Boron

The Mineral Nobody Talks About

Every ingredient has a story.

Some are famous before you even open the bottle.

Vitamin C. Magnesium. Omega-3.

And then there is boron.

Most people have heard the word. They might vaguely remember it from chemistry lessons. They probably couldn't tell you what it does in the human body.

Which is rather surprising.

Because boron has been travelling through the universe for considerably longer than we've been putting it into supplements.

Born in Space

Many of the elements that make up our bodies were forged inside stars.

Boron is different.

It is unusually fragile under the conditions found inside stars and isn't produced efficiently by conventional stellar nucleosynthesis. Much of the boron in our galaxy is instead thought to have arisen through cosmic-ray spallation: high-energy particles collide with heavier atomic nuclei in interstellar space and break them apart, producing lighter elements including boron. NASA astrophysics research describes galactic cosmic-ray spallation as a major source of boron.¹

In other words, part of boron's origin story involves extraordinarily energetic collisions happening in space.

And it didn't stay there.

Boron has been identified in carbonaceous chondrites primitive meteorites containing material dating back to the formation of our Solar System. Carbonaceous chondrites are also of great interest to origin-of-life research because meteorites can contain or catalyse the formation of organic molecules relevant to prebiotic chemistry.^2,3

So yes.

Boron has an outer-space story.

And somehow, billions of years later, it ended up in a Vivana formula.

The Mineral Biology Never Quite Classified

Once boron arrived on Earth, it became extraordinarily important to plants.

Boron is an essential micronutrient for plant growth. Without enough of it, plants don't develop normally.

Humans are more complicated.

Boron has not been formally established as an essential nutrient for humans, and no recommended dietary allowance has been established. Yet research over several decades suggests that it participates in a surprisingly wide range of biological processes, particularly those involving bone and mineral metabolism.⁴

Studies have explored its relationship with calcium and magnesium retention, vitamin D metabolism, bone physiology and steroid hormones. There is also research investigating potential roles in inflammatory processes. The evidence varies considerably in strength, and boron's exact physiological role in humans is still being worked out.⁴

And perhaps that's part of what makes it so interesting.

This isn't another nutrient whose story was neatly completed decades ago.

We're still learning.

An Interesting Mineral at an Interesting Time of Life

Bone is a good example of why we don't like looking at nutrients in isolation.

We often reduce bone health to calcium.

But bone biology involves a much larger system: vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin K, proteins, collagen, hormones, mechanical loading and a host of regulatory processes determining what happens to those nutrients once they enter the body.

Boron appears to sit somewhere within that network.

Small human metabolic studies have suggested relationships with calcium and magnesium excretion and vitamin D status, including research in postmenopausal women, although the evidence base remains limited and much smaller than for established nutrients such as calcium or vitamin D.⁴

For us, that's interesting precisely because midlife physiology doesn't change one pathway at a time.

Hormones change.

Bone remodelling changes.

Muscle changes.

Nutrient metabolism changes.

The systems interact.

And that is exactly why we formulate in systems too.

Not All Boron Is the Same

Finding an interesting nutrient is only the beginning.

Then comes the more important question:

In what form?

Boron exists in different chemical forms, and simply writing boron on an ingredient list doesn't tell the whole story.

For our formulation, we chose calcium fructoborate.

Calcium fructoborate is a boron-carbohydrate complex that has been specifically studied as a source of dietary boron, including research examining its chemistry, safety and use in humans.⁵ EFSA has also assessed calcium fructoborate as a novel food and concluded that it is safe under the proposed uses and use levels evaluated in its 2021 opinion.⁶

That mattered to us.

We didn't choose it because we could make a simplistic claim that one form of boron is universally "better" than every other. The comparative human evidence doesn't justify that.

We chose it because the form itself has a rationale and a body of research behind it.

This is an important part of formulation that consumers rarely see.

Choosing the ingredient is only one decision.

Then we ask:

What form?

What dose?

What evidence exists for that particular form?

And how does it work alongside everything else in the formula?

Ingredient. Form. Dose. Evidence.

All four have to earn their place.

The Unexpected Ingredient

When we formulate at Vivana, we don't begin with the ingredients everyone expects to see on the front of the pack.

We begin with the biology.

What are we trying to support?

Which physiological systems are involved?

What nutrients and compounds make sense within those systems?

And sometimes, following those questions takes us somewhere less expected.

Boron is one of those places.

Not because unusual ingredients make a formula more sophisticated. They don't. Adding obscure things for the pleasure of making an ingredient list look impressive is just another form of marketing.

Familiarity isn't one of our formulation criteria.

Purpose is.

If magnesium belongs in a formula, we use magnesium.

If vitamin D belongs there, we use vitamin D.

And if following the biology takes us somewhere less expected, we follow it there too.

Sometimes that means finding an ingredient most people have never considered.

Sometimes it means going one level deeper and discovering that the form of that ingredient deserves just as much attention as the ingredient itself.

There is no reason to stop at the obvious.

Why Boron Is in Collagen Pro

Boron is part of Collagen Pro.

And perhaps that is another unexpected place to find it.

Most collagen products naturally focus attention on collagen itself. But collagen biology doesn't happen in isolation. It depends on a much broader nutritional environment.

That is why Collagen Pro also includes minerals such as copper, manganese and boron.

Copper and manganese are established micronutrients involved in normal connective tissue biology: copper contributes to the maintenance of normal connective tissues, while manganese contributes to the normal formation of connective tissue. These are authorised EU health claims when the applicable conditions of use are met.⁷

Boron's role in human nutrition is less formally defined, but research has explored its interactions with mineral metabolism, vitamin D and bone physiology.⁴

We don't present those minerals as the stars of Collagen Pro.

They are part of the supporting cast.

Small nutrients helping the much bigger biological system do what it already knows how to do.

And that, in many ways, is exactly how we think about formulation.

No Complacency

That has become something of a signature in the way we formulate at Vivana.

We don't start with a list of ingredients consumers expect to see and work backwards.

We start with the biology.

What are we trying to support?

Which physiological systems are involved?

What nutrients and compounds make sense within those systems?

What does the evidence actually show?

And what doesn't it show yet?

That last question matters.

Because going the extra mile doesn't mean finding increasingly exotic ingredients.

It means being willing to look further without lowering the standard of evidence simply because we like what we find.

Unexpected doesn't mean experimental for the sake of being interesting.

Every ingredient still has to earn its place.

Boron did.

Still in Awe

There is another reason I enjoy ingredients like boron.

When I formulate and particularly when I start explaining why we formulated something the way we did I regularly find myself in awe of the extraordinary logic of biology and, sometimes, of the universe itself.

Boron is a perfect example.

An element whose story begins with high-energy collisions in space eventually became part of the chemistry of our planet, essential to plant life and intriguing enough in human physiology that we are still trying to understand its full significance.

And then we find ourselves discussing which form of it belongs in a supplement.

I love that.

Perhaps curiosity is one of the most important ingredients in any formula.

It is what makes us look beyond the obvious, question the familiar and occasionally discover that the ingredient nobody talks about has one of the best stories to tell.

At Vivana, unexpected ingredients are not there to make a formula look different. They are there because we went looking.

And the more we look, the more extraordinary biology becomes.

I started by explaining a mineral. I ended up, once again, in awe of the universe.

References