Medical studies have shown that liquid extracts have faster absorption rates; higher optimization rates and is more easily digestible. Liquids may have a big advantage over pills when it comes to swallowing. Most people, especially the elderly and young children, tend to have more difficulty swallowing some pills.

Let’s examine this a little further.

A benefit of a liquid is that you avoid the risk that an improperly made pill will not break apart and fully release its ingredients. A USA based laboratory subjected the tablets and caplets it reviews to a disintegration test for this reason and has come across many pills that don’t break apart at all or, more often, only partially break apart. For example, in 2017, multivitamins from two different companies failed to break apart fully after 30 minutes (the required time as per the U.S. Pharmacopeia) and still had not fully disintegrated after another 30 minutes.

Having a supplement, remedy or medicine in liquid form also makes it easier to modify the dose. For example, if a supplement, like vitamin D liquid drops or a fish oil liquid, is being shared among family members, it is very easy to give each person their specific dose by changing the number of drops or fraction of a teaspoon that you administer.  

Some ingredients in supplements are hygroscopic, i.e., they attract water, and pills containing them can quickly become “wet” from moisture in the air. Magnesium chloride a good example of this, but it is also the preferred form if you need to take high-dose magnesium as it is less likely to cause diarrhoea than other forms. It is therefore better to take magnesium chloride as a liquid than as a pill.

It’s not surprising that people do like to taste what it is that they are taking as a remedy, supplement or medicine. Capsules or pills do not allow the user to taste what is contained in the delivery form and this can offer result in less compliance to the therapy. We are sure that like many, you have had the experience of “vitamin nausea” after consuming your daily intake of products. Vitamin Nausea typically occurs when taking a variety of pills or capsules in the morning on an empty stomach. The result can be quite uncomfortable with consumers speaking of urges to vomit not long after taking their vitamins or supplements.

Liquid remedies or medicines have a dosing flexibility where the daily dose can be diluted with water or juice. Many of today’s herbal liquids are now very pleasant to take directly from the bottle, this adds to the importance of staying compliant with the dose schedules.

A clear winner with liquid herbal remedies or medicines is the quick uptake of the active ingredients once the dose has been taken…. It’s called Bioavailability and the quicker the uptake of the product the faster becomes the onset of action.

Liquids do make enormous sense when getting the best out of your natural health products