Lecithin-versatile and vital

Lecithin – versatile and essential for life

Lecithin is a high-quality and vital natural substance that is found in the cells of our body. In the My Lecithin online shop, you will only receive GMO-free lecithins for healthy dietary supplements with the certainty of buying absolute top quality from one of Germany's most renowned suppliers.

Where is lecithin found?

Lecithin is found in the body cells of all living things. Your body can produce the vital substance itself, but not in sufficient quantities. In addition, lecithin, in varying quantities and quality, can be found in nature. A distinction is made between vegetable and animal lecithin.

Plant-based lecithin is found in the following foods, among others:

• soybeans
• Sunflower seeds
• linseed
• Maiskeimen
• Hempseed
• Rapeseed

Lecithin is particularly rich in animal products. Egg yolk, for example, contains a relatively high proportion of animal lecithin, but the innards of the heart, liver and brain are also rich in lecithin.

However, animal products with a high lecithin content rarely play a major role in our diet. In addition to a general tendency to eat less meat, offal such as brain or liver rarely ends up on most people's plates.

That's why nowadays high-quality lecithins of plant origin are not only important for vegetarians or vegans.

Lecithin: Quantity is not the same as quality

Of course, how much lecithin is in a food does not automatically say anything about the quality of the lecithin or how valuable it is for your body. For example, depending on the origin, there are large differences in the fatty acids contained in lecithin.

Basically, fatty acids are divided into saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The unsaturated fatty acids, in turn, can be divided into monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fatty acids. When your doctor talks about "good" fats, he means fats that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids.

In a healthy diet, these should represent the majority of the fatty acids ingested and are contained, for example, in fish or certain vegetable oils. These polyunsaturated fatty acids are also known as "essential" fatty acids. They are essential for life because our body cannot produce them itself and we have to get them from food.

Therefore, try to take lecithins with a high proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, as the biological effect of lecithin depends significantly on it. For example, these "good" fats transport fat-soluble vitamins throughout your body, promoting low cholesterol levels and healthy blood pressure.

What happens when the body receives too little lecithin?

Lecithin plays an important role in many processes in the body. Thus, lecithin is an essential component of the walls of the body's cells, which make up all our organs and tissues. Lecithin makes the cell walls strong and flexible.

Lecithin is a complex particle that consists of different building blocks. An important basic building block of lecithin is choline – a vitamin-like substance. Without this "ingredient", the body cannot produce lecithin on its own. Therefore, if the body lacks choline, it also lacks lecithin.

Normally, most people manage to get the necessary choline through a lecithin-rich diet. However, there are individuals who are at increased risk of choline deficiency. This deficiency is caused either by an increased need or by too little intake of choline.

Risk groups for choline deficiency include:

• People who are subjected to strong physical and mental exertion
• Vegetarians and vegans, i.e. people who avoid meat (vegetarians) as well as any animal foods such as milk and eggs (vegans)
• People at an older age

If you belong to one of these risk groups, make sure you have an adequate choline supply. If you have a pronounced choline deficiency, it can lead to liver disease and muscle damage, among other things.

How much lecithin do I need daily?

In order to provide your body with sufficient lecithin, you should consume about 5 grams of lecithin daily, as this will cover the recommended daily requirement of choline. For both men and women, the recommended amount of choline is 400 milligrams per day.

In order to get through everyday life with energy and momentum, your body needs to be supplied with enough lecithin. While it's true that your body produces lecithin on its own, unfortunately, this amount alone is not enough. Furthermore, the human body stops the production of lecithin after menopause. Therefore, lecithin must be ingested through food. However, this is often not so easy.

Although lecithin is found in many plant and animal foods, it can be challenging to meet the daily requirement of 5 grams, even on a normal diet.

Beef liver, eggs, and peanuts, for example, are foods that are rich in choline but rarely or never end up on the plate for various reasons. Beef liver is not everyone's cup of tea, eggs should not be eaten daily with elevated cholesterol levels and since peanuts have a lot of calories, they are not recommended every day. So what to do?

Why is lecithin important for your health?

The active ingredient lecithin is essential when it comes to your health. Lecithin is an important component of cells and performs a variety of important functions that have a positive effect on your body and well-being.

Here's why lecithin is good for you:

1. Lecithin makes for strong nerves

Smartphone, internet, television – in today's world, peace and quiet is rare. Constant accessibility and sensory overload are often part of everyday life and often wear on the nerves. As a result, you are stressed and hectic or exposed to other nervous stresses. Lecithin helps you cope with these stressful situations. This is because lecithin is involved in the development of nerve fibers as well as in the transmission of nerve impulses and thus ensures an increase in your performance and strong nerves in fast-moving times.

2. Lecithin supports your muscles

It is not only during stress that lecithin gives your body energy and strength. Lecithin also provides energy for your muscles during sports activities.

3. Lecithin provides you with energy

Lecithin is an important source of energy. Our brain normally uses glucose as an energy source. This is important because a lack of glucose in the brain can lead to tremors, dizziness or even impaired consciousness. However, during certain periods of stress, your brain is able to use other energy sources – such as lecithin – to compensate.

4. Lecithin helps with exhaustion

Do you often feel unfocused, tired and exhausted? Then your body and mind are exhausted and need a break. Often, a little rest or a rich meal is enough to make the signs of exhaustion disappear. With increasing age, however, exhaustion can become a permanent condition. It doesn't have to be. You can counteract this if you consume enough lecithin. Your brain is thus sufficiently supplied with choline, which it needs for the transmission of nerve stimuli and the storage of data.

When was lecithin discovered?

Lecithin was discovered in Paris in 1846 by the chemist and pharmacist Théodore-Nicolas Gobley . The French scientist examined the previously unknown substance in the yolk. He gave it the name "Lekithos" (the Greek word for "yolk"), which later became the current name "Lecithin".

Théodor-Nicoas Gobley researched the most important property of lecithin: it is a compound of water and oil.

The industrial extraction of lecithin

For many years, egg yolk was therefore considered the main source of lecithin. However, since the production of lecithin in this way was too expensive to be able to produce it sufficiently, lecithin research was put on hold for the time being.

It was not until half a century later, in 1925, that a process was introduced in a Hamburg oil mill that made the industrial extraction of lecithin possible. The decisive technological breakthrough was: for the first time, plant-based lecithin was extracted from the soybean.

Today we know that – in terms of the quality of the lecithin obtained – it is not the egg, but the soybean that is, so to speak, "the yellow of the egg". This is because the health-promoting effect of lecithin on your body depends on the components it consists of.

Lecithin under the microscope

Lecithin is a special substance that binds both water and fat. When you consume lecithin, your gut absorbs over 50 percent of the total lecithin particle (molecule). The other part of the lecithin is broken down into its individual components during digestion and further processed.

The essential components of soy lecithin are choline, linoleic acid and phosphate.

Lecithin component choline: The messenger for the brain

A main component of lecithin is choline, which is particularly important for our memory. Our brain copes with all the intellectual demands that we encounter in everyday life. It also has the ability to store things so that we can remember them. So if everything is to run smoothly, our brain has to transmit, receive, check and exchange thousands of pieces of information within a fraction of a second.

So-called neurotransmitters, i.e. messenger substances, play a decisive role in this. This is because they transmit all information and impulses via the nerve cells to our brain. One messenger substance is particularly important for data transmission in the brain: acetylcholine. Our body is capable of producing this messenger substance itself – but for this it needs a sufficient supply of choline. Lecithin is therefore important for the body's own production of acetylcholine.

Lecithin component linoleic acid: The essential fatty acid

When you take non-GMO lecithin from My Lecithin, you effectively supply your body with linoleic acid, a so-called essential fatty acid. The intake of such fatty acids is very important because your body cannot produce them on its own.

Linoleic acid is one of the polyunsaturated fatty acids and thus one of the "good" fats. Fats are important energy suppliers and energy stores for the body, which your body can fall back on during strenuous phases of life.

Linoleic acid is also important:

• for the transport of blood lipids in the body
• for the metabolism of our cells

Make sure you have a sufficient intake of lecithin in order to be able to counteract hectic and stress well.

Lecithin Component Phosphate: The Natural Energy Supplier

Lecithin contains phosphate and is therefore known as a natural source of energy. Phosphate plays an important role in your body's energy balance. When your muscles are working, they need energy to be able to contract. This energy is provided by the phosphate.

For example, if you are active in sports, whether as a recreational or high-performance athlete, you can provide necessary energy by providing sufficient lecithin.

And lecithin and its component phosphate are also indispensable for your heart: because the heart – or more precisely, the heart muscle – is the most important muscle in our body. The heart beats as the heart muscle contracts and relaxes again. Since our heart never stands still, it has a high energy requirement.