The lipid tail on the prodrug helps it to diffuse through the intestinal wall to lymph vessels. The tocotrienols then flows into blood circulation and distributes to organs and tissues around the body and avoids first pass metabolism in the liver.
Studies in the rat have demonstrated that plasma levels of tocotrienol obtained by the pro-drug can be 10 times higher than tocotrienol taken alone.
The tocotrienols diffuse through the intestinal wall to blood capillaries and then flows into the portal vein to the liver. The tocotrienols are metabolised in the liver (first pass effect) which means smaller quantities of intact tocotrienols circulate to organs and tissues around the body.
ABN 16 657 241 533