What Does “Loading” Mean in Nutrition and Medicine?

When Nikken introduced Bergisterol a handful of years ago they recommended (and still do) that you take twice the daily amount for the first month you take it then drop back to the regular daily amount. This is called “loading”.

Loading is a common practice with medications, and since I don’t have much experience with medicine I had never heard the term before.

What is “Loading” About?

When a doctor prescribes a medication for a particular purpose they want you to maintain a certain concentration of the active ingredients in your system. This can also apply to nutritional supplements. When you eat or drink an amount of food, water, medicine or whatever, a percentage of that will be eliminated from your body through the course of the day.

To achieve that, they will have you take more of it at first to build up to that concentration then back off the dosage to just match the amount that your body eliminates between doses to maintain the concentration.

For example, let’s say that you want to have a concentration of 50 mg of an active ingredient in your body and your body will eliminate 10 mg of it every day. You might take 15 mg of it each day to start off. On the first day you have 15 mg and your body will eliminated 10 mg. On the second day you still have 5 mg and your 15 mg dose brings you up to 20 mg. On day three you have 10 mg in your body and your next 15 mg brings you up to 25 mg. Each day the loading dosage brings you 5 mg closer to the target concentration.

Finally on day 8 you start off with 35 mg in your body and when you take your loading dose of 15 mg you reach the target of 50 mg. Now on the ninth day and each day thereafter you only take a maintenance dosage of 10mg to replace what was lost over the course of the previous day to maintain the 50 mg.

Why Do Loading?

There may be a variety of reasons to take a loading approach to gradually build up the concentration. It may just be too much to take in through your diet in one day or too much for your body to process in one dose. Any thing that you take orally has to go through your digestive system and that may limit how much can get into your bloodstream at one time.

Another reason is to give your body some time to adapt to the higher concentration of the active ingredient. Your body may have to work up to using it just like it would have to work up to being able to run a marathon or climb Mount Everest.

In the case of Bergisterol, I don’t know for certain but I believe the latter is the reason for loading. You take 2 ounces a day for the first month you use Bergisterol to very gradually build up the concentration of the active ingredients in your blood. During that time your body is getting used to the ingredients being more readily available for use and putting them to that use. From the second month on, you are maintaining that concentration and your body knows what you do with it to help maintain your cardiovascular health.

PS. Click here for more information about Bergisterol and its heart and cardiovascular benefits.

Disclaimer and Disclosure

I am not a doctor and do not give any medical advice. Bergisterol is a nutritional supplement and is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any disease. I am an independent Nikken distributor and may earn a commission if you order product through this website. Nikken products are only available through independent distributors like me.