Timed for absorption

A supplement label tells you what is inside. It rarely tells you what happens next. Between the capsule and the cell sits digestion, and digestion has preferences. Some nutrients travel best with food. Some are absorbed more efficiently in smaller amounts. Some get in each other's way. None of this is new. It is just easy to overlook when everything goes into one tablet, taken whenever you remember.

Fat-soluble vitamins like company

Vitamins D and K dissolve in fat, not water. The body takes them up the way it takes up dietary fat. Bile and digestive enzymes pack them into microscopic clusters, called micelles, that the small intestine can absorb. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements describes this in its vitamin K fact sheet.

Dawson-Hughes and colleagues (2015) gave 50 healthy older adults a one-time research dose of vitamin D3 with breakfast. At 50,000 IU, it was far above the daily limit. One group ate a fat-free breakfast. The others ate one with 30% of its calories from fat. At the expected peak, twelve hours later, blood vitamin D3 was on average 32% higher in the groups who had fat. The balance of fats made no significant difference.

A smaller, earlier report points the same way. Mulligan and Licata (2010) followed 17 patients at a bone clinic whose vitamin D levels had not responded as expected to supplements. They were asked to take their usual dose with their largest meal. Two to three months later, their blood levels had risen by about 57% on average. There was no control group, so it is a signal rather than proof. The NIH's vitamin D fact sheet puts it plainly: fat in the gut helps, but some vitamin D is absorbed without it.

More is not always more

Fine and colleagues (1991) measured how much magnesium healthy volunteers absorbed from a standard meal with rising amounts of added magnesium. The total absorbed went up with each step. The share absorbed went down, from about 65% at the lowest intake to 11% at the highest. That top step added close to 1,000 mg of magnesium, nearly three times the adult upper limit for supplements. The gut, in other words, has a point of diminishing returns.

The study did not test split doses. But its curve suggests that two moderate amounts may be absorbed more efficiently than one large one. Calcium behaves in a similar way. The NIH notes that absorption from calcium supplements is highest at doses of 500 mg or less.

Some minerals compete

Hallberg and colleagues (1991) studied iron absorption in 126 people eating wheat rolls with different amounts of added calcium. Iron absorption fell as calcium rose, by 50 to 60% at 300 to 600 mg. A serving of 165 mg of calcium, given as milk or cheese, did much the same.

These were single meals, not whole diets. The NIH's iron fact sheet notes that calcium's effect on iron absorption has not been definitively established, and that in a typical Western diet such effects make little difference to most people's iron status. Even so, it reports, experts suggest taking individual calcium and iron supplements at different times of day.

Ceilings, not targets

For many vitamins and minerals, the NIH lists a tolerable upper intake level: the most you can take in each day that is unlikely to cause harm. For adults, that is 100 mcg (4,000 IU) of vitamin D, 45 mg of iron, and 2,000 to 2,500 mg of calcium, depending on age. Most limits count food, drinks and supplements together. Magnesium's adult limit of 350 mg covers supplements and medicines, not food. No limit has been set for vitamin K, but it can interact with some medicines, including certain blood thinners.

An upper limit is a ceiling, not a goal. Knowing it matters most when one product stacks on another.

How we are designing the Formula

Mere Formula is in development. It will launch after the ring, and it is optional. The plan is two pods a day: a Day pod with breakfast and a Night pod after dinner. Each will be built from about 30 nights of ring data, your check-ins and any labs you choose to add, and rebuilt every 30 days.

Two pods give us room to think about timing. What follows is design intent, not a promise of results.

• With food, where it helps. Any vitamin D3 or K2 will go in the Day pod, to take with a breakfast that has some fat in it, because fat helps carry them.
• Nothing generically packed. Two moments in the day mean ingredients that compete, or that absorb better in smaller amounts, need not share one.
• Under the limit. Where a vitamin or mineral has an official upper limit, its dose will stay under it, counting both pods and any supplements you tell us you take. Food counts toward most limits too, so a limit is never the target.
• Nothing hidden. Every ingredient, form and dose will be named on the box and in the app. You will see what changes, and why, before each box ships.

Pregnant, nursing or taking medication? Ask your doctor before starting any supplement, ours included.

We will share more, including price, before the Formula launches. Join the founding list and we will tell you when it is ready.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.