Why Your Iron Supplement Destroys Your Gut. It's Not Iron — It's The Form.
Your doctor prescribed ferrous sulfate — the cheapest, most common form of iron. It absorbs at roughly 10%. The other 90% stays in your gut as oxidative waste. That's what causes the constipation, nausea, and stomach cramps that made you quit.
Iron Bisglycinate is different. It's chelated — bonded to glycine amino acids. Instead of forcing through your gut lining, it uses amino acid transporters to slip through a completely different pathway. Your gut never sees the excess iron. The result: 4x higher absorption with zero GI side effects.
A PLOS ONE meta-analysis of 43 trials and 6,831 adults confirmed it: ferrous sulfate has a 32.3% GI side effect rate. Bisglycinate has virtually none.