Vitafoods Europe 2026: Verdure Sciences targets cognitive health with Longvida curcumin
26 May 2026 | Verdure Sciences
Verdure Sciences’ founder and CEO, Ajay Patel, sat down with us to showcase the efficacy of the company's flagship bioavailability-enhanced curcumin ingredient, Longvida. Patel highlighted over a dozen human clinical studies targeting cognitive health, explained how free-form curcumin crosses the blood-brain barrier, and outlined growth opportunities across Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Hello everybody, this is Brad Nichols with Nutrition Insight, and we are here live in Barcelona, Spain at Vita Foods Europe 2026.
And today we are speaking with Ajay Patel, the founder and CEO of Verdu Sciences.
Hello, sir, how are you today?
I'm great.
Thank you for having me.
We're excited to talk to you.
I've got some questions for you, specifically about Lanvida, and if it's OK, I'd love to jump right in.
Absolutely.
All right, I know that Longvita targets cognition, inflammation, joint health.
Which wellness trend, which of those wellness trends is driving the most commercial growth for Longvita right now?
Yes, so we're very excited to have Longvita in our portfolio.
It has been in our portfolio for almost 20 years, and over those years we've looked at a lot of different health indications that target.
You know, things from brain health to metabolic health to joint health.
I think one of the most exciting areas and what differentiates Longvida really is its, its properties as it relates to cognitive health.
So I think when we talk about Longvida, We've even coined the term cognitive curcumen of choice, and we've got over a dozen clinical studies, human clinical studies that target cognition.
So I would say, cognitive health is, is an area, of course, it's a, it's a pretty diverse area, but, cognition is where we're most excited about when it comes to Longvida.
It's great.
What clinical evidence is there that sort of distinguishes Longvida from competing bio bioavailability enhanced formulations forms.
Bioavailability is, you know, a very complex, again, situation where we are talking about, you know, the increase of an active component, active phytonutrient in your bloodstream, in the body, and, and then you want to look at also where it's targeting in terms of the tissues within the body.
I think what's exciting about Longvida is the science and the initial findings.
Two neuroscientists at UCLA, came up with this formulation after.
Hundreds of different iterations and their main goal was to get curcumin into the bloodstream, but not only getting it into the bloodstream but getting it in its free form.
I think that's what's really important and that's what really differentiates Longida from a lot of other turmeric extracts or let's say next generation turmeric, and getting it into the bloodstream is the first most important thing.
In again appreciable quantities and then even further they, they took this even further to getting it through the blood-brain barrier and the only way you can get it through the blood-brain barrier is that you have it in its free form.
And then you have it in a format that gets appreciable amounts so that it can go into the brain and do a lot of the fancy things that it's doing.
How does Longvida's sort of cognitive health positioning fit into broader adaptogens and new tropics that are targeting mental clarity and And brain health.
Yeah, so, like I mentioned earlier, we've looked at Longvida in a, in a slew of clinical studies over a period of 15 years.
And so we've got over a dozen human clinical studies looking at Longvida's impact on various cognitive endpoints.
We've looked at mood, we've looked at memory, we've looked at anxiety.
So, mental clarity.
So you look at a lot of different areas of the brain, and the impact that longvita has, and these are, double-blind placebo-controlled studies that have been, , reviewed, , you know, or being published in peer-reviewed journals.
So I think that that also, shows that it's not just one study here and there, but it's across different populations, and it's done both on an acute and also on a, on a chronic level.
Can brands use Longvida curcumin as a stand-alone ingredient, or can they combine it with other functional ingredients for sort of multi-benefit formulations?
Yes, so I would say both, you know, if you've got a lot of customers that want to focus on the diverse benefits of Longvida.
Of course we are talking about cognition and brain health, but beyond that, Longvida has a lot of different properties again across varied dosing.
So depending on what dosing the brand or the, you know, the customer wants to put in their formulation.
And again, that's based on who they're targeting in terms of their customer.
It can range anywhere from as low as 400 mg a daily dose up to 2 g a day, and it's very tolerated, and we've shown that across again a multitude of different studies.
So, you know, we have customers that use it as a standalone and then we have customers who combine it.
So that's the beauty of Longvida because a lot of the curcumin ingredients out there have very high daily dosing.
So it becomes really difficult to combine it with other ingredients.
In the case of Longvida, it's 400 mg delivering just 80 mg of curcumin, which again it's really exciting because obviously, you know, we want to ensure that there's compliance, especially if consumers are going to use it at a higher dose.
It's very difficult sometimes to control what the consumer is going to take and what they're going to take it with, other things that they're going to take it with.
So from that standpoint, we're really excited that, you know, we have sort of this varied varied dosing that you can have with Longvida.
And so if you want to combine it with other ingredients, the, the formulators have the flexibility to do that.
So you can stack it, but you don't need to because it's multifunctional already in that respect, right?
Absolutely.
And if you, if you use it as a standalone, then again, You know, with the 40 some human clinical studies that we have, you know, you can really leverage those clinical studies and the endpoints because now, you know, you've got those studies using, just Longvida as a stand-alone.
And so I think from a marketing, from a storytelling, from a positioning standpoint, I think it makes a lot of sense for, for the formulators and the brands.
What emerging wellness categories or geographic markets represent the biggest growth opportunities that you see for Longvida over the next 3 to 5 years?
So, even though we are a US based company and, and that's our major market, and major market for supplements, overall, and we're seeing a lot of, interest in, Latin America, in particular Brazil.
So Lombida is the only curcumin, at least the first one I can say.
And, and, and possibly the only clerkyman that has got visa approval.
And so, you know, Latin America is a, is a great market.
The Asian market is also very exciting, where we have been able to go into tough markets like Korea, where we were able to get a KFTA acclaim via a local partner there and again looking at cognition there.
So I think Asia or the APEC region is really exciting.
In Europe, we have Levos as our, exclusive distributor.
They've had Longvita in their portfolio for 15 plus years, and it's really exciting to see, even today we get a lot of new brands or whether it's emerging brands or also legacy brands that are coming, you know, and wanting to formulate new products because of the diverse benefits of Longvida.
All right, that's, exciting stuff.
Thank you so much for talking with us today, AJ, and thank you for having me.
Yeah, I hope you have a great rest of the show.
We look forward to hearing a lot more converter sciences in the future.
Thank you, and you too.
