If you've ever read the inactive ingredients on a bottle of vitamins, you may have noticed that the vitamins contain cellulose, and you may have wondered what the purpose of the cellulose was. Cellulose is the chemical name for fiber, and it's added to vitamins to give them increased bulk and make them easier to take.
Cellulose
Cellulose is the chemical name for fiber, which is an important component of diet even though it doesn't provide any energy. Like starch, which is an important source of cellular energy, cellulose consists of long chains of glucose molecules chemically bonded together. While some organisms, including bacteria, can digest cellulose, humans can't. This is because humans don't produce cellulase, the digestive enzyme required to break down cellulose, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry."
Cellulose in Vitamins
The reason cellulose appears as an inactive ingredient in vitamins is that it makes a good binding agent. It helps to clump the active ingredients -- the actual vitamins -- together into a pill form that you can swallow easily. Without binding agents, vitamins would be either liquids or powders that wouldn't hold together, which would make them much more difficult to take. Furthermore, it would be harder to ensure that you were getting the right dose.
Fiber Supplement
Though you need cellulose to stay healthy -- it helps with digestive function -- there isn't enough cellulose in vitamin tablets to make a significant difference to your body. As such, you can't really use the cellulose in vitamins as a supplement in its own right. MayoClinic.com notes that you need at least 25 grams of fiber each day for women -- and 38 grams for men -- to support healthy digestion. Vitamins contain less than a gram.
Considerations
Because you can't digest fiber, it has no calories. As such, even though fiber consists of glucose -- which your cells can burn for energy or store as body fat -- you can't break down fiber and access the glucose molecules. The cellulose in vitamins doesn't contribute to your daily caloric intake, it does not provide your cells with energy, and you can't convert it to body fat.
References
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
- MayoClinic.com: Fiber
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