With May flowers and allergy season in full swing, it’s time to consider options to help balance your body’s response to the sudden influx of pollen. Quercetin has been a popular ingredient to support histamine balance, but typical quercetin supplements have a low absorption rate.
This month’s featured product, Quercetin Phytosome by Thorne Research, offers far superior absorption and a host of other potential benefits.
What is Quercetin?
Quercetin is the most abundant flavonoid, most commonly found in apples, onions, berries, cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, tea and more1. Flavonoids have many health benefits, primarily acting as antioxidants that neutralize damaging free-radicals.
What are Quercetin’s potential benefits?
- Allergies: Quercetin helps to balance the immune response to allergens by stabilizing mast cell membranes, which modulates the release of histamine1. Excess histamine production is responsible for most of the common unpleasant symptoms associated with allergy season.
- Food allergies: similar to its effect on seasonal allergies, Quercetin appears to help balance the gut immune response by mediating mast cell and dendritic cell function in the gut mucosal lining 2.
- Cholesterol: Preclinical studies suggest that quercetin may inhibit damaging oxidation of LDL cholesterol, in a similar fashion to other antioxidant flavonoids. More clinical studies are needed to investigate this potential 2.
- Cancer: like other flavonoids, early research suggests quercetin inhibits tumor growth in several common types of cancer in animal and cell culture studies 2. Immune function and Zinc transport: Zinc plays an important role in immune response, particularly in cold and flu season. Quercetin and other flavonoids like EGCG from green tea serve as zinc ionophores, transporting zinc through cell plasma membranes 3.
The Quercetin Phytosome advantage
Thorne’s Quercetin Phytosome is a complex of 250 mg of quercetin extracted from sophora japonica, combined with phospholipids from sunflower lecithin. Phospholipids make quercetin much more soluble, greatly increasing intestinal absorption. Studies with healthy volunteers showed up to 20 times greater absorption compared to standard quercetin extract, resulting in significantly higher blood plasma levels of quercetin 4.
The formula comes in gluten free,hypoallergenic vegetarian capsules. Quercetin Phytosome’s recommended serving is 1 capsule 2-3 times daily. For best results, consult your health practitioner to see if quercetin is the best choice for your health protocol.
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References
- Published on the Web: Quercetin | Complementary and Alternative Medicine Date accessed 5 May, 2020.
- Bazarbachi, H. Zinc ionophore activity of quercetin and epigallocatechin-gallate: from Hepa 1-6 cells to a liposome model. J Agric Food Chem. 2014 Aug 13;62(32).
- Riva, A. Improved Oral Absorption of Quercetin from Quercetin Phytosome®, a New Delivery System Based on Food Grade Lecithin. Eur J Drug Metab Pharmokinet. 2019 Apr;44(2):169-177
