How Long Does it Take for Beta Glucan to Work?

Last updated June 03, 2024
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Real consumers who actively use beta glucan, have reported that, on average, it can take about three days for beta glucan to work in the body.

This may differ from person to person.

Beta glucan has been clinically proven to improve immune function and strengthen the immune system.

For decades, healthcare professionals and scientists have been studying the effects of glucan on the body and enhanced immunity.

Over 207,000 studies and systematic reviews have been posted on PubMed.gov and more.

Health Supplement Obsession

There are thousands of products available today that promise fast ways to extend life expectancy and improve health.

This extreme health quest leads us to find products for every potential problem under the sun.

Everything from blood pressure, cholesterol levels (especially LDL cholesterol), heart disease, diabetes (and type 2 diabetes), weight loss, obesity, blood sugar levels and cardiovascular health is all the rage right now.

But are these quality products?

A recent poll found that around four out of five adults take some dietary supplement daily (1).

However, 75% of those people are taking supplements they either don’t need or that don’t boost their health.

How Beta Glucan Works for a Better Immune System

Sources of beta glucan

Glucan is a dietary fiber readily found in various food sources such as oats, baker yeast, grains, seaweed, and various fungi such as shiitake and reishi mushrooms) and barley.

It's important to know that even though glucan is found in many foods, our bodies can only absorb very little amounts of it directly from food.

One Beta Glucan expert named Dr. Vaclav Vetvicka said “However, it is important to remember that despite the fact that numerous types of food contain glucan, our body has only very limited ability to absorb glucan directly from food. As glucan serves as improvements of rigidity inside the cells, it is rather difficult to isolate it during its relatively short stay in our digestive tract. Therefore, supplementation is a much better choice.”

This is where glucan in the form of supplementation is highly effective.

Next steps: These are the worst food ingredients for your immune system

Glucan and your immune system

A balanced immune system is vital for a long, quality life.

There are two core components to understand:

  1. Innate immune system (general immune system)
  2. Adaptive immune system (specialized immune system)

The innate immune system is the body's first line of defense against germs and pathogens entering the body. (2)

On the other hand, the adaptive immune system targets specific types of germs that the innate immune system has failed to destroy. It can be seen as the second line of defense.

The adaptive system can utilize “memory” to learn about a specific invader. Then, it may strengthen the immune response by producing the right type of antibodies to fight off the invader.

When looking for a high-quality supplement that complements the innate and adaptive immune systems,  Beta Glucan has been proven to achieve this with little to no known side effects. (3)

Both the innate and adaptive immune systems work closely together.

But How Long Will It Take to See the Benefits of Beta Glucan?

On average, it takes about three days for your immune system to achieve a “peak” level once beta glucan moves through the body.

However, some people may experience an immediate effect when they begin taking it.

To understand the timeliness of glucan’s effects, let’s first learn about the journey it takes in the body.

smart watch

Glucans Process

Once ingested, glucans pass through the stomach into the small intestine, aka the gut.

There are small areas of cells called Peyer’s Patches.

In Peyer’s Patches, many different cells have the receptor for Beta Glucan and can transport it to other parts of the body.

Once it’s worked its way through the digestive system, the Beta Glucan is transported to your immune cells (called immunocytes).

Then, it may act like little additional “soldiers” to protect and enhance various immune cells.

A quick note on the gut, studies show that glucans have prebiotic properties, which allow them to provide essential food for beneficial gut bacteria.

Disclaimer

It’s important to keep in mind that Beta Glucan is not a ‘quick fix’ intended for immediate relief.

It is a supplement intended to be taken daily to achieve its maximum benefits. Consistency is key.

Quality of Beta Glucan Matters When it Comes to Optimal Health

Beta Glucan in supplement form is divided by purity class.

And here’s the kicker: only 10% of the supply is labeled as the “pure cut” for pure form.

A study done by the University of Louisville cross-compared hundreds of immune supplements for both potency and efficacy. (11)

Better Way Health Beta Glucan was found to be the most effective. Including:

In other words, at Better Way Health, we are the sole owner of the purest Beta Glucan in the world! In fact, we test every batch to ensure such potency is retained.

If you’re not purchasing from us, you are getting the other 90% in terms of quality. That means the quick and long-term effects of Beta Glucan can’t be measured in the same way.

If you’re ready for pure and powerful Beta Glucan supplements that benefit your overall health, give us a try today.

Long-Term Benefits of an Immune System Powered by Beta Glucan

It works by activating lots of different white blood cells in your immune system like Macrophages, Neutrophils, Basophils, and  Natural Killer (NK) cells.

For context, Natural killer (NK) cells represent the first line of defense against infections and spontaneously kill virus-infected cells.

Meanwhile, the effect of Beta Glucan  has been studied, most notably stating that “as [an] immunostimulating agent, [it] acts through the activation of macrophages and NK cell cytotoxicity.” (4)

It may help shorten the common cold.

In two double-blind,  placebo-controlled studies , “yeast-derived β-glucan was shown to

enhance the body’s potential to fight off invading pathogens. (5)

It may be hypoglycemic.

Beta Glucan can become gel-like which slows down the digestion and absorption process. This, in turn, increases satiety – or that wonderful “full” feeling. In addition, short-chain fatty acids  produced from bacteria that ferment Beta Glucan fibers may also increase satiety! (6)

There are various studies, but  it’s been shown  that beta glucans can bolster the immune system to protect against infections, while a separate study at the same method can help reduce flu symptoms. (7)

It may help fight seasonal allergies.

Tired of drowse-inducing medications when it comes to allergy relief ? Beta Glucan is a holistic solution to help support the immune system, which is key to regulating allergies caused by ragweed  and cedar pollen . (8) (9)

It may also help with recovery and endurance in athletes.

Any endurance athlete can relate to the cycle of intense training followed by intense illness. It turns out, there is a greater incidence of URTI among marathon runners.

As we’ve reported before , a 2020 study found that marathon runners (with an ongoing history of URTI) who drank a beverage containing Baker’s Yeast beta glucan daily 45 days before the race and continuing for 45 days after, experienced fewer symptoms, including less nasal discharge and sore throat. (10)

Beta glucan could help relieve Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, lower inflammation, and help with mental focus. That’s something all athletes could benefit from during training!

FAQ

For more information about beta glucan, Better Way Health and more, visit our FAQ page. To speak to an Amazing Customer Experience Specialist, give us a call at 800.746.7640or email us at hello@betterwayhealth.com

We’re committed to your satisfaction with Beta Glucan 500, backed by extensive research and quality standards. If you’re not fully satisfied, our 60-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee ensures that you can return it for a full refund within 60 days of purchase.

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

Still have questions?

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I just take 2 to 3 of these per day, if I feel like I'm going to be traveling or around grandkids who have sicknesses then I will take more. 

Tracy Compton

We started using Beta Glucans with My Son when he was 10 years old ... I would Definitely, Definitely Recommend Beta Glucan.

Iris Ramirez

I was watching a Series by Chris Wark and He Highly Recommended Beta Glucan.

Heather Mills

I'm gonna hit 71 years old in April... I mean I'm doing things that 40 year old's do. 

G.J. Rancourt

Try it ... Your Immune System is Boosted to a Level that Mine Has Never Seen in Years.

Darcy Waller

I Feel I Have More Energy, I Feel Stronger ... I Recommend Beta Glucan to Everyone.

Diana Perez

I have not missed a day taking My Beta Glucan and I'm Really Pleased with The Results

Cheryl Houston

I just want to endorse them and say they have a great product, but they are a great company with awesome people. 

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As COO of Better Way Health, Taylor creates and Implements business operations and policies that reinforce our company culture. He ensures we stick to our core values and provides resources to elevate our team members in their respective roles. He is the day-to-day backbone of our world-class customer service and a seasoned authority on Beta Glucan.

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