Phosphatidylserine appears on almost every supplement marketed for memory, focus or stress. It is a real compound doing real work in the body. But what it does inside your cells and what a capsule does are two different questions.
This article answers the first: what phosphatidylserine is, where it comes from, and how much of it has been studied.
What Phosphatidylserine Is
Phosphatidylserine, usually shortened to PS, is a phospholipid — a fat molecule that forms part of the membrane wrapping every cell in the body.
Cell membranes are not passive walls. Their composition determines how flexible they are and how efficiently signals pass across them.
PS is the most abundant negatively charged phospholipid in the body, and it sits mainly on the inner surface of the membrane. Nerve tissue is particularly rich in it, and the brain holds some of the highest concentrations found anywhere (1,2).
Your body also makes its own. It takes a related phospholipid, either phosphatidylcholine or phosphatidylethanolamine, and swaps its head group for the amino acid serine (1). PS is present in the diet too, in foods such as soybeans, egg yolk and organ meats.
What It Does in the Body
Cells pass instructions along using signalling proteins, which work rather like molecular switches. Two of the main ones involved in keeping neurons alive, protein kinase B (also called Akt) and protein kinase C, depend on attaching to PS on the inner face of the membrane before they can switch on (1). PS provides a docking site that enables these signalling proteins to become activated.
PS is also involved in neurotransmitter release and in the brain's inflammatory response (1,2).
That is what PS does as a structural component of your cells. Whether swallowing more of it changes any of those processes is a separate question, and one researchers have been working on for close to forty years.
Most of that work has focused on three areas: memory, the body's response to stress, and attention. The articles that follow look at what it found.
Where Supplement PS Comes From
The earliest studies used PS extracted from bovine brain cortex. That source was abandoned over the risk of transmitting prion disease and is no longer commercially available (3).
Supplements today are derived from soy or sunflower lecithin, usually through an enzymatic reaction that swaps the choline group on phosphatidylcholine for L-serine. Soy is the source used in most modern research. Sunflower has grown in popularity but has a thinner evidence base behind it.
PS is also available enriched with the omega-3 fat DHA. Brain PS naturally carries a high proportion of DHA (1), and a number of cognitive studies have used this enriched version rather than plain PS.
How Much Has Been Studied
Published trials have used roughly 100 mg to 800 mg of PS a day (3,4). The amount has varied with what was being studied, and the articles that follow give the doses used in each area.
Consistency features in every trial. PS was taken daily for weeks or months before effects were measured, so consistent intake is what has been studied, and occasional use has not.
Augment Life's Phosphatidylserine provides a 400 mg phosphatidylserine complex delivering 200 mg of PS per capsule, taken with food.
Safety and Regulation
PS is well tolerated across the clinical literature, with no consistent pattern of side effects reported (2). Its safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding has not been established.
The regulatory position differs by region. In the United States, the FDA permits a qualified claim about PS and dementia risk in older people, alongside a statement that the supporting evidence is limited (5). In Europe, EFSA reviewed phosphatidylserine in 2010 and found there was not yet enough evidence to substantiate a health claim (6).
The Takeaway
PS is a genuine and necessary component of nerve cell membranes. That part is not in dispute. What a supplement adds to that is a different question, and the answer depends on what you are asking of it.
Our next two articles look at what the research has found: Does Phosphatidylserine Help With Stress and Focus? and Does Phosphatidylserine Improve Memory?
Literature Sources
- Kim HY, Huang BX, Spector AA. Phosphatidylserine in the brain: metabolism and function. Prog Lipid Res. 2014;56:1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plipres.2014.06.002
- Ma X, Li X, Wang W, Zhang M, Yang B, Miao Z. Phosphatidylserine, inflammation, and central nervous system diseases. Front Aging Neurosci. 2022;14:975176. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2022.975176
- Kingsley M. Effects of phosphatidylserine supplementation on exercising humans. Sports Med. 2006;36(8):657-69. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200636080-00003
- Glade MJ, Smith K. Phosphatidylserine and the human brain. Nutrition. 2015;31(6):781-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2014.10.014
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Letter updating the phosphatidylserine and cognitive function and dementia qualified health claim. 24 November 2004. Listed under Qualified Health Claims: Letters of Enforcement Discretion. https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/qualified-health-claims-letters-enforcement-discretion
- EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies. Scientific opinion on the substantiation of health claims related to phosphatidyl serine (ID 552, 711, 734, 1632, 1927). EFSA Journal. 2010;8(10):1749. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1749
