Why more isn’t always better when it comes to supplements

Walk down a supplement aisle and it’s easy to assume the product with the longest ingredient list or the biggest numbers must be doing more for you. One thousand milligrams sounds better than 500 mg. Twenty-six ingredients sound more comprehensive than six. And if one nutrient is beneficial, surely more of it must be even better?

Nutrition is rarely that simple.

The amount of a nutrient listed on a label tells you how much is in the product. It doesn’t tell you how much your body will absorb or use, whether that amount is appropriate for the systems inside you needed to absorb it, or how the nutrient will interact with everything else in the formulation. That’s why, when we formulate, we don’t ask, how much can we fit in? We ask, what belongs here, in what form and at what dose?

Your body doesn’t treat every nutrient the same way

Once a nutrient enters your digestive system, what happens next depends on the nutrient itself. Different nutrients have different pathways for absorption, transport, utilisation, storage and excretion. For many nutrients, consuming more doesn’t necessarily mean your body will absorb or use proportionately more. Some nutrients have tightly regulated absorption pathways. Iron is a good example. The body has no active mechanism for excreting significant amounts of excess iron, so intestinal absorption is carefully regulated, in part by the hormone hepcidin. This is why you might hear the recommendation to take your traditional high-dose iron supplements every second day instead of every day (fun fact: this doesn’t apply to Iconic Iron which is absorbed through a different mechanism and isn’t flooding your gut with free iron, so you can take it every day).

Other nutrients are handled differently. Some excess water-soluble vitamins – like vitamin C and most B vitamins – can be excreted in urine, while some nutrients can accumulate in the body when consumed in excess. So the idea isn’t that your body will simply take what it needs and get rid of everything else. It won’t always. It’s that dose matters, but dose alone doesn’t tell you whether a supplement has been thoughtfully formulated.

The form matters too

Two supplements can contain the same nutrient at the same dose and still provide it in very different forms. The chemically synthesised form (not OnBlends) or food form (OnBlends) of a nutrient can influence how it behaves in the digestive system, how it is absorbed and how well it is tolerated. This is why we look beyond simply including an ingredient and consider the form in which we provide it.

We exclusively use nutrients sourced from real foods and medicinal herbs, providing them in forms that reflect the way they occur in nature. Yet ‘natural’ isn’t a shortcut for ‘better’. Every ingredient still has to earn its place. The question is always whether the form makes sense for the purpose of the formulation and how the body will use it.

Nutrients don’t work in isolation

Nutrition is wonderfully interconnected. Many nutrients rely on other nutrients, enzymes and physiological processes to be absorbed, converted or utilised in the body. These relationships are one reason we consider the formulation as a whole, as well as looking at each ingredient independently.

Sometimes that means including cofactors that complement the role of another nutrient – like the copper and beta-carotene in Iconic Iron™, which support iron metabolism and utilisation. Other times, it means bringing together ingredients that research has found work synergistically – like licorice and paeonia in Cycle Essentials, a combination that has been studied for its efficacy in fostering menstrual regularity and changes in reproductive and metabolic markers. And sometimes, thoughtful formulation means leaving an ingredient out because it doesn’t add something meaningful. A longer list isn’t necessarily a more complete one. Plus a longer list usually means lots of ingredients in miniscule amounts, rather than useful, therapeutic doses.

More isn’t the goal

There are circumstances where higher doses of particular nutrients are appropriate. There are also circumstances where excessive supplementation can be unnecessary or potentially harmful. That’s why we don’t believe there’s a universal rule that less is better. We believe in less, done better.

Thoughtful doses with consideration for how the body will absorb it; carefully selected forms; cofactors where they serve a purpose. No fillers. And formulations built around what we’re actually trying to achieve, rather than how impressive we can make the label look. That philosophy runs through everything we make. Our Essentials support everyday nutritional foundations. Our Blends bring together ingredients selected to support specific systems and needs. And our Iron takes a ground-breaking approach to one nutrient – along with its co-factors – where form, dose and the body’s own regulatory mechanisms matter enormously.