Four key nutrients

The Gelagen label declares thirteen nutrients. Four of them are set out at length here, chosen because they carry the largest amounts on the panel or because the form printed beside the name is worth explaining.

Each amount below is transcribed from the Supplement Facts panel exactly as printed, per two-gummy serving. What follows each one describes the nutrient as it is generally understood — not what this finished product does, which has not been studied.

Biotin

5000 mcg per serving

Biotin is vitamin B7, and it is the largest single amount on this label by a wide margin. The daily value is 30 mcg, so 5000 mcg is well over a hundred times it — a level that is standard for hair and nail products and unusual anywhere else.

Its established role is as a cofactor: five carboxylase enzymes cannot function without it, and those enzymes sit in the metabolism of fats, amino acids and glucose. Keratin, the structural protein in hair shafts and nail plates, is assembled from amino acids, which is the connection that put biotin on this kind of label in the first place.

Deficiency is uncommon in people eating an ordinary diet, and where hair or nail problems have another cause, a biotin gummy is not addressing it.

Vitamin B12

6 mcg per serving

Declared as methylcobalamin rather than cyanocobalamin. Both are used in supplements; methylcobalamin is a form the body uses directly, which is the usual reason a label names it.

B12's recognised role is in DNA synthesis and in the normal function of red blood cells and the nervous system. It hands a methyl group to the enzyme that regenerates folate, which is why the two nutrients tend to appear together and why a shortfall in one can look like a shortfall in the other.

Six micrograms is 250 per cent of the daily value. B12 is water soluble and stored in the liver, and dietary shortfalls are most common among people eating little or no animal food.

Folate

442 mcg DFE per serving

Printed as 442 mcg DFE, from 260 mcg of folic acid. DFE stands for dietary folate equivalents, a unit that exists because folic acid from a supplement is absorbed more efficiently than folate from food; the conversion is what turns 260 into 442.

Folate carries single carbon atoms into the building of DNA. Any tissue that divides quickly depends on a steady supply, and the basal layer of skin is among the fastest-dividing tissue in the body, which is the reason it appears on a skin-facing label.

It is worth knowing the form as well as the amount, because folic acid and food folate are counted differently on every panel you will compare this one against.

Vitamin B6

2 mg per serving

Supplied as pyridoxine hydrochloride, the most common supplemental form. Two milligrams is 118 per cent of the daily value, which puts it among the higher percentages on this panel.

B6 is a cofactor in well over a hundred enzyme reactions, most of them in amino acid metabolism — the same chemistry that supplies the raw material for structural proteins such as keratin. It also has a role in the synthesis of several neurotransmitters, which is unrelated to skin but is why it turns up on so many labels.

As with everything else here, the useful exercise is adding this figure to whatever else you take rather than reading it on its own.

The other nine

Vitamins A, C, D and E, pantothenic acid, choline, iodine, zinc and inositol complete the panel, each with its own figure. The full table, including the macronutrients and the other ingredients list, is on the homepage.

What this page is not

No trial has been published on Gelagen itself. Nutrient research describes nutrients, usually at doses and in populations that have nothing to do with a particular gummy, and nothing above should be read as a claim that this product treats or prevents anything.