Brain health supplements shift from generic support to mechanism-driven cognitive solutions

The nutrition industry is increasingly recognizing the interconnectedness of cognition and other areas, such as gut, eye, and metabolic health, alongside longevity and mental well-being. Meanwhile, consumer expectations have moved beyond generic “brain support” toward solutions that target focus, memory, mood, stress resilience, and healthy aging. 

Nutrition Insight meets with Balchem, Saanroo, PLT Health Solutions, Kerry, MartinBauer Nutraceuticals, Kemin, and Biovivo Science to explore solutions to optimize cognitive performance in this evolving market. 

Thomas Druke, senior marketing and business development manager at Balchem, reflects on the shift in the context of converging cognitive performance with sports nutrition and women’s health. 

“Today’s athletes are no longer measuring performance solely by muscle gain, with many now also looking for split-second reaction times, sustained focus through a hard leg day, and the coordination to nail a new personal best.”

Druke adds that research is highlighting how women’s hormonal changes can influence cognition, emotional well-being, and mental clarity. “The market is finally stepping up, with brands investing in targeted clinical science that helps shape a new generation of personalized nutrition.”

Maggie McNamara, VP of Global Marketing at Saanroo, adds that this confluence is shifting innovation toward multifunctional ingredients that support these interconnected areas. “Product innovation is moving toward nootropic blends featuring botanicals, amino acids, and adaptogens.”

Moreover, she says that as consumers are increasingly informed, clinically validated ingredients are “commanding a premium” over trend-driven formulations. “Third-party testing, transparent sourcing, and evidence-backed ingredient selection are now core differentiation strategies rather than nice-to-haves.” 

PLT Health Solutions’ VP of Marketing, Steve Fink, stresses that consumers expect more than just results: “They’re looking for products that align with their values and deliver a complete experience.” 

Druke says cognitive performance is converging with sports nutrition and women’s health.“That includes clean sourcing, traceability, and certifications — but also faster effects, enjoyable delivery formats, and standout packaging. Ingredients that consumers can feel will get them to try a product and get them coming back for more.”

Nutritional cognitive neuroscience

Saanroo’s McNamara highlights nutritional cognitive neuroscience as an emerging interdisciplinary field that aims to understand the impact of nutrition on cognition and brain health across the lifespan. She says this research field seeks to demonstrate how diets and specific nutrients affect brain structure and function. 

“By combining blood-based nutrient biomarkers, multimodal brain imaging, and statistical modeling of brain aging, researchers are now identifying nutrient profiles associated with accelerated versus delayed brain aging and establishing nutritional targets for future interventions.”

“This moves the field from population-level dietary advice toward biologically measurable, individually targeted nutrition — a decisive shift with major implications for how supplements are designed and validated,” McNamara adds. 

She highlights several of Saanroo’s clinically studied ingredients that support key pathways to help consumers maintain cognitive performance while addressing overall well-being.

“Affron, a standardized saffron extract, has research supporting its effects on mood, emotional well-being, and sleep quality,” she details. “Also, Levagen+, a highly bioavailable form of palmitoylethanolamide, has demonstrated support for cognitive function and increased levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein associated with learning and memory.” 

Fink highlights PLT Health Solutions’ Nutricog Cognitive Health Support for its broad range of benefits. He says the patented combination of Haritaki (Terminalia chebula) and Boswellia (Boswellia serrata) is standardized to gallic acid, ellagic acid, and amyrins. 

“Subjects taking Nutricog showed statistically significant improvement compared to placebo across multiple cognitive domains, including learning, memory, attention, focus, concentration, clarity, executive function, and increased cognitive speed with no reduction of accuracy.” 

McNamara highlights nutritional cognitive neuroscience and clinically validated multifunctional ingredients for premium brain solutions.Cognitive performance improvements included an 11.5-fold improvement in focus, a 1.6-fold improvement in overall learning, and a 2.7-fold improvement in learning rate. 

Interconnected brain health

Andrew Boswell, senior health category manager for Digestive and Cognitive Health at Kerry, notes that scientific advances provide growing evidence of two-way communication between the gut microbiome and the brain, which has “transformed cognitive nutrition.” 

“By nourishing beneficial gut bacteria, we can influence mental well-being, opening new opportunities with ‘psychobiotic’ probiotics and prebiotics for brain health. More broadly, nutrition science is providing deeper insights into neuroplasticity, inflammation, and other mechanisms underlying cognition.” 

He adds that improved measurements of cognitive outcomes also help to demonstrate benefits more credibly. 

Cynthia Suarez-Rizzo, senior expert on new product development at MartinBauer Nutraceuticals, calls the industry’s move toward a systems-based understanding of brain performance “one of the most important scientific advances.” 

She says that interconnected pathways in cerebral blood flow, neurotransmitter modulation, neuroinflammation, stress physiology, sleep quality, and microbiome interactions are transitioning product development from stimulant-led short-term solutions to more sophisticated, mechanism-driven approaches. 

“Over the next five years, we expect the biggest impact to come from solutions that combine clear mechanisms, population relevance, and strong clinical substantiation. In cognitive nutrition, the future will likely belong to ingredients that can demonstrate benefits beyond generic ‘brain support’ and instead address specific needs such as performance under stress, healthy aging, calm focus, emotional resilience, or cognitive support linked to sleep and the microbiome.”

However, Suarez-Rizzo recognizes that cognition’s multifaceted impact is also one of the biggest challenges in the market. 

“Brands may want to support focus, attention, memory, processing speed, mental stamina, mood, or calmness. Each of these can require different mechanisms, study designs, and ingredient combinations. This makes efficacy substantiation and product positioning more complex than in more straightforward health categories.” 

Eye-brain connection

With scientific understanding of cognition moving toward a more integrated perspective, Joanne Lasrado, VP of Global Carotenoids and Sales, The Americas, at Kemin, says eye health, metabolic health, sleep quality, stress resilience, gut-brain interactions, and aging are other key contributors to cognitive function that are increasingly positioned alongside mental performance.

According to Fink, ingredient transparency, traceability, and faster-acting delivery are key for engaged cognitive consumers.“One of the most significant shifts is the growing recognition of the eye-brain connection,” she highlights. “Historically viewed as separate health categories, vision and cognition are now understood to be closely linked through shared neural pathways. The retina is an extension of the central nervous system and provides a unique window into brain health.”

She explains that visual information is transmitted directly from the retina to multiple brain regions, where it is processed by complex neural networks involved in perception, attention, learning, memory, and decision-making.

Moreover, she notes that this understanding is driving interest in neuronutrients such as lutein and zeaxanthin, dietary carotenoids that are known to selectively accumulate in the retina and brain in all life stages. 

“A growing body of evidence has associated higher dietary lutein and zeaxanthin status and macular pigment optical density — a key marker of dietary carotenoid deposition in neural tissues — with neural efficiency, visual processing speed, memory, executive function, and overall cognitive performance in young and old adults,” says Lasrado. 

Although dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin is suboptimal in many populations worldwide, she notes that the relationship between these compounds and brain health is observed in adults and children. 

“Recently, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study confirmed this association by showing enrichment in macular pigment and improvement in visual and cognitive performance outcomes with 5 mg FloraGLO Lutein supplementation in children and adolescents,” Lasrado details. 

Choline for cognition

Druke at Balchem says that research is increasingly demonstrating the benefits of targeted nutrients in cognition, highlighting choline as an essential ingredient for the brain, body, and nervous system. He points to recent findings that open opportunities for nutritional support, especially since choline is under-consumed by many people worldwide. 

“A 2025 study followed more than 125,000 people (with an average starting age of 56) over nearly 12 years. Participants with relatively high choline intake consistently outperformed others across key cognitive measures, including visual attention, fluid intelligence, and complex processing speed.” 

Balchem recently conducted a functional MRI study on its VitaCholine ingredient, together with the University of Vermont, US. “The trial revealed that choline supplementation can influence working memory-related brain activation and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women,” says Druke. 

Gut-brain communication is transforming cognitive nutrition with psychobiotic probiotics and prebiotics, says Boswell.“These findings are helping move the industry beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to brain health, promoting the development of solutions specifically designed for women at different stages of life.”

Balchem also expects an increasingly greater focus on choline quality and delivery, adds Druke. “The conversation is shifting beyond whether a product contains choline to how much choline it provides in the finished formulation.” 

“Not all choline sources deliver the same amount of real choline,” he cautions. “Over a 24-hour period, absorption rates are similar across all choline forms, but choosing the right ingredient is key to getting the full benefits of choline supplementation.” 

Neuroactive botanicals

MartinBauer Nutraceuticals’ Suarez-Rizzo observes a growing research interest in polyphenols and botanicals as neuroactive nutrition tools. 

“Polyphenols are no longer discussed only in the context of antioxidant protection; they are increasingly being linked with neurocognitive effects, synaptic plasticity, inflammatory modulation, and microbiome-mediated activity, which opens new pathways for innovation in cognitive nutrition.” 

She says MartinBauer Nutraceuticals’ Concental reflects this evolution, as it highlights the importance of brain perfusion as a foundational cognitive mechanism. “Its concept of ‘fueling the brain’ through improved blood and oxygen supply offers a differentiated angle compared with traditional stimulant-based cognition solutions. Additionally, it is also associated with neurotransmitter-related effects relevant to mood and focus.” 

Meanwhile, Fink highlights two of PLT Health Solutions’ ingredients for mood and serenity benefits, Zembrin and Vanizem.

“Zembrin is a unique selection of Sceletium tortuosum, a South African plant with a centuries-long history of use to improve lives. Zembrin has been clinically demonstrated to improve cognitive function — specifically, cognitive flexibility, executive function, and mood. Other studies have shown it reduces anxiety within 30 minutes of administration.”

He says Vanizem is a fast-acting, proprietary Aframomum melegueta extract that supports positive mood, improves sleep quality, and provides effective management of mild day-to-day stress and anxious feelings, with an effective dose of 100 mg/day. 

Suarez-Rizzo backs mechanism-driven solutions across cerebral blood flow, neurotransmitters, and microbiome interactions.“Research has demonstrated that Vanizem targets the endocannabinoid system, which helps regulate stress and emotional responses,” Fink adds. “More specifically, Vanizem inhibits the fatty acid amide hydrolase within the endocannabinoid system to maintain levels of the ‘bliss molecule.’”

Functional formulations

James Roza, VP of Technical Services at Biovivo Science, says that formulators are developing products that take a more comprehensive approach to conditions that can lead to cognitive impairment, as they recognize the interconnectedness of different health areas. 

“As we advance technologically, many consumers struggle with the ability to cope with the greater demands being placed on their brains. Retaining information, maintaining focus, and multitasking become increasingly difficult as a result, adding stress and reducing the quality of sleep.” 

Meanwhile, he also highlights several challenges in formulating a cognitive enhancement product: bioavailability, the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, and targeting the right metabolic pathway that produces acetylcholine, dopamine, or other neurotransmitters. 

“All of these should be given thoughtful consideration and backed by scientific evidence. Crossing the protective layer of the brain for entry is critical for its ability to modulate neural pathways and operate at a cellular level,” says Roza. 

Boswell at Kerry adds that demonstrating real efficacy is challenging as well, since improvements in cognition may be subtle or gradual, often requiring robust clinical studies over time. 

“Large trials are costly and sometimes yield mixed results, so companies must invest in strong science to back up their claims and meet regulatory standards for cognitive health benefits.” 

Moreover, Boswell highlights that many natural brain-boosting ingredients pose formulation challenges due to their bitter flavors, stability issues, or limited bioavailability. He says that consumer expectations on taste and sensory experience also continue to rise, going beyond flavor to include mouthfeel and aftertaste. 

“Innovators are overcoming these hurdles with advanced delivery technologies and functional food formats, ensuring consumers get effective doses in convenient, enjoyable forms.”