Vitamin patches are trending on social media and advertised in posts and podcasts.
With patches marketed for sleep, detox, immunity and hangovers, they’re being talked up as near magical fix-all stickers. Manufacturers claim they’re easy-to-use, convenient and ethical when put next with other kinds of vitamin products. Some even include cute floral designs.
So do they work, are they protected, and why would you utilize one as a substitute of just taking a vitamin tablet?
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What are vitamin patches?
Vitamin patches are adhesives designed to deliver vitamins or nutrients to your bloodstream directly through the skin.
You peel away the backing, place it on a hairless area of skin where it’s less more likely to be bumped, after which the patches release their vitamins over a period of 12 to 24 hours.
Two dominant brands that market in Australia sell patches that contain various chemical and plant ingredients.
There are patches for menopause symptoms that claim to incorporate plant extracts of gotu kola, damiana, black cohosh, valerian, skull cap, oat seed and ginger. Patches promising an energy boost offer caffeine, taurine, gluconolactone, green tea extract and vitamins B3, B5 and B6.
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Do they work and are they protected?
In Australia, vitamins are considered pharmaceutical products and are regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Vitamins are generally approved as listed medicines, meaning the ingredients have been assessed for safety but not for efficacy (whether or not they do what they promise).
Being a listed medicine also means vitamins are manufactured in a factory with good manufacturing practicesso you’ll be able to be assured the ingredients listed on the packaging have been sourced properly and are provided at the right concentration.
However, there are not any items listed as vitamin patches on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. This means they currently cannot legally be supplied or purchased in Australia. It doesn’t matter in the event that they are being sold from a physical store or online inside the country. The TGA won’t stop you from buying them from overseasbut they advise you to not accomplish that because you’ll be able to’t be assured of quality and safety.
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There can also be insufficient evidence that vitamins delivered in this manner work. Not all drugs and chemicals could be delivered through the skin. Ordinarily, to be absorbed through the skin a chemical must be lipophilicmeaning it likes fats and oils greater than water.
So, the shape through which the vitamins have been produced and supplied will dictate whether they’ll get into the skin. For example, a water extract of a plant is less more likely to be absorbed when put next with an oil-based extract.
A small 2019 study of patients liable to nutrient deficiencies after bariatric (weight-loss) surgery gave a few of them a each day multivitamin patch for a 12 months. Those patients had lower blood concentrations of several vitamins and were more more likely to have vitamin D deficiency when put next with patients given oral vitamins. The study concluded transdermal vitamin patches weren’t as effective as oral supplements.
Another issue with vitamin patches is that they contain very low concentrations of ingredients and you might subsequently get an ineffective dose, even when all of the vitamin within the patch is 100% absorbed through the skin.
For example, one particular patch that’s marketed for immunity states that it comprises 3 milligrams of vitamin C, which is probably going insufficient if taken to complement a low vitamin C food regimen. The health condition called scurvy is assumed to occur when each day vitamin C intake drops lower than 7 milligrams per day.
In contrast, a typical vitamin C tablet comprises 500 milligrams. The really helpful each day intake of vitamin C is around 45 milligrams per day – more if a girl is breastfeeding.
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Why not only take a tablet?
When other medicines are supplied in a patch formulation it is frequently because a relentless supply of the drug is required within the body; think smoking alternative nicotine patches, menopausal hormone therapy and a few kinds of pain relief.
There is not any reason why you would want the slow release, continuous supply of vitamins that patches promise – but there could also be other reasons to decide on them over tablets and gummy products.
One selling point utilized by the marketers is that patches are a “cleaner” type of vitamins. A vitamin in tablet or gummy form will contain inactive ingredients called excipients. Excipients do various tasks in medicines from binding ingredients together, making the medication look and smell nice, to making sure drugs don’t break down during storage. The presumption is that patches don’t contain and release any, or only a few, excipients into your body.
But many patches don’t list all their ingredients – just the energetic vitamins – so this claim cannot be tested. Some patches should still contain numerous excipients, a few of which can irritate the skin.
For example, one sort of nicotine patch comprises 12 excipients including acrylic acid and vinyl acetate, that are chemicals used to assist stick the patch to the skin.
A patch could also be price investigating for individuals who have trouble swallowing or chewing. In this instance it may very well be difficult to take a solid tablet or gummy to get your vitamins.
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Should you purchase them?
As there are not any vitamin patches approved by the TGA in Australia, it is best to not buy them.
If sooner or later in the longer term they turn out to be listed medicines, it would be necessary to keep in mind that they could not have been assessed for efficacy.
If you remain interested in vitamin patches, it is best to discuss them together with your doctor or local pharmacist.