the patient keeps up the medication) it was observed that patients 90% of the time continued their course of treatment due to capsules being easily swallowed, along with the fact that cordyceps sinensis is powdered before being put into capsule. There is no anti caking agent or any other bulking agent involved. Not in our cordyceps sinensis capsules anyway, we only sell 100% cordyceps Sinensis in our capsules.