What does Beta Glucan really do for my immune system?

For maximum immune response, take 1, 500mg capsule per 50 lbs. of body weight. For example, if you weigh around 150 lbs. you would need to take 3 capsules per day. All capsules should be taken first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. After taking your capsules, wait 30 minutes before eating or consuming other products. If you forget to take your capsules in the morning it is safe to go ahead and take your Beta Glucan during the day, although the benefits will not be as significant. Remember, these dosage instructions are for maximum immune response.

"For maximum immune response, take One 500mg capsule per 50 pounds of body weight."

Our Beta Glucan is made in Wisconsin, USA, and bottled/encapsulated in Oregon, USA.

Our highly purified Beta Glucan powder is encased in a plant-based HPMC vegetarian capsule.

Additional Information: Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) is a plant-based polymer derived from cellulose found in plant cell walls. Widely used in pharmaceuticals and food, it offers an alternative to traditional gelatin capsules, making them suitable for vegetarian and vegan preferences. HPMC is considered safe by regulatory agencies such as the FDA and EMA. Produced through a multi-step process involving cellulose modification, it undergoes extraction, alkalization, etherification, purification, and drying to ensure safety and quality for various applications in the pharmaceutical and food industries.

Our Beta Glucan does not contain nor is it manufactured with wheat, gluten, soy, corn, milk, egg, fish, nuts, or shellfish ingredients. However, it is produced in a GMP facility that processes other ingredients containing these allergens, but controls are in place to ensure there is no cross-contamination.

The short answer to that is Beta-1, 3D Glucan is a natural fiber molecule extracted from our source, baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). It enhances, supports, and maintains a good healthy immune system.

The long and more complex answer is that it is a naturally occurring long-chain polysaccharide purified from the cell walls of baker’s yeast. Our beta glucan is intensely purified: I cannot stress that enough. It is a biologically active complex of molecules; it is the single active ingredient in our Beta-1, 3D Glucan Capsules. A lot of times, people think we are dipping from four or five different buckets to make up our powder. This (Beta 1-3D Glucan) is the single ingredient in our compound.

Our Beta Glucan is readily taken up and converted into the body through the immune cells to bind (or hook up or plug into, if you please) to a specific site on the immune cells called the CR3 receptor. CR3 stands for complement receptor number three. These receptors are found on a myriad of different immune cells that make up our white blood cells or our “immune army,” also known as macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils, monocytes, NK cells, and others. These immune cells make up a large part of the immune system’s main defense mechanism.

Technically, Beta-1, 3D Glucan is a polybranched, polyglucose complex fiber-like particle that when converted, yields a biologically active beta glucan molecule that specifically binds to this CR3 (or sometimes called Mac1 or sometimes called CD11/C18).

-AJ Lanigan

Our Beta Glucan is actually considered an immunomodulator. For a substance or product to be an immunomodulator it cannot overstimulate or suppress your immune system. Most products that address the immune system are marketed as “immune boosters,” but that’s actually a misrepresentation of Beta Glucan. This product will never cause overstimulation or harm as it provides a healthy, safe immune response at any dosage. The same cannot be said for typical “immune boosters.” Beta Glucan makes your immune system smarter and stronger, which aids in identifying self and non-self cells better than ever before.

-Better Way Health

It is kind of a general term which I don’t even think is just to characterize it or anything like that. If it is natural it means the molecule has to come from a natural source because sometimes you can have a modulator that is completely synthetic, the term “immunomodulator” means that it is something that either in the plastic tube or in our body will modulate or change individual parts of the immune system so it works differently. You can basically consider even an immunosuppressive drug an immunomodulator because it modulates your system. It’s better to talk about if it is a stimulator or a suppressor. It is something that will affect the immune system and change its activities and abilities.

Yes, in our body we usually need a positive, we need stimulation. Only in cases like we talked about, auto-immune diseases and transplantation, do we need the opposite. We need to suppress the system so that the system is not fighting the new kidney.

It is something that is usually neglected but for a lot of our problems in the last decade, they are our problems. It’s a situation where we live, the conditions, how we live, what we eat, the pollution in the air, in our water, and so on. This is causing the diseases. It is common knowledge even about allergy diseases. There are dozens of studies from Iceland where for decades there were very few allergies in Iceland. They have no trees and the grasses they have don’t have the allergic pollen and so on. So the level of allergies in Iceland, particularly among kids was maybe 1/10th of what is found in Europe or the United States. In the last decade, the conditions changed there, they still don’t have trees and they still have the same grass, but they are eating differently, and they have bigger towns, factories, and so on. Now over the last two or three years, the level of allergies in Iceland’s kids is identical to Western Europe. If you change the condition or change the food you are just not as healthy as you used to be. So, we have to think about it, we can hardly change how clear the air will be. You might change the nutrition a little bit, you might change what you eat, we can go for better vegetables or something like that but the conditions of life will be the same and that is where the immunomodulator can come and help.

-Dr. Vaclav Vetvicka

Once you swallow your Beta Glucan capsules, the product enters the stomach. Shortly after, it is taken up into a special region known as the Peyer’s Patches. In the Peyer’s Patches, there are M cells, which transport the Beta Glucan to immune cells. These immune cells chew up the Beta Glucan and distribute it all over the body. The Beta Glucan fragments bind to Neutrophils, Macrophages, and Natural Killer cells. The binding of Beta Glucan to these cells is only possible with something known as the CR-3 Receptor. The CR-3 Receptor acts like a key unlocking a door. This binding of Beta Glucan with immune cells is what puts them on “high alert” priming them for action. In about 3 days after taking your Beta Glucan your immune system will be “fully activated.”

-Better Way Health

I would suggest chasing the Beta Glucan with a 4oz glass of water. Once the Beta Glucan goes down the esophagus, it passes into the stomach. Keep in mind that Beta Glucan is a complex carbohydrate, nature’s armor and that the stomach acid is not going to affect it at all. It will then pass from the stomach into the small intestine. The Beta Glucan microparticles are going to be seen and consumed by M-cells, or microfold cells, inside your Peyer’s Patches in your small intestine.

Think of the Peyer’s Patches as little Venus flytraps that physically reach up and grab these particles. They do not soak through the intestines. There is an actual grabbing of the particles which then pulls them through the lining of the intestine. Once inside these pockets, the particles are now inside the intestinal wall in what is called the GALT (Gut-Associated Lymphoid Tissue).

There are millions of immune cells sitting and sampling everything that comes through the gut and they are going to be attracted to the Beta Glucan; which holds the fingerprint of the yeast, yet it does not cause any of the reactions that yeast may cause. Once the particles are gobbled up and internalized, they will begin to travel throughout the body. They go to the lymph system through the lymph nodes and then into the liver; and soon into the kidneys, lungs, and bone marrow. 

-AJ Lanigan

It goes through the stomach basically unchanged because we cannot process this type of saccharide. Only horses and animals basically eating grass can do it. We cannot. So it goes through the stomach and inside the intestine there are small patches of cells called Peyer’s Patches and they have a lot of different cells inside which have the receptor for the glucan.

So when the glucan slowly passes through, they actively see the molecules of glucan, bind it, catch them, and suck them in. By doing it, now they have the glucan inside. They start slowly to chew it up into smaller parts, it leaves the Peyer’s Patches into the other organs of the body releasing the fragments and in this way, the glucan is slowly spreading around our body. And it takes a couple of days. That is why I said it takes three days to see any results because it goes from one organ to another, cells are, exchanging glucan molecules.

-Dr. Vaclav Vetvicka

There are numerous ways for consumers to know which beta glucan product is the best. First, you must know the source of the product and where it’s manufactured. Our Beta Glucan is derived from the cell walls of baker’s yeast and is manufactured in the U.S. Second, know the level of purity of the particular product. The minimum level of purity for our product is 85%, which provides the best immune response possible to the consumer. Finally, check and see if there’s peer-reviewed, disinterested 3rd party research on the product. Our Beta Glucan has hundreds of studies published by teaching hospitals and major universities like Harvard, Louisville, and Cornell proving its safety and efficacy.

-Better Way Health

You have to do your homework. If you just believe whatever you read on the Internet, you will probably be taken to the cleaners. First of all, you should never go for the cheapest product. We used to say back home, “You are not rich enough to buy the cheap stuff.” If is too cheap something is most probably wrong. So that is one thing which should warn you.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to buy the most expensive one because you could be buying a more expensive bottle than anything else. But don’t go for the cheap stuff. Second, really check the information. Because to the company, either the manufacturer or the reseller, it doesn’t really matter. If he takes the material and the whole situation seriously he will give you detailed information on how it’s made, how pure it is, how much you have in the pill, give you some links to the research based on THIS particle of glucan and NOT on the glucan somebody else made, on MY glucan.

If it is there and the information/research sounds good, you most probably have a good product. If somebody is showing information having a yeast glucan and you see the reference for mushroom glucan from Japan, what does it mean? He just took something from the Internet and put it on the web page. Do the homework, be careful and you will end up with the good stuff.

-Dr. Vaclav Vetvicka

Our Beta Glucan goes through a rigorous purification process developed by creator, AJ Lanigan. Once this purification process takes place only about 10% of a given “batch” meets our 85% minimum purity standard. The “scraps”, so to speak, are sold off and marketed by other companies. In addition, the product has been tested time and time again proving its efficacy. When compared to other heavily marketed immune system products it comes out on top every single time. Most of these studies are conducted by a disinterested third-party researcher at the University of Louisville. In these studies, immune response levels are safely tested on both humans and animals. Our product is also Non-GMO encased in a Vegan, plant-based HPMC capsule.

-Better Way Health

Better Way Health Beta Glucan 500 is certainly one of the most renowned brands out there in the marketplace. In our world of immune system support, when you ask “What’s the best immune system supplement out there?”; well, the Better Way Health name is the most recognized.

Anyone who has spent time reviewing side-by-side comparisons of our product with, again, just about any other kind of immune compound; regardless of the source, you’re going to find that our product outperforms all competitors. This has been for years; this is not a new phenomenon that conclusive research done by disinterested third parties in major universities, teaching hospitals here in the US, facilities in Europe, and the Far East have all agreed upon Our Beta Glucan's potency 100%.

It’s not like echinacea (or other stimulants), where half say it works and the other half disagrees. Across the board, you get unanimous agreement that Glucan 500 by Better Way Health is the brand in Immunity Support: “You’ve arrived, stop looking!”

-AJ Lanigan