VANAPHASE by HUMANIX Brings Back Insulin-Potentiator Vanadium in a Big Way

A former king of the blood sugar supplement world has returned to the living!

Vanadium, despite being ahead of its time, fell victim to being marketed over a decade “too soon” in a budding industry. Fallen but not forgotten, it has returned in a new and improved form via a product known as VANAPHASE.

Is it worth trying for all of us carbohydrate hackers and weight lifters? Based on our rather intense research so far, the answer to that question is absolutely yes, but you know we’ll be blood testing this one!

What happened to Vanadium supplements?

If you’re asking this question… that’s precisely the problem. The supplement world of 2018 is much more open than the supplement world of years past. Consumers now read far more about products before they even consider buying them. Back in the day, information on ingredients was scarce. You took Ultimate Orange with a few YellowJackets and hit a HIT-split inspired by Dorian Yates. Life was simple.

Vanadium is back, and in a big way – Vanaphase solves the problem with those old vanadyl sulfate supplements, and we’re putting it to the test!

And back then, there were only two major “glucose disposal agents” — vanadyl sulfate and chromium. Remember those VS-10 tablets? What ever happened to them?

The simplicity-yet-complexity led to vanadium’s downfall. It’s a single ingredient, yet has a complicated name and the effects are broad and were intimidating to a late 90s mindset. It fell to the wayside far too early, before we really started to understand how to tweak blood sugar levels and how to shuttle minerals better.

But now the element Vanadium is back, but in a way stronger way: in a new patented form via Vanaphase, made by Humanix Nutritionals.

The best part of this return is that you have access to articles like this one, where we break down this ingredient, look at the new delivery system, cite the latest research, and explain some science.

So long story short, we have a promising new mechanism on a trusted old glucose disposal agent / nutrient partitioner. Long story long… we’ll get into that after you check out Vanaphase’s website and sign up for alerts, because Mike will be testing this one!

Mike’s Vanaphase Blood Test

Okay, but what is it?

It’s back and it’s brought some friends for support! Click to see the full table

Vanadium (often supplemented as Vanadyl Sulfate), refers to an isolated ingredient derived from vanadium elemental metal. In nature, the metal comes from natural foods like soybeans, shellfish, and mushrooms. It was discovered by taking hydrogen gas to vanadic acid, breaking the metal down into the “active” ingredient and hydrochloric acid.^[1,2] Doctors discovered that it could help support blood sugar levels, but the supplement vanadyl sulfate just didn’t have great bioavailability.

Humanix’s Vanaphase fixes that problem. But before we get into how, let’s talk about vanadium itself – assuming we can (and will) get it into our blood stream.

What’s it Do?

Vanadium optimizes your usage of food. That’s the elevator pitch, at least, and the latest research is showing that there are benefits in all types of individuals, both healthy and diabetic.

So how does it optimize your diet? The mineral optimizes macronutrient usage through insulin modulation, the hormone released after you eat. Its job is to help shuttle the nutrients from that meal to cells in need. Note we’re being general here, since entire textbooks have been written about this process. Often this comes in the context of carb consumption, but insulin is not just a carbohydrate-based hormone — it can improve absorption of proteins and fats.

Insulin turns on the cell’s “vacuum switch” and the cell sucks up all the surrounding nutrients^[5] The intermittent fasting crowd should take note here, as this makes vanadium an amazing ingredient to pair with your first meal.

The next generation in vanadium supplementation is here!

Vanaphase is helpful as a supplement as vanadium has benefits for everyone (although for blood sugar modification it’s worked best on diabetics). If there’s even the slightest hint of a chance we can make our insulin work better, we will jump on board and bust out the glucometers on YouTube.

Working through insulin…

Instead of doing anything novel, it simply works through insulin, the most anabolic hormone that the human body has at its disposal. It’s not an ingredient that reinvents the wheel, it makes the wheel actually work and get absorbed by the body (details of that explained below). It does all of this by preventing the “autoregulation” of insulin that’s built into our bodies.

When insulin hits a certain point, it eventually “signals” its own suppression by stimulating  protein tyrosine phosphatases, or PTPs. The PTPs then turn around and inhibit insulin release by modulating IRS activity (IRS1 = Insulin Receptor Substrate 1, a receptor involved in a cell’s intracellular response to insulin).^[6-9] The process of a hormone “turning itself off” is negative feedback. Vanadium comes into play by stopping the PTPS before they degrade IRS1. This should allow insulin levels to hit a higher and longer-lasting peak before eventually falling off once more.^[10,11]

…and like insulin!

Researchers have called its actions to be insulin-like,^[15] showing “the reduction of hyperlipidemia and hypertension, in relation to their few adverse effects, indicate the potential therapeutic applications of these compounds”.

Because of this action, many call this class of ingredients “inulin mimetics” or “insulin mimickers”, but we typically call them “glucose disposal agents” since we take them with carbohydrates. More on this later.

Does it work for everyone though?

Even if it’s not the most bioavailable, vanadyl sulfate still has several benefits!

Research often supports various supplements, yet the “positive” results of these investigations often come from non-healthy participants. When an ingredient shows a decent benefit in the average healthy consumer, there’s something to brag about. The insulin-like activity has been documented above, but when it comes to blood glucose levels, the known human studies on vanadyl sulfate worked best on diabetic, obese, and insulin-resistant individuals.

What gives, and can we solve that?

The elephant in the room: vanadyl sulfate itself

And there’s a huge problem still not discussed here. The mechanism discussed above is the best-world scenario… and the previous supplemental form, vanadyl sulfate, is not a best-world ingredient! Bioavailability is weak, and the research really only worked best in diabetic, insulin resistant, and obese individuals.

But even then, vanadyl sulfate has been shown to create and protect pancreatic cells, hence the insulin-like effects!^[16] This is huge! So huge, in fact, that researchers have openly asked why Big Pharma doesn’t use their complexes in the pipeline of anti-diabetes drugs…^[17] but you probably know the answer to that question (it starts with an ‘m’ and ends with a ‘y’).

This is all new research too. Point being, since the 2000s when we first looked at vanadyl sulfate, we know a whole lot more, and it’s more beneficial than anyone realized back then.

But can we do better? The answer is yes.

Vanaphase solves the biggest problem – bioavailability – making vanadium once again for athletes:

Bioavailability issues no more: now we have chelation!

Vanaphase has just one ingredient: our new form of vanadium — BGOV!

The newest variation in VANAPHASE is a complex of glycine and vanadium. Its molecular name is Bis-Glycinato Oxo-Vanadium,^[3] which is only easier to remember than “Vanaphase” if you’re an ingredient geek like us! It’s also referred to as “BGOV”.

This isn’t the first time we’ve involved glycine in a mineral. It’s often involved in a process known as “chelation”, where a bond is made using a central metallic ion (our vanadium) attached by covalent bonds to two or more nonmetallic atoms. This reaction often involves hydrogen, and the bis-glycinate has been approved for human consumption with other metals.

It works for other minerals…

We’ve seen this type of chelation work wonders for improved bioavailability in other important minerals, such as magnesium, iron, and zinc. For instance, ferrous bisglycinate chelate has been shown to be just as good as twice the dose of ferrous sulfate for iron intake.^[18] Similar success was had with zinc bis-glycinate (over zinc gluconate)^[19] and magnesium diglycinate (over magnesium oxide).^[20]

So why not do the same thing for vanadium?!

The team at Humanix Nutritionals asked the same question, and realized that everyone was so excited about chelated minerals like iron, zinc, and magnesium (which are undoubtedly crucially important), everyone seems to have forgotten about reviving our old friend vanadium. Ferrous sulfate got kicked to the curb by ferrous bisglycinate chelate, and now vanadyl sulfate is about to suffer that same fate – for the better!

The mechanism is that glycine added enhances tolerability and absorption of the ingredient, since your intestinal walls are excellent at absorbing amino acids (like glycine), but not so excellent at absorbing minerals. So you piggyback the mineral on a couple of friendly glycine molecules and your small intestine can now bring it into your bloodstream!

As for research on the ingredient itself, an experimental study on diabetic rats showed that a bis-glycinato oxovanadium (IV) complex had “insulin-like effects”.^[24] They were fed as much feed as they wanted, but the feed contained BGOV. On top of glycogen, several liver enzyme values returned to normal with the rats as well!

Vanaphase also uses acid-resistant DRcaps, which are a fancy form of capsuling that should improve absorption and digestibility even more, as it will make it to the second part of the GI tract.

What Can I Expect from Vanaphase?

For our bodybuilding and gym-going friends, Vanaphase should help ease some negatives of food intake. It will help dietary carbohydrates stay away from adipocytes, which will keep your waistline in check^[12] and send your carbs to your biceps instead. Glucose being used for glycogen stores should also mean heightened performance, especially during a cut. As far as general health goes, Vanaphase can lower your resting blood sugar levels and HbA1c profile^[12,13]

Marketed towards muscle-chasers, but could also help dieters and diabetics

We see two populations that will enjoy trying Vanaphase: diabetics, and those on a carb cycling diet. The diabetic benefits are obvious, but the carb cycling play is where the fun is at. High carb days on diets serve one purpose: they refill glycogen stores. Since Vanaphase may make glycogen storage a preferred process for the body, it could make refeed days more productive. And the workouts after them a whole lot more fun, pumped up, and strong.

Vanaphase is clearly targeting the muscle growth market, but dieters who want to keep blood sugar low with their carbs can have benefits too!

Ultimately, it’s the bodybuilders who Humanix is targeting here, specifically those who are higher-carb eaters (this product is not for low-carb dieters). If so, then you should take a Vanaphase capsule along with a meal three times per day. Imagine training with a higher usage of your glucose in your actual muscle tissue — that’s the pitch here!

Long story short? High-carbers get in here!

PricePlow’s review is coming

But does it work for us? We’ll find out, because we can at least see if it attenuates a blood sugar spike with a standard dose of carbs! So for a more detailed answer, look forward to Mike’s personal review coming shortly right here, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! We’ll update the post with his blood testing.

Conclusion: Vanaphase makes sense

Just one capsule with a carb-based meal! We’ll see how much it affects us!

We love single-ingredient products, especially when they’re laser-targeted to do one specific thing that shows up in blood work. We can easily test it and know if it works for us or not.

Not everyone cares about high-quality mineral absorption, but for those who do care, chelation using glycine is often the way to go these days. It was only a matter of time before someone remembered to do the same with our old friend vanadium!

If this works out, we can add Vanaphase to our blood sugar supporting arsenal – because as of yesteryear, vanadyl sulfate just wasn’t good enough for all healthy individuals / athletes reading this site. For now, we recommend that blood sugar hackers consider giving it a shot – the theoretical research is indeed there.

However, the proof will be in the pudding. If it lowers our blood sugar, you’ll see it happen on our YouTube channel!

The full Vanaphase label