Ingredient framework; direct source links are available in the studies library when published.
How it works
Exchange -- an iron-binding protein found in colostrum, milk and secretions such as tears and saliva. It holds iron very tightly and releases it under acidic conditions, which is the property every proposed role rests on.
Exchange -- studied for a role in iron handling that is different from a plain iron salt -- it is investigated as a way of delivering iron alongside binding it, and the human evidence sits mainly in pregnancy and paediatric iron-deficiency trials rather than in healthy adults.
Maintain -- binding free iron in the gut lumen also deprives microbes of the iron they need, which is the basis of its studied antimicrobial and mucosal-defence role.
Maintain -- measured in stool as a marker of intestinal inflammation, which is a DIAGNOSTIC use of the protein rather than a supplemental one -- the two are routinely confused and must not be blurred.
Form matters
The same nutrient can be made in very different forms -- and a study done on one form does not automatically apply to another. Methylcobalamin is not cyanocobalamin; magnesium glycinate is not magnesium oxide; a whole-food extract is not the synthetic isolate that was studied. Two things decide whether what is in the bottle behaves like the research: the exact form, and independent lab verification (a Certificate of Analysis) that the form and dose on the label are truly what is inside. Without a COA, you are trusting a label, not the science.
The science on Lactoferrin
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