The Winter 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now is now available.

Excerpts of featured articles are available on this website:

Kemin: Innovation in tea
NSF: Learning from the mistakes of others
Peruvian natural resources

It has been more than two decades since Dr. Stephen DeFelice, along with Steve McNamara, Esq, introduced the coined the term “nutraceuticals” that ultimately contributed to the development of a new global industry now valued at nearly $12 billion. Popular products, such as probiotics, components of soy, tomatoes, fish, tea and an array of herbal and non-herbal extracts have been the target of considerable research since those early days. This movement within the food industry, intersected with the dietary supplements industry, has prompted the development of many health claims directed to consumers burgeoning for improved health.

The prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes, continues to rise. At least one of these diseases affects more than two-thirds of those living in the United States. Thus, there are numerous opportunities for the respective industries, from cultivars planted in the fields to innovated food and food component management technologies to have a positive impact on health.

Importantly, there has been considerable research in the arenas of cancer reduction, blood lipid profile improvement, antioxidant potential, anti-inflammatory applications, and bone health. These research areas, which involve multiple disciplines, target largely plant-derived components such as isoprenoids, phenolic compounds, proteins and amino acids, carbohydrates and their derivatives, fatty acids and structured lipids, various minerals, and even microbial-impacting substances like probiotics and prebiotics.

The food chemistry of substances within these areas is quite interesting. On the other hand, what is critical to this chemistry is our understanding of their metabolism (aka metabolic fate) within the traditional ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) assessment among humans. Most of the physiological data are derived from animal studies and cell culture models. Importantly, there is dearth of pharmacokinetics data on the majority of these compounds. For example, a few pharmacokinetic studies on resveratrol, the dominate polyphenolic in red wine, indicate maximum plasma level of this compound and its metabolites is achieved within 1-2 hours, has a half-life of about
9 hours, and is mostly eliminated within about 4 hrs via urine. Notably, only about 70% of resveratrol is absorbed.

Reaching beyond nutraceuticals, research is leaning towards pharmanutrition. Again, using resveratrol as an example for clinical implications, such as inflammation and cardiovascular disease, it takes about 60 mg daily for at least 6 weeks to reduce some forms of inflammation, and as much as 500 mg to reduce risk some factors associated with cardiovascular disease. Considering some red wines may contain as much as 4 – 6 mg of resveratrol per 4 oz (120 mL) serving, one would need to routinely consume 15 to 100 servings to achieve some of these health benefits.

The concept of nutraceuticals and functional foods has considerable merit. The research in this arena requires additional research in chemistry, classic clinical assessments, and traditional pharmacological evaluation consistent with standards outlined by the International Conference on Harmonization. For consumer benefits and clinical applications future studies must consist of well-designed clinical trials. In addition, the nutraceutical industry must provide sufficient evidence that is strong, consistent, clinically relevant, and generalizable to the population.

Roger Clemens
President, Institute of Food Technologists

In a time where consumers are looking to improve their health with products that are natural, safe and environmentally friendly, there is space for innovation, and the tea market is not an exception. The new generation of tea products must bring the benefits of teas in unique natural forms, ensuring efficacious products that adjust to the needs of its users and fulfill the growing market demand on natural and safe high quality products to the consumer’s overall health.

Antioxidants can prevent the formation of damaging oxidative radicals thus decreasing oxidative stress, one of the factors believed to be responsible for several chronic diseases and aging. Nowadays, antioxidants are perceived as healthy, with 23% and 53% of the general population feeling that they are deficient in antioxidants, and willing to add more antioxidants to their diet, respectively. Based on this growing consumer demand, the antioxidant market appears as an attractive, large and growing market.

Tea is a major contributor to the global antioxidant market, with 77% of the users consuming tea for their overall health and 70% to promote anti-aging. Thus, the tea market offers several opportunities, as tea is the most popular beverage in the world after water, and a product that mainstream consumers can easily relate to. Moreover, tea is perceived as safe and healthy, with 61% of the people believing that tea contains components that reduce the risk of disease. Generally, consumers are looking to improve their overall health with products that are natural, environmentally friendly, and exhibit a high safety profile, while also having scientific evidence of efficacy.

This article is available in full in the Winter 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

Despite a struggling economy, the US nutritional products industry was estimated to have reached 117 billion dollars in 2010, a 6% growth over the previous year. With 65% of US adults, roughly 150 million people, labeling themselves as supplement users , the opportunity for nutritional product manufacturers has not gone unnoticed. In fact, the number of nutritional supplements on US store shelves has surged from 4,000 to an estimated 75,000 since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, or DSHEA, was passed in 1994.

This fantastic growth and proliferation of new products has created new challenges for the industry in terms of standardizing safety and quality, not to mention the regulatory hurdles that come with a globalized supply chain. To establish quality-control standards for US nutritional products, the US Food and Drug Administration introduced Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) regulations in 2007. GMPs require that the processes by which nutritional supplement ingredients are produced are safer and free of possible contamination. This includes all aspects of the manufacturing process, from raw material control to finished product release, as well as training of personnel, qualification and validation of testing equipment and methods, product traceability and facility maintenance.

Why does this matter to a Europe-based nutritional product manufacturer? As of last year, every organization that wishes to participate in the booming US nutritional products industry must demonstrate compliance to these GMP regulations. Although European nutritional product manufacturers are no strangers to meeting rigorous regulations, they have the unique challenge of demonstrating compliance to both EU and US regulations, which have few similarities.

The cost of noncompliance is steep and many manufacturers are still struggling to comply as evident by a 42% increase in warning letters issued by the US FDA in 2010 . Noncompliance with US GMPs can trigger a number of undesirable outcomes: public warning letters, products labeled as adulterated, seizure by authorities, injunction from manufacturing, and damage to brand and company reputation.

This article is available in full in the Winter 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

Do not underestimate the richness of this resource! Together with the professionalism and technical expertise being employed in the extraction and commercialisation process - Peru is rapidly becoming one of the most important and exciting places for the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

Peru is in the top ten of mega-diverse countries in the
world. Its forest coverage, Andean terrain and its variety of microclimates create perfect conditions for healthy ecosystems -resulting in a thriving biological diversity.

To ensure the preservation of this natural heritage and sustainability of the industry for future generations the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with help from foreign investment, established the BioTrade project to regulate the production, transformation and commercialisation of biodiversity. Extraction and regeneration are carefully balanced using methodologies which take into account traditional knowledge as well as ecological and socio-economic criteria.

This article is available in full in the Winter 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

The Spring 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now is now available.

Excerpts of featured articles are available on this website:

Aenova Group: New Effervescent Product
BENEO: Simply Healthier
Stevia rebaudiana: The Sweetener Power of Nature

The world is a challenging place at the moment. Although visitors to Vitafoods are rightly focused on the product, pricing, regulatory and marketing problems and opportunities of their industries, the bigger picture matters to us too.

The widespread unrest in the Middle East with ‘people- power’ is changing long-standing political and strategic landscapes. Unrest in Tunisia and Egypt has led to changes of government and a coalition of nations has launched air attacks on military targets in Libya. Japan is still reeling from the tragedy of the recent earthquake, the resulting tsunami and desperate attempts to control damaged nuclear facilities at Fukishima. All this, while the global economy remains fragile (if not downright depressed) following the banking and financial crises of 2008/2009. Global markets, equities and currencies are volatile as traders and governments try to map a way forward out of the confusion.

In its own small way, the food industry reflects this crux. The rapidly rising price of staple food has been blamed for triggering much of the unrest in the Middle East and raising tensions elsewhere. Increased commodity, processing and packaging costs (due to rising oil prices) are impacting prices globally with the World Bank quoting a 15% increase in food prices in the four months between October 2010 and January 2011. In the UK, food price inflation is running at a reported 6.3% and in the USA, Feeding America reported a 46% increase in the number of people in the USA needing their assistance. Record numbers of floods, typhoons and unseasonal heat-waves, whether the result of global warming or some other factor, are impacting on the size and quality of agricultural crops and reducing the availability of good farmland. And all this at a time when scientists and agronomists are trying to find ways of meeting the challenge of feeding a rising world population which will reach 7 billion this year, up from 5 billion 20 years ago.

With disposable income likely to fall over the next 2 or 3 years, consumers will question every expenditure. Can the cost of dietary supplements and/or the additional premium of dietary supplements or functional foods be justified when staple ingredients need to be bought and the family needs to be fed?

Industry growth plans will have to address this fundamental question by investing in good marketing. Marketing that keeps the consumer interested, informed and persuaded of the benefits and value of its products, even when budgets are tight. But here’s another problem: just as consumer budgets are likely to be at their tightest, the strictures and limitations of EFSA’s rulings will begin to apply.

Our industry’s problems are trivial in comparison to much of what is happening in the world today. But for dietary supplement and functional foods manufacturers, and their customers, the storm clouds developing over Palma (where EFSA is based) still threaten to do serious damage. Only
by working constructively and creatively will we be able to navigate our way to a healthy and profitable future.

Henry Dixon
Commercial Director, Barrett Dixon Bell

The sweetness of Stevia’s leaves was well known for century and used by amerindians Guarinis which is called Kaâ-hè-é.

In 1899, the first detailled botanic ( and also sweetness) description was made by the swiss botanist Moisés Santiago Bertoni during his research in Eastern Paraguay.

The species Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia’s taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations.

In 1931, the two french scientists Bridel and Lavielle have isolated and cristallised the compounds which were responsible of the sweet taste of Stevia rebaudiana, Bertoni. The exact chemical formula of steviolglycoside ( aglycone and glycoside) were publised in 1955. Now, more than 12 differents molecules, with the steviol aglycone, was isolated form differents variants of Stevia rebaudiana, B.

In 2008, the Coca-Cola Company with the giant agricultural processing Cargill have obtained the GRAS approval from the FDA for the Rebaudioside A with a purity > 97%.

In September 2009, the French government has followed the same way with a temporary autorisation as food additive for 2 years for the Rebaudioside A more than 97% of purity in order to wait the European Commission Directive.

In 2010, The NDA panel experts of .EFSA ( European Food Safety Agency) gave a positive opinion on the safety of Steviolglycosides ( a mixture of Rebaudioside A and Stevioside mainly) with a minimum purity of 95% expressed in dry basis.

This article is available in full in the Spring 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

A review of the Mintel trend forecasts for 2011 shows that manufacturers are concentrating their efforts on product reformulations to ensure they meet the growing consumer demand for healthier nutrition. One of the major topics, sugar reduction, is still very high up on the food industry’s agenda. This issue is particularly pertinent as the entire sector prepares for the upcoming approval of Stevia, which claims to have mastered the delicate balancing act between calorie reduction and naturalness like no other intensive sweetener. The successful switch from saccharine, HFCS, fructose and glucose will allow food producers to make use of these ingredients in order to optimize their product offering with ease.

The use of agglomerated sweeteners is mainly for technological reasons. Agglomerates do not tend to dust or build up electrostatic energy and have a distinct flowability. This provides the producer with additional benefits, such as ease of transportation and use when measuring or filling. As they don’t absorb moisture, agglomerates can also be stored more easily. They dissolve quickly in fluids without forming lumps and, when consumed on their own, have a non-sandy texture in the mouth. The versatility of these agglomerates make them an excellent choice for use within ready-to-use instant drinks, compressed tablets, chewing gum and granulates, which are consumed with no water.

When several active and functional ingredients are used for the agglomeration, further advantages can be found. During the course of the agglomeration process, all of the elements are distributed evenly in the mixture, no matter how much or how little is used. An even distribution of the ingredient is therefore guaranteed, whether this is the sweet characteristic of an intensive sweetener such as Stevia, or the nutritionally enhanced profile of vitamins, or prebiotic fibres, such as inulin.

This article is available in full in the Spring 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

The new high-quality effervescent product range from the Aenova Group expands its portfolio and emphasises its position as one of the world’s largest suppliers of solid oral administration forms for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. The Aenova Group is one of the few companies in the branch to offer a full-service portfolio encompassing the purchasing of raw materials, analytics, packaging and logistics, alongside manufacturing and production. The ongoing objective of the company is the continual development of new product concepts and products which are tailored to the needs of customers and markets. Thus, since May 2010, Aenova has been offering a standard range of a variety of dietary supplements which cover different indication ranges. This standard product range has enabled the company to expand its customer services and create time-saving and cost-effective solutions for the international dietary supplements market.

With the new effervescent product range, Aenova has provided a diverse selection of high-quality and unique effervescent products. High-quality products which demonstrate particularly good market potential and correspond to current trends are developed on the basis of detailed market analyses, coupled with longstanding know-how and in-depth market knowledge.

This article is available in full in the Spring 2011 issue of Nutraceuticals Now