THE GUTLESS GUIDE- The Definitive Guide to Topical Vitamins

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THE GUTLESS GUIDE

Everything you wanted to know about topical vitamins without needing a science degree.

VITAMINS  A  •  D  •  E  •  K

 

THE GUTLESS GUIDE TO VITAMIN A

The vitamin that does a whole lot more than help you see in the dark.

Vitamin A is one of those nutrients you've probably heard about your entire life.

“Eat your carrots. They're good for your eyes.”

True.

But that is a little like saying your phone is useful because it has a calculator.

Vitamin A is involved in vision, immune function, skin and tissue maintenance, cell growth and development, and reproduction. It helps your body maintain some of the surfaces that form the boundary between you and the outside world.

Which, when you think about it, is a fairly important job.

YES, IT REALLY IS THE EYE VITAMIN

Let's give the carrots their moment.

Vitamin A is necessary for your retina to make rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein that helps you see when light levels are low.

That's why one of the classic signs of serious vitamin A deficiency is night blindness.

So Grandma wasn't making that part up.

YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM IS A FAN, TOO

Vitamin A plays an important role in regulating immune function.

But here's the particularly interesting part:

Your body has several surfaces designed to keep unwanted organisms from getting inside in the first place, including the linings of your respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts.

Vitamin A helps maintain those epithelial tissues and supports the immune cells associated with them.

In other words, part of immune defense happens before the battle even starts.

IT HELPS MAINTAIN THE BODY'S BARRIERS

Your skin isn't the only barrier tissue you have.

Vitamin A helps regulate the growth and differentiation of epithelial cells, the cells that line and cover many of your body's surfaces.

That includes your:

Skin • Airways • Digestive tract • Urinary and reproductive tracts

These tissues are constantly renewing themselves.

Vitamin A helps provide some of the biological instructions for how those cells grow, mature, and function.

Think less “beauty vitamin.”

Think maintenance crew for the borders of the kingdom.

VITAMIN A HELPS CELLS KNOW WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BECOME

This may be one of vitamin A's coolest jobs.

Certain forms of vitamin A can influence gene expression.

Essentially, vitamin A derivatives interact with receptors inside cells that help regulate which genes are switched on or off.

That means vitamin A participates in decisions involving:

cell growth • differentiation • development • tissue repair

Your cells aren't just little blobs floating around hoping for the best.

They receive instructions.

Vitamin A is involved in some of those instructions.

WAIT. ARE RETINOL AND BETA-CAROTENE THE SAME THING?

Nope.

And this is where vitamin A gets interesting.

There are two broad dietary sources.

Preformed vitamin A, including retinol, is found primarily in animal foods and can be used readily by the body.

Provitamin A carotenoids, including beta-carotene, come largely from plants. Your body can convert beta-carotene into vitamin A as needed.

That's why carrots, sweet potatoes and leafy greens count as vitamin-A foods even though they aren't stuffed with retinol.

Different route.

Same vitamin family.

AND THEN THERE'S YOUR SKIN

Here's where things get particularly Gutless.

Vitamin A compounds have been used topically for decades.

Retinoids are among the most extensively studied topical ingredients in dermatology because vitamin A derivatives can influence skin-cell turnover, differentiation and gene expression.

But here's an important distinction:

Something affecting the skin locally is not the same thing as proving that a nutritionally meaningful amount reaches the systemic circulation.

The skin is a barrier. That's its job.

Whether a substance moves through that barrier depends on things like its molecular properties, formulation, concentration, carrier, skin condition and contact time.

So when it comes to topical vitamins, we're interested in what the science shows, but we're equally interested in where the science hasn't caught up yet.

Because “we don't know enough yet” isn't a dead end.

Around here, that's usually where the rabbit hole begins.

THE GUTLESS BOTTOM LINE

Vitamin A isn't just about carrots and eyesight.

It helps your body see, defend itself, maintain barrier tissues, regulate cell development and keep some very important biological instructions running properly.

And we already know something fascinating:

Vitamin A can interact with human biology through the skin.

Exactly how different forms, formulations and doses behave through that route is a much bigger scientific question.

And we think it's a question worth asking.

Because if your gut isn't always the easiest way in...

maybe it's worth investigating another door.

 

 

 

THE GUTLESS GUIDE TO VITAMIN D

The “sunshine vitamin” that is behaving suspiciously like a hormone.

Vitamin D has excellent public relations.

Most of us know two things about it:

Sunshine makes it.

Bones need it.

Both true.

But vitamin D's résumé is considerably longer than that.

Vitamin D is involved in calcium regulation, bone health, muscle function, immune function and cell signaling throughout the body.

And technically?

Vitamin D doesn't behave quite like most vitamins.

Once activated, it functions much more like a hormone.

Which seems like something someone should have mentioned.

YOUR BODY CAN ACTUALLY MAKE IT

Most vitamins have to come from something you eat.

Vitamin D is different.

When ultraviolet B light reaches your skin, it begins a series of chemical reactions that allow your body to produce vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol.

That vitamin D then travels through the body and undergoes additional processing, primarily in the liver and kidneys, before becoming its biologically active form.

So your skin isn't merely involved with vitamin D.

It's where one of its natural production pathways begins.

That's pretty remarkable.

YES, YOUR BONES REALLY DO NEED IT

Vitamin D helps your intestines absorb calcium and phosphorus, two minerals essential for building and maintaining healthy bones.

Without adequate vitamin D, you can eat calcium all day long and still have trouble using it effectively.

Severe deficiency can contribute to:

Rickets in children • Osteomalacia in adults • Loss of bone strength

So vitamin D doesn't build bones by itself.

It helps make sure the construction materials actually get where they're needed.

YOUR MUSCLES WOULD LIKE A WORD

Vitamin D receptors are found in muscle tissue, and vitamin D is involved in normal muscle function.

Low vitamin D status has been associated with muscle weakness and impaired physical function, particularly in older adults and people with significant deficiency.

Bones may have gotten top billing.

Muscles are definitely in the cast.

AND THEN THERE'S YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

Vitamin D receptors are also found on multiple types of immune cells.

Vitamin D participates in both innate immunity, your body's rapid first-line defense, and adaptive immunity, the more specialized system that learns and remembers particular threats.

It helps influence how immune cells develop, communicate and respond.

Which is why vitamin D has become such an interesting area of research in immunology.

Important distinction:

That does not mean more vitamin D automatically equals a stronger immune system.

Biology rarely works according to the if some is good, a bucket must be better principle.

VITAMIN D TALKS TO YOUR GENES

Here's where vitamin D gets particularly fascinating.

The active form of vitamin D binds to something called the vitamin D receptor, or VDR.

That receptor can interact with DNA and influence the activity of numerous genes.

In plain English:

Vitamin D helps cells decide what instructions to follow.

Researchers have identified vitamin D receptors in tissues throughout the body, which helps explain why scientists continue investigating vitamin D far beyond bone health.

SO WHY ARE WE SO WORRIED ABOUT GETTING ENOUGH?

Because modern humans have developed a somewhat complicated relationship with sunshine.

We:

work indoors • drive indoors • exercise indoors • live at northern latitudes • cover our skin • use sunscreen • and occasionally behave as though direct sunlight is personally plotting against us

Some people also have a harder time maintaining adequate vitamin D because of age, skin pigmentation, limited sun exposure, certain medical conditions, body composition, medications or problems with intestinal absorption.

And that last one is where Gutless becomes particularly curious.

CAN VITAMIN D GO THROUGH SKIN?

Now we arrive at the interesting bit.

We already know the relationship between skin and vitamin D is unusual because skin naturally participates in making vitamin D3.

Researchers have also explored topical delivery of vitamin D and vitamin D-related compounds.

There is evidence suggesting that vitamin D3 applied in certain topical formulations can cross the skin, but the research on using topical vitamin D as a predictable method of systemic nutritional supplementation remains limited.

And formulation matters enormously.

The question isn't simply:

“Can vitamin D touch skin?”

It's:

Which form? At what concentration? In what carrier? Across what skin? For how long? And how much ultimately becomes biologically available?

Those are the questions worth studying.

THE GUTLESS BOTTOM LINE

Vitamin D isn't merely the vitamin you get from sunshine.

It helps your body use calcium, maintain bones and muscles, regulate immune activity and communicate instructions inside cells.

And unlike almost every other vitamin, its natural story already begins with the skin.

We don't yet know everything we need to know about topical vitamin D as a nutritional delivery system.

But we know enough to ask a very interesting question:

If the body already knows how to begin the vitamin D story at the skin...

what else might that pathway allow us to do?

 

 

THE GUTLESS GUIDE TO VITAMIN E

The antioxidant with a full-time job protecting your cells from molecular chaos.

Vitamin E has spent decades being marketed as the vitamin you break open and smear on practically everything.

Scar?

Vitamin E.

Dry skin?

Vitamin E.

Mystery spot you noticed Tuesday?

Apparently vitamin E.

But underneath all that folklore is some genuinely fascinating biology.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant whose most important job involves protecting cell membranes from oxidative damage.

And because every cell in your body has a membrane...

that's a fairly substantial territory to patrol.

FIRST, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT OXIDATION

Your body uses oxygen to stay alive.

Unfortunately, the chemistry of staying alive also produces highly reactive molecules often referred to as free radicals.

Free radicals aren't inherently villains. Your body produces them naturally, and some even serve useful functions.

Problems arise when their production overwhelms your antioxidant defenses.

That's called oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress can damage:

Lipids • Proteins • DNA • Cell membranes

Enter vitamin E.

VITAMIN E IS A BODYGUARD FOR CELL MEMBRANES

Cell membranes contain a lot of fat.

Vitamin E is fat-soluble, so it can position itself within those lipid-rich membranes.

There, it can help interrupt damaging chain reactions called lipid peroxidation.

Imagine one unstable molecule damaging a fat molecule, which creates another unstable molecule, which attacks the next one.

Tiny biochemical dominoes.

Vitamin E essentially steps into that chain reaction and says:

That's enough of that.

ANTIOXIDANTS DON'T WORK ALONE

One of the most interesting things about antioxidants is that they operate as a network rather than as isolated superheroes.

After vitamin E neutralizes a free radical, other antioxidant systems can help regenerate it.

Vitamin C, glutathione and various enzymes all participate in the body's larger antioxidant-defense system.

Nutrition is full of these relationships.

Your body is less a collection of independent nutrients and more an extremely complicated group project.

Thankfully, nobody can forget to answer the group text.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH?

True vitamin E deficiency is uncommon in healthy people eating a varied diet.

But it can occur, particularly in people who have difficulty digesting or absorbing fat.

And remember:

Vitamin E is fat-soluble.

Significant deficiency can affect the nervous system, muscles, vision and immune function.

This is one reason malabsorption interests us so much at Gutless.

Sometimes the question isn't simply:

“Did you consume the nutrient?”

It's:

“Could your body absorb and use it?”

Those are not necessarily the same question.

THERE ISN'T JUST ONE “VITAMIN E”

Plot twist.

Vitamin E is actually a family of eight naturally occurring compounds:

Four tocopherols and four tocotrienols.

Humans primarily maintain alpha-tocopherol in the body, which is why it receives most of the nutritional attention.

So when you see “vitamin E” on a label, there is more chemistry hiding behind those two little words than you might expect.

AND VITAMIN E ALREADY REALLY LIKES SKIN

Vitamin E is naturally present in human skin.

Because skin is constantly exposed to environmental oxidative stress, including ultraviolet radiation and pollution, antioxidants are part of its defense system.

Topically applied vitamin E can enter layers of the skin and is widely used in dermatologic and cosmetic formulations.

But once again, we need to separate two different questions.

Can vitamin E penetrate into skin and act locally?

Yes, there is substantial evidence that it can.

Does that automatically mean a topical vitamin E product delivers a reliable nutritional dose throughout the body?

No.

That requires different evidence.

And that's exactly the distinction we want Gutless customers to understand.

We're not interested in turning interesting science into magical thinking.

We're interested in finding out how far the interesting science can actually take us.

THE GUTLESS BOTTOM LINE

Vitamin E is much more than something people have been squeezing out of capsules onto their skin for decades.

It's an important part of your body's antioxidant defense system, helping protect the fatty structures surrounding your cells from oxidative damage.

And because vitamin E is fat-soluble and already has a well-established relationship with skin, topical delivery presents some genuinely interesting possibilities.

We know vitamin E can get into the skin.

The bigger Gutless question is:

Can we formulate it in a way that reliably gets enough through the skin to matter nutritionally?

That's not a marketing slogan.

That's a research question.

And those are our favorite kind.

 

 

THE GUTLESS GUIDE TO VITAMIN K

The vitamin quietly keeping blood, bones and calcium from becoming complete anarchy.

Vitamin K doesn't get much attention.

Vitamin C has oranges.

Vitamin D has sunshine.

Vitamin A has carrots.

Vitamin K mostly sits quietly in the corner doing several jobs that become extremely noticeable if it stops doing them.

Its best-known role is helping your blood clot normally.

But vitamin K is also involved in bone metabolism and the activation of proteins that help manage calcium in the body.

Tiny vitamin.

Rather consequential responsibilities.

LET'S START WITH THE OBVIOUS ONE: BLOOD CLOTTING

The “K” actually comes from the German word Koagulation.

Which is coagulation.

Which is clotting.

Which tells you how vitamin K originally became famous.

Your liver needs vitamin K to activate several proteins involved in the clotting cascade.

Without adequate vitamin K, the body can have difficulty forming blood clots normally.

And while “blood clot” sometimes sounds ominous, clotting is also the reason a paper cut doesn't turn into a medical saga.

You need clotting.

You simply need it happening when and where it's supposed to.

YOUR BONES USE IT TOO

Vitamin K also activates osteocalcin, a protein produced by bone-forming cells.

Osteocalcin is involved in binding calcium within bone.

Which gives us a nice nutritional plot twist:

Calcium may get the headlines.

Vitamin D helps your body absorb it.

And vitamin K participates in proteins involved in putting calcium to work.

Your nutrients have apparently been networking behind your back.

CALCIUM NEEDS TRAFFIC CONTROL

Another vitamin-K-dependent protein is matrix Gla protein, often shortened to MGP.

MGP is found in tissues including blood vessels and cartilage and is involved in regulating mineralization.

Scientists are particularly interested in its role in helping prevent inappropriate calcium deposition in soft tissues.

This has led to substantial research into vitamin K and cardiovascular health.

That doesn't mean vitamin K is a magic artery-cleaning vitamin.

It means the biology of vitamin K extends far beyond clotting, and we're still learning what some of those relationships mean clinically.

K1, K2...WHY ARE THERE MULTIPLE Ks?

Because apparently vitamins enjoy making labeling unnecessarily complicated.

Vitamin K1, or phylloquinone, is found primarily in leafy green plants.

Then we have vitamin K2, a group of compounds called menaquinones.

You'll see names such as:

MK-4 • MK-7 • MK-8 • MK-9

Those numbers refer to differences in their chemical side chains.

Different forms of vitamin K behave differently in the body, including differences in where they're found and how long they remain in circulation.

So “vitamin K” is actually a family reunion rather than a single molecule.

AND YOUR GUT BACTERIA HAVE ENTERED THE CHAT

Some intestinal bacteria produce menaquinones, forms of vitamin K2.

How much those bacterially produced forms contribute to human vitamin K status is more complicated than the old textbook story sometimes suggests.

But the relationship itself is fascinating.

Once again we find nutrition, microbes and the gut tangled together in a much larger biological conversation.

Which, around here, tends to get our attention.

WHAT ABOUT VITAMIN K ON THE SKIN?

Topical vitamin K has been studied primarily for local skin applications, including research involving bruising and certain dermatologic procedures.

That tells us vitamin K compounds can interact with skin biology under particular conditions.

But evidence for topical vitamin K as a method of systemic nutritional supplementation is still limited.

And vitamin K gives us another reason to be especially careful with claims.

Because vitamin K participates in blood clotting and can interact importantly with certain anticoagulant medications, nutritional use isn't something we treat casually.

“Natural” does not mean “biologically irrelevant.”

Quite the opposite.

The reason we're interested in vitamins is precisely because they do things.

THE GUTLESS BOTTOM LINE

Vitamin K may be the quietest member of the fat-soluble vitamin family, but it is doing serious work.

It helps activate proteins involved in normal blood clotting, bone metabolism and calcium regulation.

And while topical vitamin K has legitimate scientific history, using the skin as a reliable route for systemic vitamin K nutrition remains a much bigger question.

Which means we're not going to pretend the science says more than it does.

We're going to do something much more Gutless:

keep asking the question, keep following the evidence, and find out.

Because sometimes the most interesting sentence in science isn't:

“We know.”

It's:

“We don't know yet.”