How to Know If Your Antioxidants Are Being Absorbed
If you take supplements every day — vitamins, antioxidants, collagen, omega-3s — you probably assume they're doing something. But here's an uncomfortable question:
How do you actually know?
Most people don't. They take their supplements faithfully, spend $50 to $200 a month, and simply hope for the best. There's no feedback. No confirmation. No way to tell whether what you just swallowed is being absorbed or passing straight through.
That's not a wellness routine. That's an expensive guess.
There is now one narrow thing you can actually measure at home, and it takes about 15 seconds. It is worth being precise about what it measures and what it does not.
Why Most People Can't Tell
Supplement absorption happens quietly, with no outward signal. A few things make it harder still:
Absorption varies between people. Two people can take the same supplement at the same dose and absorb it differently. Age, gut health, diet and timing all play a part.
Symptoms are poor evidence. Feeling "generally better" is too vague and too suggestible to confirm anything. Our brains are very good at feeling what we expect to feel, particularly after we have spent money.
Lab tests are expensive and slow. Blood panels measuring nutrient levels cost real money, need a doctor's order, and take days. Most people never bother.
The One Thing You Can Measure at Home
Carotenoids are the pigments in colourful fruit and vegetables — the reds, oranges, yellows and greens — and they are also found in antioxidant supplements. They are measurable in skin, and that is the basis of the whole approach here.
Nu Skin's own wording: the Prysm iO "measures carotenoid levels in your skin—an important biomarker of your antioxidant health."
Note what that sentence does and does not say. It is a biomarker of carotenoid levels in skin. It is not a measure of whether a given capsule is "working" in any broader sense, and we are not going to stretch it into one.
How Prysm iO Works
Prysm iO is Nu Skin's antioxidant scanner — a handheld device using Patent-Pending Spectral Rai Technology and an AI-powered algorithm.
Step 1: Place the pad of your index finger over the Prysm iO lens.
Step 2: Hold it there for 15 seconds. Nu Skin's consumer page states "700,000+ Measurements per scan".
Step 3: Your Prysm Score appears in the free Vera app on your phone.
Your Prysm Score is a number rather than a vague wellness rating. What a particular score means is shown in the Nu Skin Vera app — we are not going to publish score bands here, because Nu Skin publishes them only as a chart image and we would be transcribing rather than quoting.
Nu Skin describes the technology as "Built on over two decades of carotenoid science and measurement innovation", with a "database of more than 21 million antioxidant scans of more than 10 million people in nearly 50 countries."
What Happens When You Scan Regularly
The useful thing is not the first scan — it is the trend.
On the supplement side, there is exactly one product Nu Skin attaches a Prysm Score claim to: "Start with Pharmanex® LifePak®, our foundational nutrition clinically shown to raise Prysm Scores by supporting carotenoid levels from within." Nu Skin also states that "All Prysm Certified products are guaranteed to increase your Prysm Score".
Nu Skin's press material reports a 12-week study with "43 to 46% increases in skin carotenoid levels". That is Nu Skin's own figure and its own study length. The shorter study length that circulates online is not Nu Skin's, and we have removed it from this site.
What a rising score actually gives you is consistency. When you can see a number move, sticking to a routine gets easier. And if the number is not moving after a reasonable stretch, you have grounds to change something — a different supplement, a different dose, or more colourful food — rather than carrying on spending.
What It Will Not Tell You
Being straight about the limits is the whole value of a page like this:
- It measures carotenoids, not everything. Your omega-3, your vitamin D, your collagen drink — none of those is what this reads.
- It is not a health assessment. A score is a carotenoid measurement, not a verdict on how well you are.
- Diet counts as much as supplements. The carotenoids come from both, so a score is not a supplement report card.
- It will not tell you which product to blame. If the score is flat, that is information, not a diagnosis.
The Bottom Line
Most people taking supplements are guessing about absorption. Prysm iO replaces the guess with one measurable number, in 15 seconds, without needles or a lab visit.
It answers a narrow question well. If that question — are the carotenoids from my food and supplements being absorbed — is one you actually want answered, it is a genuinely useful device. If you wanted a general health readout, it is not that, and we would rather tell you before you spend $375 than after.
Get your Prysm iO today — $375, with free US shipping on orders of $99 or more →
NuBodyRx is an Independent Nu Skin Brand Affiliate. All Prysm iO devices and Pharmanex supplements sold on nubodyrx.com are 100% authentic Nu Skin products, backed by NuBodyRx's own 90-day money-back guarantee — three times the 30 days Nu Skin's published US refund policy allows.