Each day, our bodies break down the sugars, proteins, and fats we consume and use the raw materials to create substances we need to live and stay healthy. One of these essential substances is hyaluronic acid (HA)—a long-chain sugar molecule that can hold up to 1000 times its weight in water!  

Your body is producing this amazing water-loving molecule right now, and using it to lubricate your joints, moisten your eyes, and help your skin and hair keep the moisture they need to remain supple and young looking.

Where Do Our Bodies Get Hyaluronic Acid and How Much Do We Have?

Because hyaluronic acid is uncommon in food sources, our bodies must produce it themselves. To accomplish this, we build long chains of HA from two other sugars (glucuronic acid and n-acetyl glucosamine). A single molecule of HA can contain as many as 25,000 repeating chains of these two sugars! Under the microscope these long-chain molecules appear as tiny fibers, each eager to bind to any water molecules they encounter. The average human body contains about 15 grams of HA at any moment{1}, which is continually being built, used, and recycled as needed throughout our systems.

What Does High-Molecular-Weight Hyaluronic Acid Do?

The long-chain HA molecule that our bodies make naturally has a predominantly high molecular weight (HMW). This heavy molecule (HMW-HA) is ideally suited to several biologic processes, including receptor binding (how cells communicate and transport substances), signaling (how cells “know” when to begin or end a process), and cell migration (how cells move where they are needed.

Here are just a few things HMW-HA does for us.

• Helps our bodies with synovial fluid that lubricates and cushions our joints
• Helps our eyes maintain vital moisture as we age
• Helps support skin hydration
• Helps maintain the moisture and health of our hair.

If Our Bodies Make Hyaluronic Acid, Why Do We Need Supplements?

While our bodies are quite capable of making all the HMW-HA we need when we are young, this ability begins to diminish as we age. A person over 50 may produce only about half the HMW-HA they did as a teen.

HMW-HA vs. Low-Molecular-Weight

Our awareness of the importance of HA supplementation has increased dramatically over the past few decades. In response, producers have begun to market various low-molecular-weight (LMW) versions of the HA molecule.

This LMW-HA is easier and less costly to produce, allowing new makers to enter the marketplace, but these LMW variants have some significant shortcomings when compared with HMW-HA.

Friend or Foe?  While our bodily systems instantly recognize HMW-HA (because that’s what we predominantly produce naturally), LMW-HA can easily confuse our bodies and can be misidentified as an alien or invading molecule.     

Hydrating Power. One of the most amazing things about HA is its ability to bind water. The larger the molecule, the more capable it is of performing this function. In the joints, for example, HMW-HA creates a jell-like fluid (called synovial fluid) that lubricates and cushions the joints. Smaller molecules, like those in LMW-HA, lack the hydrating power to perform this job fully.

At Hyalogic, we understand the science behind HA and how it works within our bodies. That’s why we produce top quality hyaluronic acid for our products like Episilk Pure HA Serum and Optimize HA Capsules. And because we derive our HMW-HA from a natural fermentation process and not from animals, Hyalogic hyaluronic acid is considered vegan friendly!

Check out our home page and discover what Hyalogic’s hyaluronic acid products can do for you!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyaluronic_acid