Gut health innovation and research take center stage at Natural Products Expo West 2024

19 Mar 2024 --- Gut microbiome support was one of the significant product and ingredient trends at this year’s Natural Products Expo West (NPEW), with companies featuring numerous pre-, pro- and postbiotics and fiber ingredients and a wide range of F&B products aimed at improving gut health. Research increasingly links these products to other health benefits, such as immunity, mood, energy and weight management.

At NPEW 2024, Nutrition Insight discusses the latest trends and research in gut health with key players Brightseed, ResBiotic Nutrition and Cargill. 

“Our focus is on our main bioactive ingredient to market, Bio Gut Fiber. We launched it a little over a year ago and have seen great market traction for it. It’s a bioactive-rich hemp whole fiber,” explains Alina Slotnik, VP of bioactives at Brightseed.  

“Fiber is having a great, and I think very nutritionally-necessary, moment. We’re happy to be at the leading edge of that, offering our customers the opportunity to formulate in many different formats with this Bio Gut Fiber.”

The company recently partnered with Manitoba Harvest, which launched its Bioactive Fiber product in Whole Foods and on Amazon, featuring Brightseed’s Bio Gut Fiber.

Filling the fiber gap 
Slotnik highlights that Brightseed aims to deliver health benefits in nutrition products. 

“We’re here to illuminate nature and restore human health.” 

“The way that we do that is not only through the process of discovery and building the largest available library of bioactives and their respective health benefits, but translating those discoveries into real tangible ingredients that go into consumer products and can impact consumers’ health.”

She underscores that the ongoing fiber gap has existed for a long time, while fiber is a critical nutritional need for people. Globally, people still fall short of consuming enough fiber and often have a lack of understanding in terms of dietary fiber needs. 

Brightseed’s Slotnik sees a resurgence around the nutritional importance of the different types of fibers and prebiotics.“What we’ve been so excited to hear at the show is finally this motivated resurgence around the nutritional importance of fiber,” Slotnik continues. “We’re excited about leveling that up one step further to discuss bioactives in fiber because not all fiber sources are created equal.”  

“Much like over the last ten years we’ve learned a lot about proteins in the world, I think fiber is ready for that kind of moment where people understand that Bio Gut Fiber is primarily an insoluble fiber and has two unique bioactives, N-trans caffeoyltyramine and N-trans feruloyltyramine.”

Slotnik explains that these bioactives are not found in any other commercially available type of fiber and act differently but in a complementary way to the fiber content.

“There’s more to the gut than just digestion,” she stresses. “There’s more to fiber than just the traditional types of soluble fibers that people are familiar with. We’re excited to tell that story and to enable that product to support more people.” 

Exploring the gut-x axis 
At the show, we also met up with Dr. Vivek Lal, the founder and CEO of ResBiotic Nutrition, who explained that the company aims to restore wellness and health through the gut-x axis. 

“The gut is connected to several organs of the body, several systems of the body, through an axis called the gut-x axis, where x could be anything.” 

“We first invented and launched our product for gut-lung access called ResB Lung Support. It is arguably the world’s first respiratory probiotic based on over ten years of rigorous preclinical and clinical research on the gut-lung axis. It is essentially how the gut microbiome modulates signaling, which affects lung health.”

“After getting a lot of demand on this lung product, we wanted to move on to the other gut-x axes, such as the gut-energy axis.” 

ResBiotic Nutrition recently launched prebeet Energy+, a caffeine-free powder formula using a clinically-validated prebiotic and whole beet powder. Lal explains that the “pre” in prebeet Energy+ refers to this prebiotic. 

ResBiotic Nutrition featured a gut-lung probiotic supplement and gut-energy prebiotic supplement at the show.“In addition, we have vitamin B12, which boosts natural energy. Prebeet Energy+ is a potent clean energy source for people who drink it daily.”

Lal explains that prebeet Energy+ contains Solnul, a prebiotic fiber shown in multiple clinical trials to improve digestive benefits, such as improving digestion and decreasing bloating. “It also increases the amount of Akkermansia and Bifidobacteria, some essential beneficial bacteria.” 

“Like in our ResB product, we have our strains of Lactobacilli. Lactobacilli, Akkermansia and Bifidobacteria are the three most important beneficial bacteria. In combination, we call this our power gut stack, which is supposed to increase all the beneficial bacteria in the body.” 

Stevia’s gut impact 
Cargill presented new clinical research at NPEW 2024 on the effect of its stevia sweetener on the gut, explains Alyssa Leyva, the company’s product line manager for high-intensity sweeteners. “The key finding was that there was no significant impact on the gut microflora.” 

“We know the human gut microbiome is essential to health and wellness. We also know that our diet and food ingredients can have an impact, but there was a knowledge gap on the impacts of stevia on the human gut microflora.” 

“Therefore, we decided to do the first very comprehensive study looking at pure steviol glycosides and their impact on the human gut microbiome. This was a double-blind, randomized comparative study comparing a high dose of a stevia-sweetened beverage to a sucrose-sweetened beverage.” 

Leyva explains that the study validated existing research on the sweetener’s safety, which shows that stevia is very well tolerated. “But the second thing that we learned was that there was no significant impact on the human gut microbiome, nor on the production of short-chain fatty acids, which have a beneficial impact on various biological processes.”

In a recent study, researchers also looked at the appetite, food intake and blood glucose levels of subjects who consumed beverages 30 minutes before a meal. Those beverages were either pure water, a stevia-sweetened beverage or a beverage with a caloric sweetener. 

“We found that the subjects that had consumed beverages sweetened with stevia were reporting that they had less hunger before the meal and less hunger than water,” adds Leyva. 

“We also found no blood glucose impact from those who had consumed the stevia-sweetened beverage. And third, upon eating the meal, the subjects that had consumed the stevia-sweetened beverage consumed 105 calories less than those that had consumed water or any other sweetened beverages.” 

By Jolanda van Hal, reporting from NPEW in California, US