Injectable Vitamins vs Ingestible Vitamins- What’s The Difference?
Posted by: Regenerate Medical Concierge in Learn
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You may have heard of injecting vitamins from pop icons like the Kardashians or Paris Hilton.
While it seems like another health fad that will soon fall away, the truth is quite different.
Injectable vitamins provide benefits for a wide range of clients and may even be more efficient than taking them orally.
Keep reading to find out how the two methods are different and which one works better.
Why We Need Vitamins
Vitamins and minerals are necessary micronutrients in our bodies. They are called “micro” because we need them in relatively small amounts, compare to macronutrients like carbohydrates, fats, and protein.
Vitamins are organic molecules, while minerals are inorganic.
They serve countless roles in the body, including healing, immune function, energy, and cellular repair.
In fact, it would be easier to say what vitamins don’t do — that’s how big their role is in our bodies.
We need the following vitamins in our systems:
- A (retinoids and carotene)
- B1 (thiamin)
- B2 (riboflavin)
- B3 (niacin)
- B5 (pantothenic acid)
- B6 (pyridoxine)
- B7 (biotin)
- B9 (folic acid)
- B12 (cobalamin)
- C (ascorbic acid)
- Choline
- D (calciferol)
- E (alpha-tocopherol)
- K (phylloquinone, menadione)
The B vitamins are collectively referred to as the B complex and often, these vitamins come in different forms, such as vitamin A in the form of retinoids and carotene.
Vitamin Deficiencies
Roughly 31% of Americans are at risk of being deficient of at least one vitamin.
As previously mentioned, vitamins are involved in countless functions in our bodies. So, if we’re lacking certain vitamins, it can lead to a number of issues such as:
- Anemia (i.e. a lack of healthy red blood cells)
- Fatigue
- Slow Healing
- Restless leg syndrome
- Skin, hair, and nail problems
- Vision issues
Unfortunately, health problems extend far beyond this list. This is why it’s important to make sure you’re getting enough micronutrients to repair and maintain health.
What Happens When You Ingest Vitamins
When you ingest vitamins in food or dietary supplements, they must go through your digestive tract and be absorbed into your bloodstream before being utilized.
Unfortunately, all of the vitamins we ingest don’t make it to their end destination. Many aren’t efficiently absorbed due to various factors, such as:
- Biological factors (e.g. age, gender, and weight)
- Health history (e.g. if you take medications)
- The time of day you ingest them
- What foods you eat at one sitting
Additionally, vitamins are often lost from food depending on how you prepare them. This depends on if they are water or fat-soluble.
Water-Soluble Vitamins
Water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C and B-complex, don’t require stomach acids to be absorbed when you ingest them.
Rather, active transports (e.g. proteins) pick them up in your digestive tract and eventually deliver them into your bloodstream.
Water-soluble vitamins require daily consumption and many of the ones we eat are lost through heating, water, and digestion.
Plus, we lose many of them through our urine.
Fat-Soluble Vitamins
These vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K, are broken down through stomach acids.
During this process, vitamins are paired with fats to move through the intestinal walls and are stored in the body until needed.
These vitamins don’t require daily consumption and are stable through the process of heating.
Regardless of their solubility, it’s important to know that when you ingest vitamins, you could only be getting between 10-90% of what’s available.
How Injectable Vitamins Work
Due to advances in technology, we don’t have to rely on ingesting vitamins alone to get what we need.
Vitamins can be injected intravenously, just as water and medicine can be.
The idea behind this method is to skip over the digestion process. Rather than being partly lost to digestive enzymes, taking time to move through various cells and into the bloodstream, the bloodstream is targeted directly.
As a result, this method is thought to be faster and more effective. Rather than getting anywhere between 10-90% of the vitamins you ingest and hoping for the best, you receive 100% through injection.
Additionally, injections must be administered by a medical professional. This is beneficial, as they can monitor the results and track your progress.
You don’t get the same personalized care when you take supplements at home.
For people with digestive and absorption issues, it may be essential for them to get vitamin injections to get what they need.
It may be beneficial for others as well, depending on lifestyle, health history, and dietary choices.
Injectable Vitamin Therapies
Often, you’ll see vitamin injection therapies that include a small handful of vitamins and minerals.
These are carefully selected to provide results in targeted areas.
For example, regenerative therapy includes vitamin C, magnesium, selenium, copper, zinc, chromium, and B-complex.
We offer a wide range of specific therapies for things like:
- Beauty
- Brain health
- Hangovers
- Immunity
- Party preparation
- Pregnancy
- Vegetarians and vegans
- Weight loss
If you’re looking to treat a particular deficiency you already know you have, we can do that as well.
You may not know if you have any deficiencies. If that’s the case, we suggest micronutrient testing to identify areas to target and boost.
Either way, you can rest easy knowing that medical professionals are administering vitamins and minerals. They are trained to never give you too much or overload your system.
Enhance Your Well-being
Now that you know that injectable vitamins are more efficient than ingesting vitamins, you can make the choice to give your body what it needs.
Contact us today if you have any questions or if you’d like to see the benefits for yourself.