Spritz of vitamins

The idea is appealing. Just spray vitamins into the mouth -- think Binaca breath freshener with a nutritional boost -- and those enormous, old-fashioned pills become a thing of the past.

An increasing array of products promises that a few spritzes a day can get more of the vitamins into the bloodstream than tablets or capsules, which must dissolve in the stomach before being absorbed by the small intestine. The mist is readily absorbed by tissues beneath the tongue or lining the cheeks, the manufacturers say.

“Sublingual sprays are the future,” says Robert Thistle, chief executive of Micro Laboratories Inc. in Johnston, R.I., which sells its fruit- or mint-flavored Micro vitamin sprays through the Internet and some health food stores. The sprays, which run about $12.95 for an 11-day supply (four spritzes twice daily), are part of a small but expanding niche in the vitamin industry, which sees a market for more palatable ways to deliver better nutrition.

“When you swallow a pill, how much of it gets to work on your system depends on so many factors: how much you weigh, what is your metabolism, did you take it on an empty stomach or with food,” Thistle says. “In many, many cases, none gets into your body.”

But experts in pharmacology and biochemistry say there’s no proof that vitamin sprays are absorbed better than pills. Nor is there proof that taking smaller doses of vitamins several times a day makes you any healthier than downing that once-daily multivitamin at breakfast.

“At present, the best way to take vitamins is in food or in the traditional type of oral supplements,” says Burton Kallman, science director emeritus of the National Nutritional Foods Assn., the largest trade association representing vitamin manufacturers and retailers. “We’ve evolved a gastrointestinal tract over millions of years that has specialized methods of absorbing various nutrients. Most pill-takers are getting adequate amounts out of their pills.” And, he adds, it’s unclear how well the mouth’s delicate mucosal tissues transport vitamins to the bloodstream.

Makers of the sprays concede that they haven’t done head-to-head tests comparing vitamin sprays with tablets and capsules. Instead, they cite studies of the oral absorption of such medications as nitroglycerin sprays and pills administered under the tongue to rapidly relieve chest pain, and studies showing that some vitamins, including C, B-12 and niacin, can be absorbed readily through the lining of the mouth.

But, say clinical pharmacologists, that doesn’t necessarily mean other nutrients would be similarly absorbed -- or that the vitamins would react the same way in combination with other ingredients.

“Each of the active ingredients has different chemistries that can influence how the body transports it from the mouth to the blood,” says Anthony Almada, a nutritional biochemist and president of Imaginutrition Inc. in Laguna Niguel, a nutritional think tank that also conducts clinical trials and designs products.

“Have we done medical studies on our products? No, we have not,” says William M. Deihl, vice president of corporate development for Mayor Pharmaceutical Laboratories Inc. in Phoenix, makers of VitaMist spray vitamins. Instead, the company relies on “articles from science journals” to make claims that 75% to 90% of sprayed vitamins get absorbed, compared with much smaller percentages of vitamins packed into pills.

The company’s line of vitamin formulas for men, women, children and for those with conditions such as arthritis or stress, were previously available through the Internet and under private labels through the Home Shopping Network, but can now be found at many Wal-Mart, Osco and Sav-on stores. A month’s supply of the multivitamin formulas (two sprays four times a day) runs $19.95.

Health Plus International Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., expects to launch a line of fruit-flavored spray vitamins in July. The company’s president and chief executive, Russell Van de Casteele, says the sprays are engineered to reach the bloodstream even more quickly and efficiently than current sprays.

Deihl says such products should especially appeal to the estimated 80 million Americans with intestinal problems, swallowing problems or whose ability to absorb nutrients has been reduced by gastric bypass surgery.