About MicroVitamin
Most multivitamins are designed around the label. This one is designed around the research.
Every ingredient had to earn a place. The dose had to match what the studies actually used. And if the human evidence wasn’t there, it didn’t go in — no matter how good it would have looked on the label.
About three minutes to read. Every claim links to its source.
Who made this
MicroVitamin was founded by Brad Stanfield, who spent years reading the research on the nutrients in a multivitamin and couldn’t find a product that reflected it. The formula is the result: sensible doses, active forms, everything printed on the label, and a shorter ingredient list than most.
We’d rather under-promise and be accurate than overclaim. Supplements don’t replace the basics — sleep, movement and a good diet do the heavy lifting. MicroVitamin is here to cover nutritional gaps, simply and reliably.
What follows is the standard that came out of that, and what it rules in and out. It is deliberately specific, because a standard you can’t check isn’t one.
Our standard
Six things go wrong in most multivitamins — and what we do instead
None of these are secrets. They’re just easier to spot once you know where to look. Each one is a rule the formula has to pass — and the reason some versions have fewer ingredients than the last.
Megadoses
500% or 1000% of the daily value looks generous on a label. Past the amount the research used, more isn’t better — and for several nutrients it works against you.
High-dose zinc competes with copper for absorption, and sustained megadosing can tip people into copper deficiency. Large folic acid doses can hide a B12 deficiency instead of correcting it, so a real problem goes unnoticed. And the bright yellow urine a megadose multivitamin produces is riboflavin — vitamin B2 — that your body had no use for, on its way out.
What we do
The dose matches the studies. Not the most you can safely swallow, and not whatever number looks impressive on the label — the amount the trials actually used. You get what was tested, rather than paying for an excess your body will simply get rid of.
Hyaluronic acid at 200 mg — the exact daily dose used in the 2021 randomised controlled trial it’s drawn from.
The cheapest form of each nutrient
Two products can both say “vitamin B12” and “magnesium” on the label and contain quite different things. The cheap versions either have to be converted by your body before they do anything, or are barely absorbed at all — magnesium oxide is poorly absorbed and is better known as a laxative.
What we do
We use the forms your body can actually absorb. The B vitamins are already in the form your body uses, so nothing has to be converted first — and a common genetic difference makes some people poor at doing that conversion. The minerals are bound to an amino acid: in a head-to-head study the zinc form we use was absorbed about 43% better than the cheap version. All of this costs more, which is exactly why it’s the first thing cut elsewhere.
Copper as copper bisglycinate rather than cupric sulfate — changed in v7 after the older form reacted inside the capsule. Every change is in the formula changelog.
Ingredients left to react with each other
A multivitamin isn’t 25 separate pills. It’s 25 ingredients pressed together in one capsule for up to two years. Vitamin C breaks down on contact with air, minerals speed that up — copper especially — and some ingredients pull in moisture that spoils the ones sitting next to them.
What we do
The fragile ingredients get their own protective coating. That keeps them apart from everything else, so they’re still at full strength when you take them — right through to the expiry date. It costs more, and you would never know from the label whether it had been done.
Our vitamin D3, K2 and the plant pigments lutein, zeaxanthin and lycopene are all coated this way.
Blends that hide the dose
A “proprietary blend” lists impressive-sounding ingredients and then one combined weight for the whole lot. You cannot tell whether something is in there at the dose the research used, or as a pinch. That is the point of the format.
What we do
Every dose is printed on the label. No proprietary blends, ever — every ingredient, which form it is, and exactly how much. So you can check any of it against the research yourself, without taking our word for it.
The full ingredient list, and the study behind each one, is on the science page.
The wrong things in, the right things missing
Vitamin A and vitamin E are still standard in most multivitamins, and a Cochrane review of 78 randomised trials in 296,707 people linked beta-carotene and vitamin E supplements to a higher risk of dying from any cause. Both are stored in body fat rather than flushed out, so any excess builds up.
Meanwhile hyaluronic acid, TMG (a compound also found in beetroot), lutein, zeaxanthin and lycopene each have human trial evidence behind them, and almost no multivitamin includes them — they cost considerably more than the vitamins everyone already has.
What we do
The evidence decides, in both directions. A compelling mechanism with a thin human record is interesting; it isn’t an ingredient yet. The same test that keeps vitamin A and E out is what puts all five of those others in.
What we left out, and why — including several that would have made the label look a good deal more impressive.
“Third-party tested” with nothing to read
Almost every brand says it. Far fewer publish anything you can actually check — a lot number, a lab name, a certificate. The phrase does the work of the evidence.
What we do
Every batch is tested, and we publish the results. An outside lab checks each batch for heavy metals and confirms the label is accurate, at facilities certified to GMP — the manufacturing standard regulators audit against. Including the results we’d rather not have had.
See the testing page — every certificate is downloadable, including the time an independent lab marked us Not Approved.
Dose vs studied dose
What the research used, and what’s in the bottle
The clearest test of whether a formula is evidence-led: put the two numbers side by side and see whether they agree. Here are ours — including where they don’t.
| Ingredient | In MicroVitamin | Used in the study | Study | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyaluronic acid | 200 mg | 200 mg/day | Michelotti 2021, Eur J Dermatol | Matches |
| Lutein + zeaxanthin | 10 mg + 2 mg | 10 mg + 2 mg/day | AREDS2 2013, JAMA | Matches |
| Creatine monohydrate (Powder) | 5 g | 3–5 g/day maintenance | ISSN position stand, 2017 | Matches |
| TMG (betaine) | 500 mg | 2.5 g/day | Cholewa 2013, JISSN | Below |
Scroll the table sideways on a small screen.
On that last row. TMG sits well below the amount used in the exercise trial it’s best known for. It’s there to work alongside folate and B12, not to reproduce that trial — and rather than quietly leave the comparison out, it’s here. A table that only shows the flattering rows isn’t a standard; it’s an advertisement.
On lutein and zeaxanthin. AREDS2 tested them as a replacement for beta-carotene, which had been found to raise lung-cancer risk in former smokers. Across ten years of follow-up the replacement performed at least as well — modestly better, in fact — with no lung-cancer signal. That is why the field moved to these two pigments, and it is why they are here at the amounts that trial used.
Every ingredient, form, dose and studyWhat we left out
The formula is defined as much by what’s absent
Most brands publish what’s in. The more useful list is what was considered and rejected — because that’s the list that tells you what the standard actually is. Vitamin A and vitamin E are covered above; these are the ones people are more often surprised by.
Supplemental calcium
Left out in favour of supporting the calcium already in your diet — through D3, K2, magnesium and boron.
Resveratrol
One of the most heavily marketed ingredients in the category. Very little of it actually gets absorbed when you swallow it, and the human results have been inconsistent. Popularity isn’t evidence.
NMN and nicotinamide riboside
Genuinely interesting cell and animal work on NAD+, a molecule cells use to make energy — and thin human data relative to how confidently these are sold. MicroVitamin includes a modest dose of nicotinamide instead.
Apigenin, sulforaphane, fisetin
Promising mechanisms, promising mice, and not enough human data to justify a place in something taken every day. Worth watching rather than worth including.
Titanium dioxide, dyes and fillers
No artificial colours, and none of the usual bulking or anti-caking agents — no silicon dioxide, no magnesium stearate. The capsule shell is plant-based.
Testing
Anyone can say “third-party tested”. Here are the actual results.
Including the one that didn’t go our way — which is, honestly, the more useful one to read.
Independent review
MicroVitamin has been independently tested and reviewed by Labdoor. The review page is public.
Every batch
Heavy metals — lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium — tested on every batch. Certificates of analysis available on request.
The result we didn’t want
In early 2026 an independent lab marked MicroVitamin “Not Approved”. We published the full report and the certificate of analysis so anyone could check the explanation.
The obvious objection
Why five capsules and not one
It’s the first thing people ask, and it’s a fair question. The answer is arithmetic.
Effective amounts of magnesium, hyaluronic acid, TMG and choline take up real physical volume. They do not fit into one capsule.
So a one-a-day isn’t a convenience feature — it’s a formulation decision that has already been made for you, and the usual way to make it is to cut the doses until they fit.
Five capsules is what honest doses look like.
More common questions
Where it’s made
Made in five regions, not shipped from one
Rather than manufacture in one country and freight it everywhere, MicroVitamin is produced locally in each major market — at GMP-certified facilities, batch-tested in region.
The products
Two formulas. Same standard.
The capsules are the core formula. The powder is that same core plus four additions that are too bulky to fit in a capsule.
MicroVitamin Capsules
The core formula · vegan
- B vitamins in the form your body uses directly
- Lutein and zeaxanthin at the amounts used in AREDS2
- D3 and K2, each with a protective coating
- 5 capsules a day, 30 servings a bottle
- Every dose printed on the label — no blends
MicroVitamin+ Powder
The core formula, plus four
- Everything in the capsules, in one scoop
- Collagen peptides 12.5 g
- Creatine monohydrate 5 g
- Soluble fibre and added taurine
- Mixed Berry or unflavoured
Start with whichever you’d rather read first
The evidence behind each ingredient, what we left out, or the testing results.