If you frequent forums about health supplements, you’ve probably heard arguments before about whether it’s better to use tablets or capsules. Vitamins are typically available in both forms with little difference in price, but when you’re looking to get the most out of a treatment for problems such as acne, any difference in effectiveness matters.
Opinions are split about which format is objectively better, even among professionals (I’ve heard arguments by medical professionals on both sides). The general rule appears to be that it depends on what type of vitamins you’re taking, as well as the quantity.
Capsules are simply vitamins in powder form encased in a gel capsule. These gel capsules are dissolved by your stomach acids (although they will typically dissolve even in water), releasing the uncompressed contents to be absorbed in the stomach. The advantage (at least an advantage in some cases) of this approach is that the vitamins are more readily absorbed into the blood stream. They take less time to break down and thus are quickly supplied to the body. However, there are some downsides to the sudden-release mechanism of capsules. Firstly, the acids in your stomach can be volatile to many vitamins, causing a percentage of the contents to denature. Food actually protects many vitamins from this, carrying them on to the intestines, which provide better rates of absorbance. In their raw form though, as released by a capsule, some percent of the vitamins you take will be lost due to the action of your stomach acids. Secondly, it is a commonly held false belief that once vitamins enter the blood stream, everything is set and done. In the case of water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin B5, when a large surge of vitamins enters the blood stream will, much of those vitamins will simply be passed on to the urinary track. This has to due with a vitamin’s “serum half-life”. Vitamins with a long serum half-life will stay in your blood longer and be used to a greater extent, but those with a short half-life (such as an hour) will largely flush through you. This is why many who use mega-dose B5 acne treatments notice their urine turn a neon yellow. Much of the vitamins they are taking are passing right through as waste.
Tablets use compression to harden the vitamins into tablet form. In this form, the contents are not as easily released and take longer to reach your blood stream. The tablet must first be broken down. The rate at which tablets break down can vary. However, many of them pass though the stomach and on to the intestines, thus avoiding loss of contents due to your stomach acids. The vitamin contents are then released more gradually, providing a steady stream of vitamins rather than a sudden surge. Tablet users tend to notice less loss of contents in their urine. The danger is that a tablet may never release all of its contents at all, and end up being passed as waste before it has a chance to fulfill its purpose. Some today view tablets as cheaper and therefore of lower quality. As someone who sells supplements for a living, I can tell you that this is simply a lie. Capsules are often cheaper and faster to produce than tablets. But this is almost irrelevant, as the difference in cost is minimal. A wild card with tablets is the “filler ingredients”. Tablets often contain other ingredients that stabilize the tablet. These can sometimes glue the ingredients together too much, preventing absorbance, but they may also contain enzymes which actually help absorbance (or a little of both). In general, it’s hard to say whether these are a negative or a positive.
So which is better? If you are taking an extremely high dose of a vitamin, you might as well use capsules. The high dosage will likely make up for any lost contents. While inconvenient, high-dose vitamin B5 acne treatment does work, after all. If you are taking a smaller dosage, tablets may likely provide better results. Remember, it’s not simply a case of absorbance. A vitamin can be quickly absorbed and still quickly passed right out of you without accomplishing much. This is something I recently learned a lot about from a close friend who happens to be an MD. The same happens with prescription treatments, in which time-delayed drugs often work better than higher-absorbance varieties of the same drug, since they keep the body supplied over time with only an amount that is actually useable, rather than a sudden surge which is only partially used and then gone from your system. Liquid vitamins actually provide the highest absorbance of all, and are great for some uses (such as a high-dose treatment), but are not the best supplement in all cases.
