HPMC capsules and use of magnesium stearate

Concerning HPMC capsules:

the benefits of magnesium stearate

For some time now, criticism of magnesium stearate has flourished on the Internet, which has no scientific basis.

Magnesium stearate is a salt used in small doses as an anti-caking agent in foodstuffs as well as in dietary supplements or medicines. Its role is to prevent ingredients from sticking to each other or to machines during the manufacturing process. It consists of two simple and harmless substances: magnesium and stearic acid. Everyone knows magnesium, a mineral that is essential to health. Stearic acid is a fatty acid with 18 carbon atoms found in chocolate or coconut oil. The body also synthesizes it. In the body, stearic acid is very efficiently converted into oleic acid, the monounsaturated fatty acid found in olive oil!

The completely unfounded criticism on the Internet is that stearic acid would be harmful to our T lymphocytes. It is based on a 1990 in vitro study on mice... which, as every informed researcher knows, do not have (unlike humans) the enzymatic material that transforms stearic acid into oleic acid. In mice, stearic acid accumulates and causes problems. This is not the case in humans who transform it. In his diet, man consumes 7 grams of stearic acid per day, a food supplement provides a maximum of 10 to 20 mg! A tablespoon of coconut oil 150 mg and 10 grams of chocolate 70% cocoa provide 1 gram of stearic acid! (A bar of chocolate generally weighs 100 g).

The other unfounded criticism would be that magnesium stearate would provide a biofilm in the digestive tract as an impassable barrier for certain vitamins. However, a biofilm has nothing to do with mineral salts, in biology it is an organization made by bacteria, welded by a matrix secreted by the members of the bacterial community. Stearic acid even tends to oppose the formation of biofilms and no study has proven that it disturbs the absorption of any molecule!