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Citicoline
A compound your body uses on the way to building the membranes of nerve cells. Taken by mouth, it is split into choline and cytidine. It sits in one of our formulas, a morning booster, and carries no authorised EU health claim: EFSA assessed a claim on vision and one on memory, and turned both down.
WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SAY
No authorised claim. EFSA turned both down.
There is no health claim for citicoline on the EU register, so there is no wording for us to quote. It is not that nobody asked: EFSA assessed a claim on normal vision in 2014 and one on memory in age-related decline in 2024, and turned both down. The European Commission confirmed that rejection in Regulation (EU) 2025/2223. That is why nothing is listed here and why we do not attribute an effect to it.There is no health claim for citicoline on the EU register. EFSA turned down a vision claim in 2014 and a memory claim in 2024, and Regulation (EU) 2025/2223 confirmed it.
You will read that citicoline sharpens your memory, your focus or your eyesight. None of those is an authorised claim, and vision and memory are exactly the two that EFSA assessed and rejected. In Cognitive & focus, the alertness and concentration claim comes from the caffeine and the mental performance claim from the vitamin B5 next to it, not from the citicoline.
WHY COGNIZIN®
One form on file. No claim to protect.
Our file specifies Cognizin® citicoline, which is cytidine 5'-diphosphocholine at a purity of 99% or more. No form of citicoline carries an authorised claim, so the choice is not a claim argument and we do not use it as one. It dissolves in water, stays stable in liquid and tastes neutral, which is what a formula poured in 0.2 ml pulses needs.
Citicoline at a purity of 99% or more. Our file also lists it as CDP-choline and as citicoline sodium. It is the only form we hold on record for this ingredient.
It dissolves in water, stays stable in liquid and tastes neutral. The one sensitivity our file records is moisture.
No form of citicoline has an authorised claim. Whatever the brand, what we are allowed to say about it does not change.
Our file puts oral absorption above 90%: citicoline is split into choline and cytidine, which are put back together in the central nervous system. Our pharmacokinetic record says 90% and our form record says 95%, and we have not reconciled the two yet. We have no source that says Cognizin® is absorbed better than any other citicoline, and the effect on file builds over days, not minutes.Our file puts oral absorption above 90%. We have no source that says Cognizin® is absorbed better than any other citicoline, and the effect on file builds over days, not minutes.
WHERE IT APPEARS
One of the twenty-nine carries citicoline.
It is in a single booster, served in the morning and never after 2 pm, because of the caffeine next to it. The only dose reference in our file puts the lowest effective amount at 500 mg a day, over four to twelve weeks, and keeps an older range of 250 – 500 mg a day. At 250 mg, Cognitive & focus sits at the bottom of that range and at half the 500 mg, and we would rather tell you that than leave it out.
THE CEILING
500 mg a day. We serve half of it.
Our file records 500 mg a day as the EU upper limit for citicoline, which is authorised in the EU as a novel food. The limit applies to your total, not to each formula on its own. Only one of our formulas carries it, at 250 mg, so your plan cannot stack it. What we have not done yet is attach the document that 500 mg figure comes from, so read it as the ceiling our engine works to, not as a quotation.Our file records 500 mg a day as the EU upper limit for citicoline. Only one formula carries it, at 250 mg, so your plan cannot stack it.
Cognitive & focus serves 250 mg, and no other VION formula carries citicoline, so your plan cannot put a second amount on top of it.
If you take citicoline from another product, it adds to the 250 mg. The 500 mg is a daily total across everything you take, not a limit per product.
In pregnancy and breastfeeding, citicoline is only for use under medical prescription. The one formula that carries it is not served at all if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or under 18, have heart disease or take a vitamin K antagonist anticoagulant, and it is stopped 3–4 days before surgery. If you have Parkinson's disease and take L-DOPA, speak to a healthcare professional first. On the label: do not exceed the recommended daily dose, it is not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet, and keep it out of the reach of young children.
WHAT IT REACTS WITH
No documented pairs yet. One warning.
Citicoline is one of the 140 ingredients in our library, so it has 139 possible partners. None of them is among the 443 pairs we have documented so far. What we do have is one warning on its label.
If you have Parkinson's disease and are treated with L-DOPA, speak to a healthcare professional before taking it. Our label warning says citicoline may add to its effects.
It shares Cognitive & focus with all four, but none of those pairings is among our checked pairs, so we do not describe one.
No pair involving citicoline is among the 443 we have checked, and none with a medicine. That is an open question, not a clean result.
The L-DOPA warning above comes from citicoline's own label, not from a checked pair in our drug table, and we have found nothing on file about the liver enzymes that process most medicines. Across the library, 443 of the 9,730 possible pairs are documented, which is 4.55%, and none of them involves citicoline. The rest are not "safe", they are simply unchecked, and we would rather write that down than let the number look like a badge.443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%, and none of them involves citicoline. The rest are not safe, they are simply unchecked.
SOURCES
Everything on this page, with its reference.
Reviewed by VION nutrition team · last reviewed 16 September 2026
140 INGREDIENTS · 64 IN USE TODAY
Every one of them has a page like this.
What it is, what we are allowed to say about it, which formulas carry it, what it reacts with and where each of those statements comes from. No proprietary blends, no hidden amounts.