Gary BreckaHuman Biologist & Longevity Innovator

The Truth About Bioavailability

14 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this short clip, Gary Brecka explains bioavailability as the proportion of an ingested nutrient that actually reaches the bloodstream and can be used by the body. He illustrates the concept with a 100 mg pill that is only 10 % bioavailable, meaning the body absorbs just 10 mg while the remaining 90 mg is excreted as urine—what he calls “expensive urine.” Brecka argues that this loss is not inevitable; it occurs when nutrients are delivered in forms that the body cannot recognize or utilize. By using the correct chemical forms of nutrients tailored to an individual’s biology, supplement absorption can be dramatically improved, turning a wasteful supplement into an effective one.

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What does bioavailability mean? It's the percentage of a substance that enters your bloodstream and becomes available for your body to use. That means you could take a pill with 100mg of a nutrient, but only 10% of that is bioavailable. Your body is only getting 10mg. But what happens to the other 90mg? That's the expensive urine we're talking about. This is actually fixable when the nutrient is in a form your body can actually recognize and utilize. So the next time someone tells you that supplements just make expensive supplements are pee, you can tell them they're only half right. Bad supplements do exactly that, but the right supplements in the right forms based on your individual biology change everything.