DuPont Nutrition & Health Launches New Prenatal and Postnatal Probiotic

12 May 2016 --- DuPont launched their HOWARU Protect EarlyLife probiotic at VitaFoods Europe 2016 as part of its premium ingredient range.

The new, clinically tested probiotic has been demonstrated to support the development of long-lasting immune health benefits in infants.

HOWARU Protect EarlyLife contains the probiotic strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus HN001TM, and has been formulated specifically for expectant mothers and their infants.

The launch of EarlyLife is backed by a ground-breaking, long-term trial which demonstrated a significant protective effect against eczema during the first six years of an infant’s life: “We conducted large research in New Zealand where we gave the probiotic to expectant mothers in their last trimester of pregnancy for 6 months. We also gave the probiotic to newborns in the first three years of life,“ Alvin Ibarra, Senior Scientist at Dupont, explained to NutritionInsight.

The study also demonstrated a protective effect on allergic sensitization at six years of age.

“We are extremely encouraged by the strong results given from this ongoing long-term trial for HOWARU Earlylife. The study shows a decrease in the cumulative prevalence of eczema by 49% in children at 2 years of age,” said Markus Lehtinen, R&D Manager. “And importantly the effect on this group persisted up to 6 years of age, indicating a long term benefit for children.”

DuPont has a history of delivering innovative solutions by applying its in-depth knowledge of probiotic science and the health ingredients market, and HOWARU Protect EarlyLife is no exception. This new probiotic formulation has demonstrated exceptionally encouraging trial results and is introducing it to the market this year. Earlylife will be available as a shelf-ready dietary supplement in a convenient stick-pack format or alternatively, customers can use DuPont applications expertise when they include this unique ingredient in their own products.

“As the prevalence of eczema and allergies has risen worldwide, there is a growth in demand for safe dietary supplements which support the developing immune system of infants, hence the importance of HOWARU EarlyLife,” said Ole Danielsen, Global Marketing Director of dietary supplements. “In addition, the robust shelf-life of our probiotics means that EarlyLife can be added to existing products, opening up many exciting opportunities for our customers to create their own winning food and beverage formulations.”

HOWARU Premium Probiotics are friendly cultures that are condition-specific with highly documented health-enhancing benefits.  The sachet used in the study contains 6 million units. Both the mothers and newborns used this method to obtain the culture, mixing it with food or infant formula, respectively. Capsules were also used, however mixing the sachets in formula were found to be the easiest method to use: “EarlyLife is available in the US markets and some companies are already adding it to infant formula” Ibarra concluded.