If you have been doing your research on finding the best supplements, you might have come across the term excipients. “Excipient” is a scientific term that gets thrown around in the supplement and pharmaceutical industries, but many people don’t actually know what it refers to. In this article, we will take you through everything you need to know about excipients.

What Are Excipients?

Excipients, put simply, are additives that are put into pharmaceutical drugs and supplements which are not active ingredients. If you go to your medicine cabinet and pull out a box or bottle of medication, you will probably see on the label a list of “active ingredients”. In the medical world, active ingredients are ingredients that create an effect on the body.

Excipients are all of the other ingredients that don’t show up under that “active ingredient” list. There are a variety of reasons why people might add excipients to their supplements, and there are different effects that certain excipients can have on the body, even though they are not considered active ingredients.

Why Do People Add Excipients to Supplements?

There can be many reasons why a supplement company chooses to use excipients. Sometimes the addition of the excipient is intended to improve the visual appearance of the supplement and make it more attractive. In this case, an excipient is being added simply for marketing purposes.

Another reason some supplement companies use excipients is to increase the volume of the supplement. This can also be a marketing tactic or a way to capitalize on the placebo effect. For example, if customers believe that bigger pills are more effective than smaller pills or contain more active ingredients, some supplement manufacturers might add excipients to their tablets in order to increase the size of the pills without increasing the dosage.

There can be other reasons to add excipients to supplements. Some excipients are used to enhance the stability of the supplements—i.e. to prevent the supplements from going bad. While you don’t want your supplements to expire, many people feel uncertain about the health effects of using stabilisers in food and supplements.

Another, more valid reason for using excipients in supplements is to improve the bioavailability of the supplement. Bioavailability refers to how long-acting the drug is. Some excipients can help shift the rate and which the supplements enter the system.

Is It Necessary to Use Excipients?

In some cases, it is impossible to properly administer a drug without the use of excipients. For example, it would be impossible to create tablets for certain medications that feature extremely low dosages without the use of excipients.

However, this does not mean that excipients are always necessary to use. Nor does it mean they are always safe to use.

If you want to know whether the excipients used in your supplements or medication are strictly necessary, you can compare different manufacturers on the market. If some manufacturers are producing a version of the supplement without any added excipients, that may be an indication that the excipients are not strictly necessary. However, if manufacturers are all using the same excipients for a drug, that could be your indication that the excipient is playing an important role in the medication.

Are there any Dangers to Using Excipients?

There can be danger associated with taking supplements that use excipients, depending on what the excipient is. This is why it is so important to use a product with high-quality excipients or no excipients at all.

Where Can I Get Supplements Without Excipients Added?

If you are looking for supplements but want to avoid products that use excipients, take a look at our Sea Moss Vitality Blend supplement. Here at Akasha Superfoods, we only use the highest quality ingredients in our supplements. We have found that excipients are unnecessary in our Sea Moss Vitality Blend supplements because of the sheer amount of organic matter we are already packing into our tablets. Since we don’t use any additional excipients, you can rest easy at night knowing that your Akasha Superfoods supplements are full of only natural ingredients and no unnecessary fillers.