Magnesium stearate is not "machine lube"; it's used as an anti-clumping ingredient to help assure uniform pills.

"I rightly purchased the product that contained more cranberry rather than the one crowded out by the offending contaminant."

Magnesium stearate is used in such tiny quantities that there's no way it's "crowding out" active ingredients. As I'm sure you know, supplements vary widely in the amount of active ingredients they offer. This has nothing to do with magnesium stearate or other minute quantities of inactive substances in the product.

It's a lot easier to dismiss facts one can't answer with claims of "industry influence" than to provide evidence backing supplement company claims of detrimental health effects of magnesium stearate (and the last I checked, supplement selling is a multibillion dollar industry in the U.S. alone).

By the way, a quick check on Google shows the e-mail address given by the last poster belongs to an individual who appears to be a chiropractor in Illinois. If that's you, Steven, it'd be more accurate to refer to yourself as such instead of a "doctor".

I stand by what I previously wrote:

1) All things being equal, a product without mag. ster. is better than one that contains it because there is more of what you are actually buying. My example was for a cranberry product. The company that I used for the example reformulated the product to no longer contain mag. ster. (Thank goodness!)
The capsules mass was the same 500mg. When the mag ster was removed there was 50% more cranberry than when it was present(no more crowding out)

I wish that I could be more specific, but garden web has very strict rules about mentioning products. (I don't want to be accused of advertising)

2) Cranberry (or whatever herb I am purchasing) helps my patients, but mag. stear. does not! You claim it is safe, but do you claim that it has the same beneficial properties as the herb that I am seeking?? If I needed cranberry, I would like to get as much cranberry as possible. It is nice to know that the product does not have other additives that do not contribute to my health.

3) When I recommend a product, I want as many variables out of the way as possible. Eliminating magnesium stearate, is one less variable!

4) Due to the anti-advertising rules I was reluctant to mention my business, but since you opened that door(thank you for that by the way), yes I am a Doctor of Chiropractic in Illinois. I am very proud of this. You may call me Dr. Sciame.

To "Dr Truth" a.k.a. Steven:

It still doesn't make sense that a tiny amount of an anti-clumping in a pill "crowds out" other ingredients. The product you formerly were using just had less cranberry in it than the current one. As I mentioned, this kind of variability is common in supplements. Here's an example of a product for which testing found that the active ingredient in a capsule could vary 100-fold.

I don't care much about whether magnesium stearate or miniscule amounts of any other inert substances are present in pills, as long as I get a consistent quality product that doesn't deteriorate in my medicine cabinet. It seems to me that fearmongering about magnesium stearate has gotten to a ridiculous point, but if anyone can document realistic health concerns I'm open to new evidence.

Thanks for clarifying that you're a chiropractor. In regard to your first post in which you called yourself a doctor, most people take that to mean a physician and assume a certain level of qualifications. I've seen lots of Internet posts, letters to the editor of newspapers etc. where people call themselves doctors and it turns out that they're chiropractors, homeopaths or whatever. If they're truly proud of their work, it's surprising that they're not more up front about it.

My experiences with magnesium stearate and silicon dioxide over the years have shown it to be a real "no brainer" for me; I simply cannot digest any supplement that contains these ingredients. After taking them, I feel as if I have swallowed a brick that won't go down, followed by feeling slightly queasy and sweaty for a few hours, then very weak for a couple of days. I now only take liquid supplements derived from whole-food, organic, bio-available ingredients.

I avoid anything that is "analogous" and concocted in a lab. This includes Vit. D. Recently, y doc tried to prescribe a synthetic (which I'm sure worked fine for most of his patients), but I refused it and found a liquid made from whole foods. That's what works for me.

That said, I am going to go a step further and opine that I do not believe that manufacturing expediences such as magnesium stearate or silicon dioxide are doing any favors for anyone else - they are simply less reactive to them...for now. I don't think these chemicals go through your gut in 10 hours or so, like normal foods. They probably hang around and accumulate in your liver and bloodstream and interfere, over the long run, with basic biochemical processes of your body. The first poster commented on cottonseed oils and how rancid, toxic and altered they are. Most people take a lot of pills - be they pharmaceuticals or supplements. These chemicals can really add up in the body, over the course of a month or years. And though stearic acid and magnesium stearate are both naturally occurring in our bodies, their behavior may be quite different when manufactured and ingested.

Researchers have found jet fuel in the blood of newborns, mother's milk and just about everyone else, throughout the US. It's most likely source is drinking water. I'm not being alarmist; my point is that we have to be aware of our modern environment and stay alert and exercise a sensible amount of precaution - just 60 years ago doctors were recommending that women smoke while pregnant to calm themselves down.

Additionally, talk to a plumber about the number one thing that backs up a home septic system and they will tell you that it is vitamin pills. Americans have the most expensive pee and poop in the world. Why? Because we take all this mulit-vitamin crap and think that we are doing a favor for our bodies. With all the enteric coatings, absurdly non-bioavailable combinations of cheap synthetic vitamins, in a pill filled with cullulose and magnesium stearate, silicon dioxide, etc. these things pass right through us almost completely undigested. And they clog up not only our internal plumbing, but the building's plumbing. Did you know that taking these pills actually majorly interferes with the digestion and absorption of nutrients from the food we eat? The action of these sorts of vitamins is almost entirely due to placebo effect. If they worked, Americans wouldn't test out as severely nutrient deficient as they currently do. Ask your doc for a comprehensive test for, say, Vit. D levels in your blood and you'll find out for yourself. Multi-vitamins are best sellers and most of us are as conscientious about taking them as we are about brushing our teeth. And tableted multi-vitamins are the worst sort of crap - all of them, even in the health food store. It's all marketing. That's why I stick with organic, food-based liquids and why they are becoming increasingly popular alternatives.

Lastly, about tests. Most of these are conducted at the behest of large manufacturing concerns and not only are the tests skewed to provide the desired results, findings not consistent with those results are routinely thrown out until they get what they are looking for. Then these are published in medical journals. By JAMA's own confession, (under pressure from the US government) it is estimated that three quarters of all scientific medical studies are either worthless, flawed in methodology or simply misleading due to this problem. (Maybe JAMA should stop accepting $100K in exchange for looking the other way when publishing so many of their "studies". But the practice continues.)

Since I haven't got unlimited time to sort all this out, I take the easiest and most logical approach in my case and avoid anything that isn't organic and free of fillers, binders, preservatives and the like. I eat locally produced organic food and grass-fed, free-range beef. And, despite my serious immunological weaknesses, I drink organic, raw milk and colostrum for it's digestibility and immune boosting properties - no RBEST and no altered molecules of protein.

Do balanced, scientific studies support all my choices? Perhaps - perhaps not yet. I happen to think that letting my body speak to me and listening to it is one of the most sensible things one can do. As someone who has always been sickly and frail with impaired digestion, I have been getting better over the long run and experiencing more stamina with my regimens. I'm 50 and look 30, with 10% body fat, a perfectly toned physique and flawless skin and hair, and bright, clear, gleaming eyes. The approach I have taken to achieve this might draw scoffs from some skeptics, but I ask them - do you look like this at my age (I'm female, by the way)? The results speak for themselves. I am the canary in the coal mine. I hope someone out there is listening to me, because what you don't know CAN kill you - just very, very slowly.

" I do not believe that manufacturing expediences such as magnesium stearate or silicon dioxide...go through your gut in 10 hours or so, like normal foods. Most people take a lot of pills - be they pharmaceuticals or supplements. These chemicals can really add up in the body, over the course of a month or years."

This sounds like the standard line about "toxins" - hobgoblins that are supposedly present in our bodies if we don't "cleanse" - but which don't exist.

If there is any evidence for the claims made by the preceding poster (vitamins in pills don't get absorbed by the body, vitamin pills are the "number one" thing clogging up septic systems, Americans are "severely nutrient deficient", etc.) it'd be nice to see it. These are typical claims seen on a myriad of alt med and supplement seller websites, presented as gospel and repeated endlessly without foundation.

The problem with multivitamins and most supplements in general is not the excipients/fillers they contain, but the supposed "active" substances in them - which we generally do not need when eating a healthy or even average diet, and which potentially could be harmful in excessive amounts. It's not the magnesium stearate you should be concerned about, but overloading on fat-soluble vitamins or other supplements, whether or not they are made by pharmaceutical companies or hand-harvested by monks in flowing robes.

"The approach I have taken to achieve this might draw scoffs from some skeptics, but I ask them - do you look like this at my age (I'm female, by the way)? The results speak for themselves."

Look like what? Could you hold up that photo again? ;)

The worst thing I've heard about magnesium stearate is that it isn't a form of magnesium that the body can easily utilize. Too much of it can actually cause it to run through your system quite fast...and not pleasantly :).

Magnesium stearate is also added to baby formula. And we all know about babies and diapers. Cause and effect?

Eric you really are big on this in here over and over! You can say this and that about it but one person had a point when they said powder is better with less fillers! Why do I want a filler in there when I can get a powder or just powder in a gel cap? MORE PRODUCT the better right?

Does the additive in there effect the bioavailability as well? Just another question.

I see some in here sensitive to fillers as I have been in the past as well, I prefer the powder to stir in a tea or just powder and a cap with no fillers! Straight herb (Mostly Organic) and nothing else.

Some people are really sensitive to things as they said, you can't tell them otherwise because it is you and you only who can tell how you feel after consuming something.

"You can say this and that about it but one person had a point when they said powder is better with less fillers! Why do I want a filler in there when I can get a powder or just powder in a gel cap? MORE PRODUCT the better right?"

You make it sound as though magnesium stearate is the bulk of what's in a pill, when it's actually a tiny amount of a compound used for a specific purpose, that doesn't affect dosage or bioavailability. As another poster commented (second post, 6 years ago):

"It's the magnesium salt of stearic acid ... usually of a vegetable source, it holds the pills together."

No big deal. If people want to convince themselves that they have a horrific reaction to it, they can take something else. All I'm interested in is correcting the misinformation being spread here and around the Internet, which could eventually result in poorer quality pills on the market and/or higher prices (again, see the link Anatomy of a health scare).

I didnt know what magnesuim stearate is. I notice just about every vitamins contain it. I am the type of person who observe the effect of everything I ate or take in my body. I notice whenever I take vitamins that has MS change my looks. I get puffy eyes and I look older. Not ever knowing the fact what MS is, I decided to stop taking anything that contains it. Only today I became curious to know what MS; I read the posts and I am happy to know the fact. I thank God for guiding me to the right decision.

Magnesium Stearate is added strictly for the convenience of the producers and manufacturers of these capsules and formulations.

It is in No way nutritious or added because it is somehow good for humans to consume. It is added for the sake of the machinery, and so the machinery that the herbal powders flow upon, do not get gummed up and stuck.
With the advent of such miraculous additives, we have to hire less people to clean the machines because they flow so much better.

Now what was the reason you bought the product in the first place?
You probably did not go out looking to buy Magnesium Stearate, but there it is, added to our health supplements.

I just get the herbs whole, powder myself and add to water. Or there are ways to make your own capsules in small batches by hand using encapsulation contraptions made of plastic, and you just buy empty capsules of your choice and fill them up.

Avoid this additive and all others additives.

We can no longer accept that these conveniences which were invented for machinery, are allowable to feed to humans.

"Now what was the reason you bought the product in the first place?"

Well, because I mostly don't have the time or expertise to make my own vitamin or herbal products, and know that if I tried, the resulting preparations would vary widely in dosage and quality.

Not that supplement companies are always so rigorous about making a reliable, standardized product, but if I had to choose between what someone whipped up "naturally" in their kitchen and a commercial product made to good manufacturing specifications, I'd go with the latter.

I instinctively started searching and using products without the magnesium stearate additive. I simply thought of it as a filler. Today I decided to research what it factually is. I appreciate hearing the experiences of many. I have also been educated as to the components and purpose of this ingredient. My findings support my initial perception and that is that this ingredient has no useful purpose as a supplement to my regimen. Each to his own. Let the decision be yours. Thank you for the information.

I have been studying this debate extensively and find the most important piece of the argument for the toxicity of magnesium stearate not mentioned in this thread. Magnesium stearate is highly processed. Steric acid, a fatty substance, is hydrogenated and then bound to magnesium under very high temperatures and pressures.

The science is undisputed that hydrogenated (and partially hydrogenated fats) are BAD. Heating fats to very high temperatures is BAD and creates free radicals. Hydrogentated fats stiffen cells walls and weaken immunity because the cell cannot excrete and take in nutrients.

One researcher defends magnesium stearate saying that the quantity of ingestion is so small that 10 pills a day is equivalent to eating 1/2 a donut a year. Um, he is comparing magnesium stearate to a DONUT. Donuts are detrimental to health. Undisputed. Others, again, extend this argument about quantity. But we now know that we all have hundreds, if not thousand of chemicals in our bloodstreams in this modern age. Why would we want to knowingly add another brick to the cart? Some medication/chemicals are in the most minisule molecule doses with big impacts. Subtleties matter.

Our sensitives in our communities, our canaries in the coal mine, are sounding an alarm bell. They have sensitive systems that are honest and the body is telling us to stop using unnatural, manipulated, toxic ingredients. What is this doing to the lining of our guts, to our digestion, our immunity, or longevity? We need to be wise as a whole and stop gambling with the unknown acting as if we know all the answers. Nature knows best. Stick with her!

"The science is undisputed that hydrogenated (and partially hydrogenated fats) are BAD. Heating fats to very high temperatures is BAD and creates free radicals. Hydrogentated fats stiffen cells walls and weaken immunity because the cell cannot excrete and take in nutrients."

ALL CAPS are SCARY. However, condemning "hydrogentated" fats for allegedly damaging immunity does not make sense. For instance, an essential omega-3 fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid (found in purslane and other herbs) contains a whole bunch of hydrogen atoms (its formula is CH3(CH2CH=CH)3(CH2)7COOH, where H stands for hydrogen). Cooking oils containing fats with less hydrogen may in some circumstances be better for us. But stearic acid/stearate is naturally found in our bodies and forms a part of normal metabolism. Combining it with magnesium (also normal, and essential for metabolism) does not suddenly make the resulting product (magnesium stearate) foreign and toxic. The "science" is not "undisputed" that magnesium stearate in supplement pills harms immunity, because science does not demonstrate any such thing.

"One researcher defends magnesium stearate saying that the quantity of ingestion is so small that 10 pills a day is equivalent to eating 1/2 a donut a year. Um, he is comparing magnesium stearate to a DONUT. Donuts are detrimental to health."

Assuming what this researcher supposedly said is true, we are supposed to be galvanized into panic at the thought of heavy supplement users adding the equivalent of half a donut a year (in stearate?) to their diets? Come on.

"Others, again, extend this argument about quantity. But we now know that we all have hundreds, if not thousand of chemicals in our bloodstreams in this modern age. Why would we want to knowingly add another brick to the cart?"

Another "brick"? Scary metaphor. But the assumption that a minute amount of magnesium stearate in a supplement pill has some dramatic cumulative effect has no evidentiary basis. And the poster is unable or unwilling to grasp the concept that 1) our bodies (and natural foods and supplements including herbs) are loaded with chemicals, and toxicity of any one of them is dependent on dose. If you ate a ton of stearates every day (by consuming loads of animal or vegetable fats many times in excess of our normal diet), it wouldn't be good for you, just like eating several hundred donuts a day wouldn't be good for you). Generalizing from that to claim that half a donut consumed over the course of a year contains horrific toxins that will upset the applecart and poison the canaries in the coal mine etc. etc. does not make for a believable argument.

Unfortunately, what the "sensitives" of our communities are susceptible to is false advertising and scare tactics by certain supplement marketers and people who proclaim doom from nonexistent "toxins".

I'm surprised to read that some gardeners are having trouble digesting anything containing silicon dioxide... after all, your garden is loaded with it despite your best efforts to amend the soil, and it's often stuck to your vegetables even after scrubbing them. In fact, you might have unwittingly added it to the soil yourself....

Silicon dioxide is better known as "sand".

And it does the same thing for pill manufacturing that it does for soil: it keeps other stuff from sticking together and forming lumps. If you have lumps in a batch of pills, some will have lots of the active ingredient (maybe an overdose) and others will have none. That would be way worse for you than ingesting the equivalent of a few grains of sand... probably less than is stuck to that nice healthy carrot.

And eating a little sand may be good for you:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809081/?tool=pmcentrez
A study which followed subjects for 15 years found that higher levels of silica in water appeared to decrease the risk of dementia. The study found that with an increase of 10 milligram-per-day of the intake of silica in drinking water, the risk of dementia dropped by 11%.

Hi, my name is Joseph Buchignani. I'm sensitive to Magnesium Stearate in pill form.

I understand Eric's position perfectly. I do not like him, but I understand him.

He knows less than he thinks he does. He has failed to absorb the next paradigm, and is stuck in the evidence based medicine paradigm. This makes everything he says simultaneously true, boring, predictable and wrong. He will continue beating his ideological drum as long as anyone is listening.

Since I am just now reading about Magnesium Stearate for the first time, I find Eric's facts useful - they are likely accurate. Nevertheless, I reject his worldview.

Evidence based medicine likes to favorably compare itself to homeopathy and other forms of evidence-free medicine, but it is far more reluctant to examine its own flaws. Seth Roberts discusses some of these flaws. I won't go into them here.

The new paradigm embraces all that was good about evidence based medicine, while recognizing its limitations and inherent flaws. It also incorporates self-experimentation, paleo paradigms, and acknowledgment of individual genetic and clinical variation.

Next, I'd like to describe my sensitivity to Magnesium Stearate. It is part of a far larger range of sensitivities I developed after a course of Accutane. I believe I have intrahepatic cholestasis as a result of this. I am unable to digest fat, and must eat a diet of lean meat and rice. Besides these two ingredients, there is almost nothing that I can safely eat.

I already knew I couldn't eat capsules filled with oil. So I acquired a variety of liver and gut targeting supplements that did not contain oil. Unfortunately I was unaware that magnesium stearate is also fat.

I took Accutane 8 years ago. I only recently figured out that Accutane had caused my condition, and that I had intrahepatic cholestasis - a common reaction to liver-stressing drug intake. During the last 8 years, I have noticed adverse reactions to pills before. But I am only now exploring the fat angle, and learning the correct "why" behind things.

(Please simply posit that Accutane did in fact cause my condition, and that it is as described. I fully understand reader skepticism, but I do not wish to provide full explanations on either point. And please be aware that giving me advice such as "you should see a doctor" implies you think my IQ is south of 60.)

Two days ago I ingested one tablet containing magnesium stearate. Then I stopped, since I was already suspicious of magnesium stearate from prior experiences. But this was a pill targeting the liver, TUDCA to be specific, so I had hopes.

Unfortunately, a reaction cycle started like clockwork. It will last about 4 days. It is light to medium severity for me.

It may seem strange that such a small amount of stearic acid (fat) can cause a negative reaction. After all, I presumably eat stearic acid in the meat I consume. However, a solid tablet offers a particularly concentrated and durable dose of fat that will probably survive the trip to the intestines in sufficient localized concentration to trigger irritation.

I have no reason to posit special toxicity for Magnesium Stearate in my particular case; it appears to be a normal reaction to eating fat. If I understand correctly, long chain fatty acids like stearic acid are the most difficult for people lacking bile to digest.

Out of the six different supplements I acquired, two do not have some form of oil or stearic acid. I will switch to using those, and hope they increase my capacity to digest fat enough so that I can take the others in a week or two.

Anyway, there's a data point for MS sensitivity. Thanks to those who posted for educating me on this subject, including Eric.

Leaving aside the gratuitous personal attack, it doesn't make sense that 1) consuming a diet rich in stearates doesn't cause problems (stearic acid is commonly found in animal and vegetable fats and oils), but 2) consuming a tiny amount of stearate in a pill is toxic.

There is no "particularly concentrated and durable dose of fat" in a supplement pill.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to substitute for "the evidence based medicine paradigm". I feel uneasy trusting my health to the "let's make it up as we go along" paradigm or the "my woo can't be measured by your science" paradigm.

Personal criticism is not gratuitous if it is justified and germane to the discussion, Eric. If I criticized your hobbies or family members, that would be gratuitous.

Your use of scare quotes around "evidence based medicine" indicates you don't even know your own position, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage when attempting to defend it against a competent critic. I refer you to an Amazon search for "evidence based medicine". (URL omitted to comply with forum rules)

To state the obvious, the set of "evidence based medicine" is a subset of "medicine based on evidence". If you are still having trouble, I suggest looking up the word "evidence."

Also, it is amusing to hear you claim that it "doesn't make sense" that tablet (not capsule) magnesium stearate could deliver a problematic fat dose. This is another example of you confidently making assertions for which you cannot possibly possess sufficient evidence. You do not know the stringency of my fat reduction protocols for the meat I consume. Therefore you do not know the quantity or concentration of fat I can tolerate. Furthermore, you likely know nothing about the consequences of hypervitaminosis A, and therefore nothing about the potential long term side effects of Accutane, and what they might do to intestinal sensitivity.

Of course, I welcome any verifiable biochemistry or clinical studies you might wish to share.

Days 1 and 2 of the reaction cycle were as normal (i.e., terrible), but day 3 has been unexpectedly less bad. If this continues to day 4, then I'll take that as evidence that the TUDCA is working, and give it a week long trial.

Can anyone shed additional light on -
1. The percentage of MS in a solid tablet? I've heard up to 5%, which seems quite low.
2. The comparable foods that would contain something like MS? Someone mentioned a donut, which would absolutely destroy me. I respond far worse to highly processed food. Could it be that the processing of MS makes it potentially more irritating than natural stearic acid in meat?

It occurs to me if MS is a fat, then it's supposed to be dissolved by bile, which I lack. Does this mean that the capsule dissolves more slowly for me?

This MS pill hit me much harder and faster than soybean oil suspension capsules, but not as hard as tablets with artificial flavoring (probably something like xylitol). It's far from the worst pill I've taken, in terms of reaction. I'm guessing the oil capsules disperse more than the solid tablets for me. I can take one or two oil capsules per day with food and experience only slow, minor deterioration in health.

I'd be very interested to know what sort of hypoallergenic / hypersensitive pill ingredients others have had success with. Something like water and cellulose capsules, or what? Aren't some pill casings made from a component of rice? That would be ideal.

For your amusement, Joe, here's an article describing how much stearate we consume on average - it's 8.2 grams a day for men, coming from sources including meat, vegetables, grains, nuts, fruits and milk.

http://www.beefnutrition.org/CMDocs/BeefNutrition/StearicAcid.pdf

And here's an article looking at the use of magnesium stearate in pill manufacturing. An example they studied (of a pill whose active ingredient is acetominophen (Tylenol) found that the concentration of mag. stearate was 1%. That adds up to about 7.5 milligrams of stearate.

http://soe.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/gset/PharmaDC.pdf

So if you take that pill you're getting less than one-tenth of 1% of the average person's daily stearate intake. That hardly seems like a "concentrated...dose of fat" as you stated.

Now if you slugged down 100 pills containing mag. stearate a day (way way way more than even the most enthusiastic supplement user typically takes), you'd still be at only 9% of the average daily stearate intake from all nutritional sources. An average pill/supplement user gets only a minute fraction of their daily stearate (and magnesium) from their pills, even if they're on a low-fat diet.

As for magnesium, the recommended daily intake for this essential element is 400 mg. If we use that information from the pill article and assume that magnesium is present in a 1:1 ratio with stearate, that's 7.5 milligrams of magnesium in a pill. Again, you'd have to take a lot of pills every day to get too much magnesium (this can occur if one abuses magnesium-containing laxatives). Given how important magnesium is thought to be for cardiovascular health and immune system function (for example), concerns about magnesium are more commonly directed towards the possibility that we are consuming too little magnesium and not an excess.

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium/

You'll note that the article on mag. stearate use in pills mentions its value in assuring a reliable amount of active substances in pills by making them uniform. This is why scaremongering about mag. stearate is harmful, if it results in poorer quality pills whose accurate delivery of medication we can't rely on.

By the way, in case you're new to Internet forums, making personal attacks on other posters is generally viewed as an attempt to distract attention from the fact that one has no substantive points to make. And those making claims about the supposed toxicity of magnesium stearate are the ones who are obliged to provide evidence to that effect (not personal anecdotes), and not expect others to prove them wrong.

I found this forum because I was looking for information on magnesium stearate. I see there has been several years of controversial discussion on here. I'm not sure if this ingredient is good or bad for health and noone on here or anywhere else really knows for sure either. I don't care if there's been studies or not. The fact is it's an added ingredient among others, (gelatin, silcon dioxide, dicalcium phosphate, etc.). The list goes on and on. You will have to ingest these ingredients if you take supplements unless you research to find ones without one or more of these. I've found a few but most cost much higher or there may not be mag. stearate included but there's one or more of the other ones listed. It's a rock in a hard place. I have absorption problems in my colon and it causes vitamin and iron deficiencies. So, I do try to take supplements with the least unnecessary ingredients. For the average healthy person magnesium stearate and other unnecessary ingredients may not be such an issue. But, for someone like me it's a concern when noone really knows for sure without a doubt that these ingredients are A-OK and/or if they cause absorption problems.

Eric, you still haven't looked up the word "evidence", I see. I recommend you do so post-haste. "Personal anecdotes" most certainly are evidence.

You prefer to passive aggressively insinuate superiority; I prefer to directly criticize. If you had been civil and respectful to the others on this thread, I would have been friendlier. It's no use complaining now.

I have not argued that MS is toxic - I barely understand its chemical composition. I have simply noted that I react badly to it.

Otherwise, the factual information you provided is very welcome, and I'll read through it now.

One thing I'm curious about - if tablets contain very little MS, then what are they primarily composed of? Surely not the active ingredients? Then what is the binding agent?

It's quite possible I was wrong that it provides a concentrated dose of fat. I don't understand the mechanism by which it irritates my system. I'm just guessing.

Reading through it now...

"Too much lubricant, however, will
cause the powder to form globules and
to resist proper cohesion. This would fail
to provide both full bioavailability and
quick relief of symptoms."

Perhaps my lack of bile (the digestion's fat solvent) is causing something like the above to happen.

Aha, here is my answer to the tablet composition question:

"The excipients
make up the majority of the tablets by
mass."

So what are these mysterious excipients? My most recent tablet lists TUDCA, Calcium phosphate, Sipernat 22, Steric Acid, Magnesium stearate, film coating, in that order. So indeed MS is a very small percentage.

It's entirely possible that some other common ingredient class is causing my trouble with tablets. I will be trying a MS free liver capsule tonight, since the TUDCA 4 day reaction cycle has finished. That should be a good control.

It's interesting that despite the very low percentage of MS, increasing the percentage by just a point or two has a very powerful effect on bioavailability via clumping action. This might argue that the low percentage does not reflect its potential to irritate the intestines. The composition of a tablet is quite different than the composition of meat, for example. Reading this manufacturing study makes that quite clear. So MS in compressed tablets might not be at all comparable to stearic acid interspersed throughout meat fibers and juices.

Here's a key line: "Glidants and lubricants can
greatly increase hydrophobicity (the
resistance of a particle to absorb water),
which lowers the solvent penetration rate"

Interestingly, my anomalously rapid recovery continued from day 3-4, which might suggest that the TUDCA restored bile flow and thereby mitigated the MS irritation.

The paper concludes that MS levels should be about 1%, and 2% is too much. That speaks volumes about the impact of a small quantity.

Ok, having thought over the new information, here is my current best guess.

My chemistry is nonexistent, and I don't really trust Eric to tell us whether MS benignly breaks down into common food elements (Magnesium and stearic acid) or if there's something more sinister about the artificial compound. But given that the vast majority of people take it without trouble, I'm guessing it's safe enough.

However, for people with autoimmune, intestinal lining, or bile problems, MS may pose a bigger problem. It can do so in a number of ways. Machine compressed tablets are not a food humans are designed to eat, and small amounts of MS have an outsize impact on digestive solubility.

Long story short, if it gives you trouble, either avoid it or address the suspected reason you can't tolerate it.

"The paper concludes that MS levels should be about 1%, and 2% is too much. That speaks volumes about the impact of a small quantity."

All that says is 1% mag stearate is the optimal concentration for pills to prevent clumping of ingredients while maintaining good absorption of ingredients. It doesn't mean that 2% would suddenly cause the grievous symptoms that some people believe are associated with magnesium stearate.

Good for you on acknowledging you might have been wrong about there being a concentrated dose of fat in a pill due to this compound.

I'm well aware of what evidence is in a medical/scientific setting.

"Evidence-based medicine (EBM) or evidence-based practice (EBP) aims to apply the best available evidence gained from the scientific method to clinical decision making. It seeks to assess the strength of evidence of the risks and benefits of treatments (including lack of treatment) and diagnostic tests. Evidence quality can be assessed based on the source type (from meta-analyses and systematic reviews of double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials at the top end, down to conventional wisdom at the bottom), as well as other factors including statistical validity, clinical relevance, currency, and peer-review acceptance."

Personal anecdotes are right down there at the bottom of the evidence quality scale along with "conventional wisdom".

The opposite of resorting to personal attacks is not "passive aggressive" - it's being civil. Why not try it?

You can spin in however you like. The paper doesn't address intestinal irritation. However, it makes clear that tiny variations in the percentage of MS in a machine-compressed powder tablet have an outsized impact on solvency and absorption. It is therefore not prima facie absurd to suppose that a small amount of MS in a tablet could cause irritation. Therefore your argument that the amount is tiny and the substance is benign, and therefore no irritation can result, fails. It is ironic that your own evidence refuted your argument.

Thus, I was not entirely incorrect to call it a "highly concentrated dose of fat." The key is not the concentration, but the compression of the powder into a tablet, that creates a solubility challenge for the digestion.

You're now trying to play semantic games, conflating science with the scientific method with medicine and thereby ruling out anecdote, and appealing to EBM as an authority to justify this step. That begs the question of whether EBM is a good ideology - and it isn't. You're also backtracking from anecdote not being evidence to it being the lowest tier of evidence.

I speak plain English as defined by the dictionary, use common sense, and don't follow stupid ideologies off the cliff. Good luck in your war against all medical information that isn't produced by expensive controlled studies funded by government grants or pharmaceutical companies. I'm sure there couldn't possibly be any sort of biases, corruption or blind spots inherent in such an info vector.

So, the article I cited helps disprove your claim that tiny amounts of magnesium stearate in a pill represents a "highly concentrated dose of fat", and doesn't cite any toxicity from its use. It only talks about optimal mag. stearate levels to assure a good quality pill. From that we're to conclude that it somehow supports what you were saying?

Talk about spin.

Medicine in modern times has emphasized scientific foundations of treatment and increasingly embraces evidence-based therapy for optimal and cost-effective care. Rejecting high-quality evidence in favor of anecdotes is not striking a blow for the little guy against Big Pharma. It just makes it harder for the little guy to know what drugs and therapies work, and enables certain supplement manufacturers to profit off scaremongering (like claiming that magnesium stearate is toxic so you should buy their non-mag. stearate containing pills instead).

its a poor substitution...gelatin has medicinal uses in stopping excess bleeding, replacing it with mag stearate was a money saving gesture on the part of the manufacturer and created a more inferior product. find another brand.

As Andy Dufresne said, "How can you be so obtuse? Is it deliberate?"

I am not talking about most people. I have intrahepatic cholestasis. Most people don't.

Bile dissolves fat. I lack bile. Therefore a compressed powder tablet with a percentage of MS optimized for a bile-containing digestion will not dissolve at the proper rate for me, thereby potentially leading to irritation.

It's amazing how you continually self-refute. Now you're talking about how the little guy needs to rely on EBM evidence. Guess what? EBM will never produce evidence relevant to me, because those with my problem set are such a tiny minority - possibly a minority of one. You have it precisely backwards - EBM favors the herd, not the minority.

Whoa, we have a Stephen King fan here (though I don't recall that particular line).

Passing over your latest gratuitous insult, one notices that your posts describe how you believe you have intrahepatic cholestasis, that you think taking Accutane caused it, that you believe magnesium stearate in a pill is toxic to you etc.
You further say that any advice that you consult a physician would be taken as insulting your intelligence.

Forgive me for asking, but has any physician confirmed your self-diagnoses, or told you that you cannot take conventional pills because they have super-concentrated fat that damages your gastrointestinal tract? Are there any reliable medical sources online that make this claim?

Otherwise it's hard to see how your particular anecdote outweighs any other, given that there's no credible mechanism for what you describe.

Eric, your persistent dialectical incompetence is beginning to grow on me. I suppose it goes with the territory of embracing EBM in the first place. So here's your coffin nail.

You've admitted that anecdote is evidence. You argue that controlled studies are a higher tier of evidence. I'm willing to concede that.

However, armchair theorizing is not a better form of evidence than anecdote, particularly when dealing with black box systems like the human body.

So why don't you supply your clinical study that demonstrates MS doesn't cause irritation. Keep in mind that in order to rule out the above anecdotes as false, the study needs to have an extremely high statistical confidence, and therefore a huge sample size.

Otherwise your logic (such as it is) loses to the above anecdotes.

Please note that I am simply following your hierarchy of evidence here.

Believe me, I am hoping you actually take up this challenge, as I expect any study you produce will only further undermine your case.

Joe, I think the problem here is a lack of understanding of the scientific method.

Anyone can propose a theory - in this case, your belief that a pill with a tiny amount of magnesium stearate irritates your G.I. tract.

Even if this theory wasn't so dubious (seeing that the claim that such pills contain a "concentrated dose of fat" already has been disproven and there has been no logical mechanism presented for magnesium stearate's alleged toxicity), it would need backing by quality evidence, which we lack.

Demanding that others "prove me wrong!" is a fallacy common among those who don't understand science works. It's up to you to prove your idea correct, either by doing your own research (impractical for nearly everyone in this forum) or pointing to good studies that back you up.

As I said earlier, I'm interested in seeing any such studies purporting to demonstrate the hazards of magnesium stearate. This thread has been going on for nearly seven years and no one has gotten beyond shaky personal anecdotes and wild speculation.

Hahaha. I understand your position better than you do. Do you really think you're going to educate me on the philosophical aspects of EBM, science or debate?

I'll type this as slowly as possible for you.

Thesis: MS causes irritation in a small minority of users.

Evidence: Anecdotes on this thread and around the web.

Your counter-evidence: ???

I don't have to produce scientific studies in order to notice something. That's your ideological framework, not mine. One wonders how you manage to stop at red lights.

I hope I don't have to explain what happens in a debate when one side has some evidence, and the other has none...

Wow. I can't begin to read through all the banter being caused here. But if I may get back on topic.

There's a good substitute that manufacturers can use instead of mag.stearate. Instead of ANY use of a anti-clogging agent, many quality manufacturers have turned to using liquid nitrogen to keep the machinery cool thereby keeping the high speed parts from "cooking" the herbs onto the machinery.

Make sense?

theherbalist2012

That's interesting, theherbalist2012. But as I understand the use of magnesium stearate, it's intended to keep components of the pill from clumping together (which could result in some pills having too much of the active ingredient and others too little). Is there some way liquid nitrogen would prevent this?

As for anecdotes supposedly proving a thesis, please refer to the linked article I mentioned earlier. It describes a health scare in New Zealand after a popular thyroid medication was reformulated, resulting in a pill with different appearance and taste (but the same amount of active ingredient as before). Anecdotes of bad reactions spread, fueled by Internet rumors, and the company had to find other sources of the medication (an expense borne by all consumers). No cause for the negative reports was ever found, and after the excitement died down most people who'd abandoned the pill went back to it (and adverse reports declined to about the same level they were at before all the hoopla started).

Anecdotes aren't necessarily useless. But they're a poor form of evidence on which to base health decisions.

Eric:

Maybe I didn't read enough. I thought we were talking about strictly single component herb pills (only one herbal ingredient).

I agree that there's a lot of "health nut" hoopla. "The sky is falling. The sky is falling." And people fall into that much of the time.

Off topic: One such scare is when everyone became convinced that removing the amalgam fillings would greatly improve your health. I investigated it myself back in the 80's in a limited way and found no foundation for the claim.

Just sayin' . . .

theherbalist2012

That story establishes that cosmetic variations can influence the amount of side effect reporting. Not that the side effects didn't happen to a minority of users. It's irrelevant in at least two other ways, but why bother counting further?

I'm beginning to believe your extreme overconfidence is simply a front to cover the fact that you don't have a study to produce.

Too bad. Your one redeeming quality was your willingness to source hard information.

An EBM-ite who doesn't back up his claims with data is like a steak-loving vegan.

Some good reading here on the negative proof fallacy:

"A negative proof is a logical fallacy which takes the structure of:

X is true because there is no proof that X is false.
If the only evidence for something's existence is a lack of evidence for it not existing, then the default position is one of skepticism and not credulity. This type of negative proof is common in proofs of God's existence or in pseudosciences where it is used to attempt to shift the burden of proof onto the skeptic rather than the proponent of the idea. The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence."

This fallacy (which stands in stark contradiction to what the scientific method requires) has appeared before in the Herbalism forum. "You haven't proved my claim false, therefore it's true!" "I think magnesium stearate is bad, you haven't proved it doesn't do all these bad things, therefore I'm right!"

Sorry, nope. The mag-stearate-is-bad advocates still have the burden of proof - the more so since the claim about magnesium stearate being toxic lacks a plausible basis. Any good evidence supporting that claim would provide a basis for further discussion; anecdote and personal belief are not good evidence.

Eric:

I didn't know how to approach your question on the other thread about "Prevention." But I was trying to concentrate on CHRONIC illness Prevention. I think you just supplied the information that shares the way I feel about Prevention . . . "A negative proof is a logical fallacy which takes the structure of:

X is true because there is no proof that X is false.
If the only evidence for something's existence is a lack of evidence for it not existing, then the default position is one of skepticism and not credulity. This type of negative proof is common in proofs of God's existence or in pseudosciences . . . "

There's no way to argue for NOR against chronic illness Prevention for the very reason you stated. I think we're on the same page (?) atleast with this one thing.

theherbalist

"This fallacy (which stands in stark contradiction to what the scientific method requires) has appeared before in the Herbalism forum. "You haven't proved my claim false, therefore it's true!""

Straw man. That was not the formulation.

"I think magnesium stearate is bad, you haven't proved it doesn't do all these bad things, therefore I'm right!"

Second straw man.

"Sorry, nope. The mag-stearate-is-bad advocates still have the burden of proof - the more so since the claim about magnesium stearate being toxic lacks a plausible basis. "

That's nice. I didn't say it was bad or toxic.

"Any good evidence supporting that claim would provide a basis for further discussion; anecdote and personal belief are not good evidence."

Congratulations on invalidating virtually all written history as well as the entire legal system.

Huh?

theherbalist

An excellent question.

Indeed... one you should have asked much, much sooner.

All I know is I do most of my own pluming & a few others, but it is not how I pay the rent. All the plumbers I know agree that Hair & grease, then child toys(little girl's hairbrush mostly) stop up the pipes.:-)
eric oh you put up a good debate, but I fail to sleep near the end.

So now I'm responsible for insomnia?

children children! go to your rooms

Thank you Dr Truch / Dr. Sciame for the clarity, simplicity and integrity of which you wrote your posts on Wed, May 4, 11 at 1:17 and Wed, May 4, 11 at 13:45.

What you're saying is easy to understand, making perfect sense about MS taking up space otherwise available for the actual herb you're trying to get. Your example of the equal sized casual having 50% more cranberry when the MS was removed speaks for itself.

Thank you for speaking with clarity and simplicity in contract to the involved rhetoric that seems intended on "clouding the waters" of understanding.

Speaking of which... I want to know who's paying this "eric oh"?

Oh goody, a mag. stearate update.

Check out the 2/8 post demonstrating that stearate concentration in a typical pill is 1% (leaving 99% available for whatever else someone wants to put in there). That hardly indicates that supposed active ingredients are being "crowded out" by mag. stearate.

As to who's paying me - it should be obvious. I am being paid fabulous sums of money by the Big Pharma Extraterrestrial Reptilian Overlords, who are using magnesium stearate to depopulate the earth and make room for their scaly offspring.

Just connect the dots, sheeple people.

Finally! Thank you all, especially Ron Schmid, for your comments.

Because I am salicylate sensitive I cannot have any palm oil or cottonseed oil or anything made from either, hydrogenated or not. I am very thankful to have found this forum because now I know why I cough up green phlegm even though I have absolutely no reason for sudden congestion except that I have ingested supplements with magnesium stearate, stearic acid or calcium stearate. Now I can get the methyl folate, essential electrolytes, and amino acids that I need to improve my health. They are the only ones I have left that have magnesium stearate and stearic acid in them. Thanks Everyone!

Hi all, I am here for the first time. I'm
interested in everything related to the healthy way of life, herbal treatment and good diet. Magnesium and other minerals you can find in every day food . magnesium and other minerals can be found in other typical foods in the diet Mediterranean. Here you find more about the properties of herbs in our lives, with various
diseases.