Navigating the Jungle of Magnesium Bioavailability
10 Dec 2024 | Balchem
Magnesium is currently one of the fastest-growing minerals in the supplement industry. But with so many forms of magnesium on the market, how do you know which one delivers the best results?
This webinar explores the rapidly expanding magnesium market and provide valuable insights into selecting the right magnesium ingredient. We highlight the key factors that influence bioavailability, helping you make good decisions about magnesium supplements.
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Hello and welcome to today's webinar titled Navigating the Jungle of Magnesium Bioavailability by Balcom.
My name is Yolanda van Gaal and I'm a senior journalist at Nutrition Insights.
Nutrition Insight is a world leading B2B news and insights website published by CNS Media.
Today, we are joined by our expert speakers.
We have Doctor Eric Capio, who is the strategic Development Manager of Nutrition Science at BALCO.
And Oliver Erieman, who's the senior manager of marketing and business development at the company.
We're also joined by Laura Sudente, marketing analyst at CNS Media.
In a short while, our speakers will give a presentation exploring the rapidly expanding magnesium markets, providing key considerations when choosing a high quality magnesium ingredient and which factors influence bioavailability.
They will also present the scientific benefits of Albion, magnesium, bis glycinate chelates and provide examples of market applications and product innovations.
Before we get started, I'd like to remind our listeners that they can submit questions to our speakers through the Q&A engagement tool.
Any questions that we don't have time to respond to during today's session can be answered via email following the presentation.
The webinar will also be available on-demand on nutrition Insight.com.
A link to view the on-demand webinar will be emailed to you after its conclusion.
In today's webinar, the expert speakers will provide an overview of the markets and a scientific snapshot of magnesium, explain the benefits of chelates, and dive into product applications for success.
And as I said, after our speakers' presentations, we'll round off with a Q&A session.
And then I'll hand the floor over to Laura.
Thank you, Yolanda.
I'm happy to be here to share a normal market insights data on magnesium supplements in the US supplement market.
So let's dive in, and I would like to say that magnesium in general is growing in supplements.
There's a 5% growth for magnesium ingredients in supplement launches in five years in the US, but especially magnesium bisglycinate is becoming the hero of magnesium.
Ingredients because there's a 34% growth in five years, which is much faster than other magnesium ingredients, and I really like this example that showcases how magnesium bis glycinate is used in a supplement, but there's also a clear focus on emphasizing science-backed benefits, and this approach is resonating with consumers who are looking for scientifically backed ingredients.
So now we can explore the leading health claims that are associated with magnesium bis glycinate supplements, and the top claim is brain mood health as as bone health claim.
But interestingly, we are also seeing a rapid growth in claims that are related to blood pressure management, and this is a great example here because it shows both the benefits of mood support and blood pressure regulation in a magnesium supplement.
So it's very, very broad effects for health.
And finally, we will look at what drives consumer trust when they buy food, beverages, supplements, and we noticed that consumers are increasingly seeking scientifically proven ingredients as evidence of health benefits.
In fact, 40% of US consumers agree or strongly agree that they always look for scientific proof to determine whether a product is healthy.
And at the same time, 39% of US consumers agree or strongly agree that they trust the functional food only when it's independently certified or scientifically validated, and this highlights a critical trend.
Science claims, and certifications are no longer just value adds.
They are becoming essential in building consumer confidence, and consumers trust these products more.
So I would like to say that with magnesium bisglycinate leading the way in growth and consumer trust that is anchored in science-backed solutions, the US market is really expanding with so much opportunity for innovation in magnesium-based supplements, but especially magnesium-based glycinate supplements, as we saw that it's growing very fast and expanding.
So now on to you, Eric.
All right.
Thank you, Laura.
That was a great overview.
So my name is Eric Capio, and I'm going to walk you through, some of the clinical benefits of magnesium.
What it is, what it does, why do we care about it, and then we'll talk a little bit about our chelate products specifically.
So, what is magnesium?
So, magnesium is an essential nutrient, and if you look it up in any textbook, the first line that will pop up virtually guaranteed, is going to be something to the effect of magnesium supports the activity of over 300 different enzymes in the body.
And what it's doing specifically, really, it's just doing the same job, 300 different places, is number one, it has a structural role.
Magnesium will bind to some enzyme, turning it into its active configuration.
So structurally, it's helping to form the, the key that it needs to in order to activate the lock that is some specific enzymatic receptor.
Or 2, functionally, it helps to balance out negative charge.
And the most, the most classic example of that is an ATP.
Those 3 phosphates and ATP really don't want to be next to each other.
They're all negative, and they really want to fire off, which, of course, is something that your body wants to control because that's how you generate energy.
That's the, the gasoline that drives the car that is you.
So, magnesium helps keep those phosphates in place, preventing that third phosphate from firing off, creating energy until you really need it.
So again, structural and functional roles, and there's very varied considering how many different enzymes and how many different processes that magnesium plays a role in.
Where, you know, perhaps most classically, and we saw this in some of the, the market examples that Laura provided earlier, magnesium is known to help cells relax.
And what that means in a more, you know, biochemical level, is it acts as a calcium channel blocker.
So, in short, you know, to turn a cell on, be it a nerve, be it a muscle, what have you.
The basic story is that calcium enters the cell, which turns on that cellular function, it makes the muscle contract, it makes the heart beat, it makes that nerve conduct, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Now, the off switch for that is that magnesium can enter that calcium channel, which physically blocks that calcium from entering, which effectively acts as an offs signal.
And when you don't have enough magnesium in the body in order to counteract that that calcium entering the cell, that off signal can be a little bit muddied, which creates a buildup of intracellular calcium.
And the net result of that clinically is things like muscle cramps or hypertension, or altered brain function, personality changes, etc.
Etc.
So changes in mood.
So lots of different varied, , consequences to that, because, of course, magnesium plays such a diverse role in human biology.
So again, we zoom out and we think of this as what things we might notice on our day to day life.
What is magnesium doing for me?
It's helping to support our normal heart rhythm, ensuring that our heart is beating properly, aids in blood pressure regulation, muscular relaxation, important roles in bone health, energy production, mood and psychological function, sleep and recovery.
The, the roles of magnesium are incredibly varied, thanks to the fact that it helps to support so many different enzymes and processes in the body.
So, how does it get absorbed?
What does magnesium do?
Generally speaking, magnesium is going to be bound to something else, like magnesium oxide is kind of a classic example in dietary supplements.
And so, when you consume it, that magnesium separates from its partner, in this case, the oxygen here and magnesium oxide, gets absorbed into the intestinal cell, goes through the intestine into the bloodstream, and off to do whatever it needs to do.
One of those 300 different endpoints for it.
Alternatively, of course, because we don't generally consume nutrients in isolation, we consume foods, which are made up of many nutrients, and, of course, anti-nutrients.
And so what is an anti-nutrient?
That is something that can actually negatively affect the absorption of a specific nutrient or mineral.
So, what happens is those anti-nutrients like a phytate will bind to that magnesium, which prevents your body from absorbing it, and ultimately you just pass it out, meaning that you get no net benefit from that.
So what are these anti-nutrients?
These are things like phytates and oxalates, which are commonly found in plant-based foods, things like nuts and seeds, all kinds of, again, plant-based foods, you'll see them very commonly in the diet, and they are known to inhibit, mineral absorption, specifically things like magnesium, of course, but also iron, calcium, and zinc, for example.
On average, in the United States and in Europe, the consumption of anti-nutrients like phytates, for example, is about 1 g a day, and it doesn't take very much to inhibit nutrient absorption.
So, what can we do in the dietary supplement space to help counteract this effect?
There are what are called mineral chelates, and mineral chelates are bound to an amino acid such as glycine, so you can see the structure here is that that magnesium or that mineral can be iron, can be zinc, it can be calcium, etc.
Is in the center of that, in the center of that structure, and around that are two molecules of the amino acid glycine.
And that glycine effectively acts as kind of a protective shell, if you want to think of it this way.
Creating kind of a physical barrier between the external environment and that mineral at its center.
So, there's a couple of different advantages to that.
Namely, number one, that it limits the absorption or the interaction with, anti-nutrients like phytates and oxalates, for example, which means there's a net increase in bioavailability overall.
And second, that it limits the interaction of that mineral to you, right?
So, Improvements in tolerability, less GI upset, etc.
Has been shown with mineral chelates like magnesium and iron, for example.
So, now we'll talk a little bit about our Albion Minerals portfolio.
So, Albion is the pioneer in this space.
We have the largest portfolio of, cheld minerals on the market today.
And really when we think of the benefits of these products, again, we're talking about, we're talking about improvements in bioavailability, we're talking about improvements in tolerability, we're talking about improvements in solubility if you're looking to make, a beverage based or, you know, fluid milk, soft drink application, for example.
And a lot of the inspiration for this came from nature, right?
Cause when you think of how key minerals like magnesium or iron are packaged in our bodies or in plants, for example, it does come in the form of something like a massive chelated structure, like hemoglobin, in our bodies, of course, is basically iron packaged in this giant, organic structure.
Chlorophyll, which is sort of the, the plant equivalent, is magnesium again in a very similar structure.
So this is something that is a naturally inspired, process to help, you know, with our metabolism of these key essential minerals.
So, one thing that I personally appreciate, you know, as, I've been with Falchem now for about 3 years, is the fact that the, the Albion story and the Albion legacy is something that is still ingrained in the company overall.
So, Doctor Harvey Ashmead, in the mid 1950s and late 1960s, founded the Albion, Albion Organization and did a lot of the pioneering work where he created some of the first, bisglycinate chelate products on the market.
Since then, they've enjoyed, a large history of success, largely due to the fact that they've made some significant investments in the science and regulatory approvals for these products.
But again, it all boils down to the fact that they did the work and they proved that these products work, basically starting from scratch.
You know, and now fast forward, now that the, the Albion product, the Albion product family is part of the Balchem organization.
This is something that we still see.
The grandson of the founder still works here today in our R&D organization, and it's something that we're incredibly proud of, and I love the fact that it's a, a family run company that came into this, organization and that they're still so passionate about the, the, the products themselves and what they do.
Like I said, they put in the work.
When you look at the number of publications that are indexed just on PubMed, of course, there's other sources, but you can see that there are a lot of data that are out there on these products overall.
Over 160 publications, as of my last count, about, oh jeez, 2 years ago now.
Coming in, everything from randomized controlled trials in humans to food science experiments to animal science, to, basic pre-clinical, basic pre-clinical work like cell culture in vitro type stuff.
So there's just a lot of information on these products and what they do overall.
So, in total, that breaks down, you can see that some of our products like our magnesium and our and our iron products, for example, have tons and tons of data on these products.
You know, and we're gonna go through some examples specifically in the magnesium space, demonstrating what these products do and how they work for you.
So, again, a very strong history of scientific publications testing the benefits of these products.
So, what are these mineral chelates again?
How do they work?
We mentioned before, there's that sort of protective shell that is coming around it.
Now, there's basically two paths.
In one path, you see that some portion of that mineral does dissociate from its glycine counterpart, gets absorbed and goes off to do whatever it needs to do, just as it does with an inorganic mineral.
However, there is some part of it, that remains chelated up until it enters the intestinal cell, which limits the interaction with those anti-nutrients.
Again, so the net benefit for you is that more of it comes into your body and the bioavailability tends to be greater.
And this has been studied in a number of different models, and I think this is incredibly important.
You'll see this in folks with ileal resection, in otherwise healthy people, you'll see this in cell culture and in vitro models, but the important part is a lot of this pioneering work was really done with our material, demonstrating the fact that these products do in fact impart a benefit to you.
And part of the reason here that there are so many, methods to measure magnesium status is because measuring it is incredibly challenging.
Your body wants to keep magnesium in a very tight, narrow band.
It doesn't really want that level of magnesium to go up or down too far out of, where it needs it to be.
And this is something that is very recognized.
It doesn't matter which side of the ocean you're on, if you live in the United States, this is the official opinion of the Office of Dietary Supplements, for example.
In, in Europe, if you are following, some of the EFSA guidelines, you'll see that they state, quote, that there's no appropriate biomarker for magnesium status.
So, what does that mean for us as we look to evaluate bioavailability without one clear gold standard for status assessment?
That means we've got to use multiple methods, and we have to make sure that those products are being tested both in vitro and clinically, and you're seeing the same basic trends.
And so, for those of you who prefer clinical data, and you're not scared off by the limitations that exist, here we have just a fairly simple bioavailability study, where they took a series of volunteers and they followed them for 24 hours, and they gave them one of a couple different , magnesium products, either, of course, placebo, or magnesium oxide, magnesium chelate, or magnesium buffer product, which is another product in our portfolio.
And lo and behold, what do you see?
You see that there, of course, is a significant improvement in bioavailability, particularly in that first acute setting.
With the two chelated products over magnesium oxide.
In terms of serum, magnesium response.
So again, Clinically, you see exactly what you would expect, given the, the underlying chemistry of the material, which is that you do see this higher acute bioavailability overall.
Now, if you're someone who says, you know what, I, I really need to see kind of a second line of evidence, I, I'm a little bit leery because of some of the, the different, limitations available in clinical information.
We've got you covered there too.
So, this is a CO2 cell model, where effectively there was kind of a monolayer, between, two different chambers, and what you're looking for is the ability of magnesium to pass across.
And when they test a very, , various array of magnesium products, you'd see that there's a significant improvement in magnesium absorption from the chelated products overall, compared to commonly used forms in the market like magnesium oxide or magnesium citrate.
And that difference is significant both statistically, but also in a, in a meaningful way.
This is a 5 times greater absorption, for example, of magnesium bisglycinate overall.
So, again, the net result is that you, would get more result, more greater absorption from the magnesium bisglycinate chelated products compared to competitive just inorganic materials on the market today.
So, what do we want you to walk away with here?
Just remember, number 1, that magnesium is an essential mineral, has lots of important benefits.
It's something that you need to consume in your diet.
In the United States, about 50% of people aren't getting enough from their diet alone, so dietary supplements become incredibly important, to try and meet their overall needs for it.
Again, essential for heart health, blood pressure regulation, muscular relaxation, mood, and so much more.
But remember that a lot of the inorganic materials like magnesium oxide, for example, have relatively low solubility and bioavailability, and are prone to interference from things like phytates and oxalates, etc.
And when you're measuring, trying to find out what products have the best bioavailability on the market, if you're a consumer or a formulator who's very concerned about that and wants to make sure they're getting the most out of it, it's important to look for multiple lines of evidence supporting the fact that these products do in fact work.
So look for laboratory data, look for clinical data, and make sure that all of those are following the same basic trends.
And it's also important to make sure that you're supporting products and brands that have done the work to demonstrate that their products are in fact efficacious.
You know, Albion's been around for, oh jeez, if my math was great, I'd call it 70 years or so, out there, again, doing the work, being a pioneer in the space, quite literally inventing some of the products that are out here on the market today.
So make sure that, if you are a consumer who is doing, , doing your research on what products are out there and what they should use, again, look for brands like Albion Minerals, which have done the work demonstrating both laboratory and clinical data, showing that there are improvements in absorption, and improvements in tolerability compared to, commonly used in organic salts.
So with that, I will turn over to my colleague Oliver, to walk you through how you can put some of these concepts in action.
Perfect.
Thank you, Eric, for the great overview about the science behind Albion magnesium.
I'm Oliver Riemann, so let's have a deeper look how manufacturers and brands can commercialize these strong arguments.
Not only the right form of magnesium makes a difference, but also the right source and partner.
So what you see, what you see here, this is the product range of chelated magnesium, magnesium we offer for brands and manufacturers to make you successful in the magnesium market.
As we have seen at the beginning, magnesium bisenate even outperforms the whole magnesium category.
We provide fully reacted and validated magnesium bisli in a in a straight pure version as as in a taste-free version.
The product is certified as kosher, halal, non-GMO, and it is also suitable for vegan products, especially for magnesium biscli in it.
We can produce the product in two facilities in North America.
This ensures maximum control of our product quality and supply and supply reliability in the US market, but also for our European customers, we are opening a brand new own warehouse in the European Union to ensure the same level of service reliability in Europe as we have in the US.
To my knowledge, Albion Minerals is the only primary producer currently, in the field of chelated minerals who has full control over the whole production and also owns product on stock on two continents.
Albion minerals, magnesium, biscly and, and keli let you play in traditional as as in trending dose forms.
That gives you maximum flexibility beyond just tablets and capsules.
We have real life proof of concept for all those forms.
Of course our oyd minerals are successfully used in the tablets and capsules, but we are proud to see big brands bringing yd minerals also into the new trending dose forms.
Remember from the slides before we have over 300 body functions where magnesium plays a role.
As versatile as this mineral is as versatile can our molecule be formulated in suitable applications.
We see stick packs for hydration, for example, but also gummies for kids or maybe for sleep support.
We have customers formulating bars for the weekend warriors or for the workaholics who need a quick bite in between.
We sell our products and beverages for energy metabolism, fortified protein powders for sports, etc.
Etc.
And that is what you all, you all can do this literally with just, with just this one ingredient.
So of course Albion Minerals is unfortunately not the only magnesium supplier.
What else sets us apart?
Why did I say at the beginning, I will show you how Albion supports your success in the magnesium jungle, because Albion offers more than just an ingredient.
We are more than just a supplier.
We give your assets free of charge.
You can use to elevate your brand promise through trust and reliable benefits.
As I already said, Albion is a pioneer not only because this brand unveiled the secret how to wrap amino acids around minerals to make them more bioavailable and more tolerable.
Albion also invented the process of how to prove that the mineral is fully reactive, that it is truly a chelate and not just a mixture.
Back in 2003, Albion developed the first monographs enabling manufacturers to use FTRR analysis to validate the successful reaction of a chelate.
This process got known under the name TRX, which stands for the real amino acid chelate system, and this even got patented around 20 years ago.
However, Albion never enforced the patent protection, as they wanted to get this process adopted by the industry to raise the overall quality standards for the good of the consumers.
That is the reason why the FDR process to validate chelation became the gold standard in the industry for recognized manufacturers to prove the quality of chelated minerals.
Without albion, maybe such a validation might have never been existed.
Albion paved the way for all brands to give consumers the chance to get the proven quality they deserve.
Therefore, Albion very much enforces its trust brand we established the track seal.
A logo we exclusively offer for our chelated minerals to brands for their co-branding, they can showcase on the label their commitment to the original gold standard of chelation.
Tracks signifies quality, trust, reliability, folliculated minerals backed by signs.
On this slide you see our two logo options we offer for ingredient branding to customers the traditional Albion bow tie logo, which is established in the market for decades, or the Tracks logo.
These can be used on the product label against signing a free of charge trademark license agreement.
No extra costs for you, but just benefits.
So as you can see from consumer research, between 57 and 70% of the consumers say they believe branded ingredients are more efficient.
They feel more confident using co-branded supplements, and they are willing to pay more for it.
And of course showing the Albion logo transparently on the label means you can directly refer to our excessive citation list of scientific research to justify your health claim language the most substantiated.
By the way, Albion is the brand in the minerals market who offers co-branding the longest to customers.
Therefore, it's with no doubt Albion is one of the market leading B2B brands in the mineral space regarding brand equity, visibility, and exposure.
So how does it look like in reality?
And here I've picked the example from Dr.
Best.
Dr.
Best made it to leverage the essence of the Albion minerals brand to their 3-inch label.
First they clearly say science-based nutrition.
And thanks to Albion they know they can refer to several exclusive clinical studies, publications, and cell lab trials.
Second, they translate the main benefit of using magnesium biscly in it, consumer friendly, into a super resonating phrase high absorption magnesium, and that is exactly what Albion stands for bioavailability and tolerability.
Third, they build trust by claiming to use fully reacted ingredients, and thanks to the tracks validation process which Albion established, they know they get a true and fully reacted chelated mineral, and they crown it with the Albion Minerals gold medallion logo.
This is exclusively awarded to the most loyal and committed partners to build trust, transparency, and to leverage 70 years of our experience, research, and storytelling to consumer brands.
So hoping we have already convinced you when choosing a magnesium form to take a chelated form.
Take magnesium bisclyinate for the obvious health benefit reasons like bioavailability and tolerability, and if you are convinced about that, take the one from Albion to benefit from the research and the marketing opportunities you get for free from us.
But let's have a look at social media just to make sure we contribute on point to the market perception.
Magnesium bisclyenate is the fastest growing mineral supplement in the market, proven by Nielsen data and also shown today in market research at the beginning of this presentation.
But it is also the most promoted mineral on social media and in PR.
Newspapers like Los Angeles Times talk about it.
The magnesium hashtag has 1 billion views on TikTok, and influencer, Melissa Gray, gained almost 17 million views with the video where she explains how magnesium bisclysonate changed her life.
Especially on social media.
Magnesium bisclysonate is suited for its benefits on sleep, support, relaxation, and mood.
And that obviously matches perfectly the current concerns we face in uncertain times, and it resonates with a more and more anxious generation who looks for inner balance.
So who am I to fight the market perception?
If you ask me, consider your next product launch in 3 steps.
First, choose the right magnesium form.
Choose magnesium biscli in it.
Second, choose a supplier who supports your brand's distinction.
For example, choose Albion.
And third, choose a trending and promising health benefit platform, for example, sleep support or also women's health or healthy aging.
And this is how it can look like.
This is the inspiration for you.
First on the left, you see a tasty citrus flavored sachet providing you relaxing magnesium after your exercise, supporting hydration and muscle relaxation, or you can take it as a nightcap 30 minutes before going to bed to calm you down and support a healthy sleep.
In the middle you see a combination of several outstanding blkcom ingredients.
Combine the benefits of magnesium bisclycinate with our vitacholine, with optifoline plus, with optiMSM and K2 vital, promoting brain health and mood together with bone, joint, and beauty claims.
Or create the vital trio Albion's high absorption magnesium together with K2 vital and vitamin D3 for cardiovascular health, bone health, and immune strength.
If you want to get more ideas or more details about these opportunities, feel free to reach out to us.
We are happy to support you.
So before wrapping up, I want to turn your attention to two exclusive publications we brought to you today.
You can download them here within the webinar platform.
These 2 assets are designed to be your north star, your compass, when exploring the magnesium jungle on the way to your next bestselling formulation.
The first one is a white paper published by our chief scientist Dr.
Jonathan Bortz.
He explains the challenges of measuring magnesium bioavailability in great detail.
He digs into the different pros and cons of cell lab trials and clinicals.
That gives you background to understand why a broad and versatile set of own research is the best basis to make reliable claims and why it's not enough to refer to just any single lab test when trying to validate magnesium benefits.
And the second one is a cheat sheet we created for you to summarize the most important takeaway messages to make competent decisions when choosing the right magnesium source.
So wrapping up Albion's specific offering in the magnesium jungle, we have 2 manufacturing sites for magnesium bisclysonate in North America and owned warehouses on two continents for maximum supply safety.
Our molecule is the most clinically researched magnesium bisclycinate in the market, providing unmatched scientific history, and with relying on our tracks process, we ensure to supply fully reacted, truly chelated minerals which are tested and validated.
On the marketing side, Albion offers here unique opportunities for ingredient branding no other mineral brand offers today.
Strong ingredient brands with distinct logos ready to co-brand.
We invest in brand exposure and share of voice through key opinion leaders and media outlets to support the marketing activities of our branding partners, and we provide a complete toolbox to leverage the consumer's desire to purchase products with branded ingredients backed by science.
So that's that.
Don't purchase minerals, but look out for minerals.
Thank you.
Thank you, Oliver, and a big thanks to the speakers for their insightful presentations.
Once again, this is Yolanda from Nutrition Insight and I'll now host a Q&A session with our experts.
We've already received some great questions, so I will say let's just get started.
I have one that I think Oliver, you would be the best one to answer.
Albion claims to be a science leader for its minerals portfolio.
Why do you think that it's such an asset for brands as you promote it so prominently?
Yeah, thanks for that question.
I think our science history is such a big asset because for brands it's very important to have reliable and robust science as a basis to substantiate their claim language they want to put on their consumer products.
So if you partner up with a supplier who has Strong backing of of scientific results that means.
You can be quicker and maybe even cheaper in developing your in developing your specific claim language.
And second, as, as we've seen, consumer research unveiled that scientific proof became one of the most important criteria when choosing supplements.
So you remember, I think we had the numbers saying 40% of the consumers say they look for research when they choose a supplement.
So I think these are two strong arguments for brands, why the scientific proof of the ingredients is a huge asset.
OK, thank you, very clear.
Let me also, cause I've also received some questions for Eric.
Eric, could you explain again why measuring magnesium absorption is so challenging and how Albion deals with this challenge differently from other manufacturers?
Yeah, I, great question.
Again, you know, part of the challenge is that your body really fights to keep magnesium within a very narrow band in your bloodstream, right?
It doesn't want it to go too high or too low for obvious reasons.
So, you know, when you're measuring bioavailability of a nutrient X, generally, that's what you're looking for is those changes in, the pharmacokinetic profile over time.
And if your body is sort of fighting to prevent those changes, it's really difficult to see.
Actually, we, we, I, I can't take credit for it.
I didn't write it, my part of my team did, I have a really great, reference, which you can find on PubMed.
I, I think we may have it, and, it's certainly referenced in the, some of the collateral that Oliver had referenced before.
But you, if you really wanna go down the rabbit hole on that and find out more, you certainly can.
That will give you more information than you've ever cared to have, on the nuances of, of testing magnesium status.
So how do you do that?
What do you do in light of this uncertainty?
You know, the best tool that you can do is look at it from multiple angles, right?
You're not, there's no one perfect status assessment, unfortunately, for magnesium.
You know, so really all you can do is look for multiple lines of evidence.
So we, you know, we from BalCchem, from Albion, have really committed to investing into both clinical and pre-clinical work on these products, not just our magnesium, our, our iron, we have, I think something like 64 publications, I think is the number we referenced before.
So quite a bit.
So how do we, how do we address that?
We invest, we invest into the research behind our products and we do it.
Both through CROs we partner with external academic organizations, we freely give our material to researchers who are looking to do studies, so that it's not just coming from us.
This is information that you can trust, from third parties, for example, you know, Oliver keeps me busy going out there and making sure that I'm talking to, lots of academic researchers out there in the space who want to test, the statements that we make and make sure that they're true.
So that's what you do.
You look for organizations that are committed to it, investing into these products, sharing the information that they've got, sharing the full methods, that's, that's the best you can do.
Awesome, very interesting.
I also wanted to ask Oliver, there's a question on the magnesium trends.
Where do you think that's heading, Especially for the heavily growing market of cheated magnesium.
Yeah, that's a good question, so.
I would say what we see currently in the market is literally this magnesium hype is probably.
Not substantial for the next 10 years, but even if the growth of the magnesium might slow down a bit, I'm convinced that it will remain the most important mineral in the supplement market, and , everybody loves magnesium.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's everywhere where everybody believes in it.
What I think is that we will see several interesting opportunities in specific health benefit platforms within the next year.
So, as I said, currently I see a huge trend going on in the sleep and mood, area, and I think that will drive new revenues opportunities within the next year.
So that is definitely something, where I would look out for as a brand.
And beyond that, I see, I would say I still see untapped potential in the research pipeline to build more substantiated franchise in the field of brain performance and cognition related to magnesium supplements.
So I would say these are the two things which are currently on my radar.
Interesting, thank you for sharing.
And then I see that then we have another question for Eric.
As I know that chelated minerals are less interacting with the phytas coming from a plant-based diet, would you say your magnesium bisglycinate might be a differentiator for brands who want to specifically target vegetarians, vegans, or healthy nutrition community.
What can you tell us about that?
100%.
I think if you're on any kind of diet, plant-based diets are no exception to this.
But even if you're just consuming fewer calories, the two things that you need to consider from a dietary supplement perspective are, number one, does this product contain the nutrient that I'm likely missing in my diet?
And number 2, does it have forms that are bio bioavailable, right?
If I'm consuming less, I need to make sure that the, the nutrient that I'm getting, I'm getting the most out of it, right?
Because I have fewer, you know, nutrient units, if you wanna think of it this way, coming in, right?
So if I'm someone who, for example, is a, a vegetarian, vegan, or just really trying to adhere to a more plant-based, lifestyle, which is great, but the sort of unintended consequence to that is that you may likely be consuming less magnesium overall, because of course, you're consuming fewer calories.
And B, you're probably consuming more phytates, oxalates, etc.
Which can limit nutrient absorption of magnesium and iron and calcium and zinc, and so on and so on and so on.
So, if you are a formulated looking to appeal to someone who fits that demographic, who's a plant-based dieter or just dieter generally, I think Albion offers a really compelling story for that because again there's data demonstrating the, the, reduced interaction with phytates, for example, there's data demonstrating improved bioavailability overall, data demonstrating improved tolerability, for example, so lots of benefits that I think speak very to those in that demographic.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
And unfortunately, I have to say that's all that we have time for today.
I do want to remind all our listeners that we have two handouts that Oliver mentioned before, attached also that you can download from, this overview on which magnesium to choose and understanding magnesium and biability studies.
For now, I want to thank today's speakers for sharing their wonderful insights and a big thank you for our viewers around the world for joining us today.
Goodbye for now.
Sr Manager of Nutrition Science
Senior Journalist
Marketing Analyst
Dr Eric Ciappio
Sr Manager of Nutrition Science
Jolanda van Hal
Senior Journalist
Laura Studente
Marketing Analyst
Oliver Riemann
Sr Manager Marketing and Business Development
Oliver Riemann
Sr Manager Marketing and Business Development
Dr Eric Ciappio
Sr Manager of Nutrition Science
Jolanda van Hal
Senior Journalist
Laura Studente
Marketing Analyst
Oliver Riemann
Sr Manager Marketing and Business Development
