Delayed Release Capsules – The Journey Matters!
When it comes to what goes into our supplements we ask a lot of questions. What’s in it? What evidence is there behind it? Is it natural? There’s a lot of information out there and a lot to consider. But because we so often get preoccupied with what’s in the capsule, we often forget to think about the capsule itself. What’s it made of? Why?
When it comes to probiotic supplements for gut health, the capsule is very important! The bacteria in probiotics are alive, and sound asleep, so we need to keep them protected to ensure that they stay alive and have the effects we want, and this means making sure they survive the stomach and the acid within.
Luckily for us, there are options on this front. Technology has come to the rescue to offer us some powerful methods of helping to keep our live cultures protected on their way to your gut. In this article we’re going to look at Delayed Release technology, as well as Enteric Coating, what the options are, why it’s important, and which option is best. So, let’s start at the beginning…
What’s The Need?
You may be asking yourself: what’s the need for special capsules exactly? Can’t you just use the same ones as my multi-vitamins use?
Well, there is a very important role they have to play, and that’s protecting your live cultures on their way to your gut. As we all know, the first thing anything you swallow comes into contact with, is the stomach. This is where your food is mixed with stomach acid, as well as a variety of digestive enzymes, to kick start the digestion process.
Now, stomach acid is very tough, and rightly so! After all, its job is to kill off any unwanted microbes that might have been living on your food to keep you protected, and this includes bacteria, as well as fungi and viruses, as well as parasites that may have found their way in. We need our stomach acid, and we’d be in big trouble without it!
The things is, your probiotic supplement is made of bacteria, and of course the bacteria are the whole point! So, if the capsule opens too early, the bacteria are exposed to the acid, and many of them can die. How many of them die varies from species to species, so some are hit harder than others, but it’s not a risk worth running. It would be a great shame to spend money on live bacteria that are supposed to help your gut health, only for them to never make it past your stomach to work their magic.
At BetterGuts we’re lucky to work with two strains of bacteria that have been scientifically proven to survive stomach acid, LGG and BB12, so we know they’ve got a good chance of making it through to the gut anyway. But we don’t take chances and we don’t cut corners! That’s why we use HPMC delayed release capsules just to be on the safe side. So, let’s look at what these capsules are, why we chose them, and why we think they’re better than the alternatives…
Delayed Release
The obvious solution to our stomach acid conundrum is to put our probiotic bacteria in capsules specially designed to stay intact in the stomach and it’s acid, opening up in the intestine to deliver their goods where they’re needed most. Now, that sounds straight forward enough, but there are different options here, so let’s look at the two main ones.
Enteric Coating
The first kind, and the one most often used in pharmaceutical drugs, are enterically coated capsules. These are in essence normal cellulose capsules, but they’re coated on the outside with artificial polymers that are acid resistant. The idea is that these polymers only dissolve in a higher PH setting, i.e the small intestine, and therefore keep the ingredients nice and safe until they pass through the stomach and the acid within it.
Because the effect here is almost guaranteed, these capsules are the industry standard for pharma drugs that need to be protected from acid, but there are a couple of concerns.
One of the issues with the polymers used on the capsule is that they can get brittle and crack, allowing acid through the cracks, and damaging the capsule and its contents. To prevent this problem manufacturers often use ‘plasticisers’, chemicals designed to keep the coating flexible so it doesn’t crack. These are technically ‘inert’, but not many people want to swallow plastic, and there hasn’t been a great deal of research into how long these plasticisers stay in the human body.
There have also been concerns around using a chemical group called ‘phthalates’ in the coating. The potential health concerns surrounding this particular group of chemicals has led regulatory agencies to give warning guidance, with the EMA (European Medical Agency) issuing guidance to limit exposure, especially in sensitive individuals. We should mention that this group of chemicals isn’t used in all enterically coated capsules, just some since there are different chemicals used in this area, but they’re not required to tell you which one they’ve used on the label or in the ingredients list, so it can take some digging to find out what’s actually been used and what you’re taking.
In essence, enterically coated capsules are definitely the most effective, and are widely used in pharma grade drugs, but they achieve their goals with artificially synthesised chemicals, some of which have been associated with health concerns, and some of which are plasticisers. Now, when a doctor is looking to cure a disease, then the disease itself takes priority. So, in the use of pharmaceutical drugs the concerns surrounding these coatings are considered secondary, and a risk worth taking, because the disease is the real problem. But when it comes to a supplement designed to support daily health and wellbeing, are they really the best option? Perhaps something a bit cleaner is an option…
HPMC Delayed Release
The other option, and the one that we at BetterGuts have opted for, is HPMC (hydroxypropyl methylcellulose) delayed release. Most supplement capsules are made of cellulose, and HPMC is a variety of cellulose commonly used across the food and pharmaceutical industry as an excipient as well as for other purposes.
The concept of HPMC is simple, instead of taking the approach of a capsule that will only dissolve at a certain PH, these capsules work more like a timer. They’re designed to break down after a certain period of time, regardless of the PH of their surroundings. There have been quite a few studies into how well these capsules work, and many of them have shown this technology to improve the survivability of the bacteria within. A study conducted into DR Caps (a brand of delayed release capsules) showed that on average they opened up after 45 mins of swallowing, and in most cases released the bulk of their contents once they had reached the intestine, which after all is exactly where we want our bacteria delivered.
We chose this technology quite simply because we feel it’s a lot cleaner. HPMC (hydroxypropyl methylcellulose) is used as an excipient widely in the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry both. It’s widely recognised to have no negative health effects whatsoever, and is generally regarded as completely inert, just passing harmlessly through the digestive system without having any impact.
A lot of the time HPMC capsules are also made with a small percentage of Gellan Gum, often around the 5% mark. This is used for its ability to resist acidic conditions, further helping the capsules resist the stomach acid and make it through to the gut intact. Gellan gum is a widely used food additive, and is widely regarded as safe, with the EFSA (European food standards authority) listing it as having no know health concerns.
It’s therefore safe to say that the ingredients used in these capsules are safe and completely neutral, a claim that can’t really be made about the pharma grade enterically coated capsules, and that’s why we decided to use them. We feel they’re the cleaner option.
HPMC – The Best Way
We knew at BetterGuts that we couldn’t send our amazing live cultures in unprotected. Just leaving them to the mercy of the stomach acid, even though they have been proven to show a good survivability in stomach acid, was a risk too far. When we say 12BN CFU per serving, we want to make sure that you get as close to that as possible straight to your gut!
Weighing up the options we decided that HPMC was the way. Enterically coated works very effectively, and is a pharma grade industry standard, but it’s not without its own health concerns, and used a variety of artificial chemicals and plasticisers to achieve its goals. This might be fine for medicine, but not for a long term supplement that’s there to improve health and resilience.
On the other hand HPMC delayed release used only 2 ingredients, both of which are widely recognised as being not only safe but completely inert. Not only that but these capsules have been shown in studies to successfully protect their contents through to the small intestine, right where they need to be to work their magic.
So the next time you take a BetterGuts capsule, start your timer! You’ll know that around the 45 min mark that capsule will start opening up and releasing the good bacteria within!
References (the science) – Don’t just take our word for it:
- Amo, R. (2014) DRcaps® capsules achieve delayed release properties for nutritional ingredients in human clinical study: A gamma-scintigraphy study confirms delayed release properties of DRcaps capsules in human subjects. Brochure BAS 420. Capsugel Belgium NV. Available at: https://www.pharmaexcipients.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DRcaps%C2%AE-Capsules-Achieve-Delayed-Release-Properties-for-Nutritional-Ingredients-in-Human-Clinical-Study.pdf (Accessed: 19 February 2026)
- Corcoran BM, Stanton C, Fitzgerald GF, Ross RP. Survival of probiotic lactobacilli in acidic environments is enhanced in the presence of metabolizable sugars. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 Jun;71(6):3060-7. doi: 10.1128/AEM.71.6.3060-3067.2005. PMID: 15933002; PMCID: PMC1151822.
- Stasiak-Różańska L, Berthold-Pluta A, Pluta AS, Dasiewicz K, Garbowska M. Effect of Simulated Gastrointestinal Tract Conditions on Survivability of Probiotic Bacteria Present in Commercial Preparations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(3):1108. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18031108
