Comment · Tue, December 12, 2017
Phenylpiracetam- With or without food?
Original post in this thread
Texoccer · 1 points
The Ultimate guide states on a empty stomach, but I'm getting a lot of conflicting information. Thoughts?
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Empty stomach is best 99% of the time, for all supplements. There are exceptions to the rule, but most things absorb best on a completely empty stomach. There is a lot of BS and misinformation about how absorption happens in the GI tract.
Vitamins, minerals, and amino acids have varying needs for absorption. For instance, B12 is too large for passive transport, so it needs to bind to a protein to be transported. Iron needs an empty stomach, and to not take any minerals or amino acids along with it. Vitamin D needs bile salt secretion to facilitate absorption in the upper part of the small intestine. Amino acids have three active transporters in the GI tract; one each for acidic, basic, neutral and amino acids. They also need to bind to sodium to be absorbed, as they are dependent on the electrochemical gradient of sodium across the epithelium.
The biggest BS that is spread around is that you need to take fats with lipid soluble compounds for them to absorb. That's just silliness. Some lipid soluble vitamins, like A, D, E, and K, need bile salts to properly absorb. However, most people produce enough bile salts without any food. Sometimes it might help to slow down stomach motility to give things more time to absorb, but that's usually accomplished naturally, by eating later on. Phenylpiracetam is rapidly and completely absorbed in a fasting state.