How important is vitamin D drops to be under the tongue?
Bought some vitamin D drops (liposomal) that say to take under the tongue. Now it's surprisingly hard to actually do that. So how much am I missing out if it's in the general mouth or on top of the tongue?
(I might try doing it in front of the mirror.)
Raise your tongue, drop the drug it into your mouth, lower your tongue on top of the drops; that's what it means.
Let me summarize some correct facts prior to answering your question:
Now to direct answer to your question - you are not missing a lot:
Basically, don’t overthink it. And try not to ask health advice from internet strangers, better talk with your primary doctor if you have any concerns.
Yeah it is. You're trying to absorb it not eat it. Don't worry about your tongue touching the dropper.
To use the pharmacology vernacular, the route of administration for a medication (or supplement in this case) is a balance of pragmatic and biological considerations. Sublingual administration -- aka under the tongue -- gives access to a lot of capillaries, meaning the medication is quickly absorbed into the blood, without having to go through the liver and first-pass metabolism, which is what would happen with oral administration (aka swallowing a pill). As a practical matter, sublingual tends to be easier if someone cannot swallow, and because it's very effective, the dosage can be reduced, which potentially could cost less, maybe.
I'm not a pharmacist, but you may find this video by ChubbyEmu adjacently interesting. It is about the difference in topical (aka on skin) absorption rates around the body, where the same dosage can be safe on one's arm but hazardous on more delicate skin regions.
Some people have tongue tie and might have a much harder time lifting their tongue, sometimes being completely impossible. It's usually corrected in babies these days right around birth, but isn't always and could definitely explain the confusion.
If that's the case you can always try buccal administration. Looks like that uses a spray.
Please keep in mind that according to the Mayo Clinic a normal adult needs no more than 600 UI per day.
It’s not a water-soluble vitamin so you can take too much and cause harm.
Disclosure: I just looked this up yesterday after buying a Buy 1/Get 1 of 220 doses of 2000 UI vitamin D! I thought it was water-soluble, and I could just take it and excrete what my body didn’t need. I bought enough to kill myself, many times over…
There's no evidence of adverse effects at less than 10,000 IU daily. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916522043763?via%3Dihub
Interesting report. Two concerning bits though:
No attempt was made to distinguish between vitamin D2 and D3 because there was not always a distinction in the literature. However, vitamin D2 is less effective at raising serum 25(OH)D concentrations than is vitamin D3 (13).
And that the group sizes (“n” values) top out in just one at 1653. The rest are usually under 20.
Which doesn’t matter in the slightest as my post was to simply make the OP aware that too much can be harmful.
Your post simply raises the bar on how much is too much, but doesn’t change the underlying point I was trying to make.
Thank you for posting that report!
Drops, not a pill.
Just insufflate that shiz; vitamin D straight to the dome!
Get some smoked salmon instead of ingesting tablets. Tasty, cheap AND healthy.
Solid and fully informed medical advice here from Chadus_Maximus Ph.D.
It's not important. Jesus, why are we complicating things so much... :)
The absorbtion of vitamin D is greater through the capillaries under the tongue and bypass the digestive system, which is less efficient especially for those with malabsorption issues.
How does that work with vitamin D requiring fatty acids to be absorbed well?
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/
The vitamin D in drops is already encapsulated in fat to facilitate direct absorption (liposomal).