L’Élixir quotidien

Vitamin C helps reduce tiredness and supports your natural defences. It also helps your body make the collagen that skin and cartilage need. We chose calcium ascorbate, a form that is less acidic than ascorbic acid.

Your body needs to absorb zinc before it can put it to use. That is why we chose bisglycinate, drawing on research into its availability after you take it.

Selenium helps keep them healthy and supports your natural defences. L-selenomethionine is a well-absorbed form, making selenium available to the body for these different roles.

Tendons and ligaments are among the tissues that connect and support your body. Copper helps maintain them and also plays a part in energy production. Each scoop provides 501 µg, as copper bisglycinate.

Each scoop provides 10 g of Peptan F® marine collagen peptides from Rousselot. We chose this ingredient and amount with reference to trials in women looking at skin hydration and structure.

Our choices draw on several kinds of evidence: established nutritional roles, assessments of mineral sources and human absorption studies. Together, they help explain both why a nutrient matters and why we chose its form.

Zinc contributes to the maintenance of normal skin, hair and nails. These roles have been assessed by EFSA, drawing on the wider nutritional literature.

There is a simple reason to care about absorption: your body needs to be able to use the nutrients you take. In a small crossover trial in 12 women, a preparation containing bisglycinate produced higher zinc availability than a gluconate preparation. This finding helped inform our choice. The preparations also differed in other components, and the trial used a single 15 mg zinc dose. It therefore does not measure what you absorb from the 5 mg in our serving.

Selenium contributes to healthy hair and nails and normal immune function. EFSA has assessed these nutritional roles, while human research helps explain how different forms are absorbed and used.

A stable-isotope study followed selenomethionine and selenite in the same participants. It found differences in their handling and incorporation into proteins. Along with the wider evidence on absorption, this supports our choice of L-selenomethionine; it does not establish greater hair or nail benefits from our formula.

Copper is needed by enzymes involved in connective tissue formation and energy production. Nutritional research establishes these roles; EFSA’s assessment of mineral bisglycinates also supports copper bisglycinate as a usable source.

Two trials studied 10 g of Peptan F® a day in women, over eight and twelve weeks. In the small group receiving Peptan F in the first trial, skin hydration increased from the start of the study. The second trial observed an increase in the density of the dermal collagen network, assessed by imaging, and reduced fragmentation of the collagen network. These were measurements of skin and its structure, rather than wrinkle counts.

These findings informed our choice of a specific ingredient at the amount used in those trials. The research involved Rousselot, the supplier of Peptan®.