Do immune health claims attract regulatory attention?

Or will brands find ways of portraying immune health as a relevant concern long-term? Leading wellness brands share their strategies going forward.

Is a decline in immune health supplement sales inevitable?

Jennifer Grebow is the editor-in-chief of 

, an award-winning media-content provider in the dietary supplement and natural products market. 

, an MJH Life Sciences brand, provides insights and industry updates critical to manufacturers of dietary supplements, healthy foods, and nutritious beverages. 

 keeps industry abreast of current market trends, research updates, news, and regulatory developments. 

goes beyond the 24-hour news cycle and provides in-depth analysis to help industry players navigate the challenges and changes in the near- and long-term. 

, the largest privately held, independent, full-service medical media company in North America, dedicated to delivering trusted health care news across multiple channels.

A lot has been said about which plant-based proteins are best for creating meat and dairy alternatives. But what about fat? It’s a key consideration of how successfully plant-based products will be able to mimic their animal-based counterparts. Fat affects mouthfeel, taste, and texture. Plant-food developers are increasingly thinking about what the best plant-based fat replacers are. At March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show, representatives from Cargill (Minneapolis) discussed the company’s 

 with food-tech firm Cubiq Foods (Barcelona, Spain), whose “smart” fat technology is shaking up the plant-based space.

Cubiq Foods’ debut brand is its GoDrop “smart fat” ingredient line. “It’s a structured emulsion that has the functionality that mimics animal fat, so it gives that functionality, the mouthfeel, the taste, the texture, as well as an improved nutritional profile because it can reduce the total fat, saturated fat, and calorie content,” explained Jana Mauck, marketing manager, Cargill Global Edible Oil Solutions, North America, at Expo West. As a partner of Cubiq, Cargill is now offering its own customers GoDrop to include in their plant-based formulations.

Previously, Mauck said, the best alternative to animal fat was probably coconut oil, but coconut oil “just doesn’t deliver” and match animal fat’s functionality like GoDrop does. Neither do other stand-ins like sunflower, canola, or corn oil.

For instance, she said, a fat-replacement ingredient needs to remain effective throughout a product’s shelf life, including going through various cycles, including the freezing process, being thawed, then being cooked.

“This is what’s unique about GoDrop,” she said. “It stays and behaves as animal fat through all those phases. You can otherwise make a structured emulsion that only works when you mix things up, or only works similar to something when you cook it, but GoDrop works as the animal fat in every single step. As a result, when you make a product with GoDrop, when you’re replacing animal fat or replacing coconut oil, you don’t need to incur extra steps or change something in your product. You can just take GoDrop and replace fat and start making your product.”

The GoDrop line currently includes four products, which differ in texture and firmness depending on an application's need. “It depends on what people would like to use it for,” said Diliara Iassonova, innovation architect, Cargill. “Some of them contain gums as hydrocolloids. Some of them contain konjac fiber.”

Consumer testing already showed how GoDrop stood out over previous plant-based fat replacers. The company fed a plant-based burger made with GoDrop to a test panel. “We found that consumers found it a lot juicier compared to the control,” said Mauck.

GoDrop now enhances Cargill’s toolbox for the plant-foods space, which also includes pea protein and texturizers. Iassonova added: “If we’re talking about alternative dairy, as of right now almost the whole category is basically occupied by coconut oil. We believe that will change. The next trend will not be coconut. If you look back a few years ago, plant-based meat was almost 100% coconut oil. Then they shifted to blends, and then they introduced more liquid oils, and the reason is because coconut oil has 91% saturated fat. Functionally, coconut oil is not an exact 1:1 match with animal fat.”

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At Expo West, Cargill talked about its new partnership with Cubiq Foods, whose “smarter” fat technology is taking plant-based meat and dairy alternatives to the next level.

Replicating animal fat is key for plant-based meat and dairy products: Natural Products Expo West report

Photo © iStockphoto.com/Jacob Wackerhausen

HP Ingredients (Bradenton, FL) has launched a proprietary combination of 

 (LJ100) standardized extracts, called NuFemme, that addresses symptoms of peri-menopause.

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, published in 

 administration of NuFemme was associated with improvements in symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause. In the study, 119 healthy women between the ages of 41 and 55 experiences peri-menopause and menopause symptoms were given either NuFemme or placebo daily for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint of the study was the frequency and severity of hot flushes with the secondary endpoints being the frequency and severity of joint pain, the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) and Menopause-Specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire domain scores, as well as the concentrations of serum hormone, lipid profile, bone markers, sleep quality and vitality.

Results showed that subjects taking NuFemme experienced improvements in the severity and frequency of hot flushes at 12 weeks, but these improvements were not statistically significant compared to placebo. Subjects taking NuFemme did however experience significant improvements in MRS and MENQOL scores at 12 and 24 weeks, respectively, as well as significant reductions in luteinising hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone levels at 12 and 24 weeks, respectively, compared to placebo. Additionally, NuFemme supplementation resulted in significant reductions in serum low-density lipid and triglyceride levels at 12 weeks, compared to no change in placebo.

“NuFemme is an ingredient that is versatile for formulators,” said Annie Eng, CEO and found of HP Ingredients, in a press release. “It can be a standalone ingredient in a women-focused line of products, it can be blended with other proven menopausal-support ingredients for a targeted formula, and it can also be incorporated into multivitamins targeted towards women experiencing peri-menopausal symptoms.”

Chinnappan, S.M.; George, A.; Evans, M.; Anthony, J. Efficacy of 

 Standardised Extracts on Hot Flushes, Quality of Life, Hormone and Lipid Profile of Peri-Menopausal and Menopausal Women: A Randomised, Placebo-Controlled Study. 

NuFemme may supports symptoms of menopause, as well as support hormone and lipid profiles of peri-menopausal and menopausal women.

HP Ingredients launches new ingredient to address peri-menopause and menopause symptoms

Capsules have never looked better. During our meetings at March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA, companies showed us their latest nutraceutical capsules with high visual appeal. At the Lonza Capsules & Health Ingredients (Greenwood, SC) booth, the company debuted its Capsugel Wave technology that enables water- and oil-based ingredients to be simultaneously combined in the same capsule. 

Mixing the water- and oil-based liquids in one capsule also creates a unique, gradated visual effect. For instance, if the oil-based and water-based liquids are tinted, their colors remain mostly separated in the capsule—since one liquid is in water phase and one is in oil phase—but, at the point where they meet, the liquids’ colors mingle to produce a “blurred” color effect. The liquid color can either come inherently from the ingredients themselves—ingredients like lutein or astaxanthin have a natural hue, for instance—or color can be added using Lonza’s array of natural food-sourced colors.

Functionally, the capsule is for companies “who are just looking for that one-dose release profile,” said Marketing Manager Juliana Erickson at Expo West. Customers seeking multiple-release profiles can opt for the other numerous capsule-design options in Capsugel’s line, such as beadlet or capsule-in-a-capsule technologies.

The new Wave technology lends itself to a variety of marketing concepts, said Zain Saiyed, PhD, FACN, the company’s head of global product development and innovation, at Expo West. For instance, an immunity product could combine vitamin C and oil-soluble vitamin D. Or a sleep product could combine lavender oil and water-soluble melatonin. For brain health, the capsule could marry an algal DHA ingredient and a water-soluble ingredient like choline.

There are additional practical benefits as well. Erickson said Capsugel Wave helps formulators “increase the load, so you’re able to decrease the amount of excipients that you use. So that creates a cleaner label formula with fewer additives.”

The capsules’ visual appeal will also motivate consumers to stick with their supplement regimen. “We’ve had a lot of good feedback on this,” Erickson said. “People just love the look. It’s aesthetically pleasing, and it really fits in with what consumers are looking for nowadays, which is building that routine, whether it’s your sleep routine or your beauty routine…The more experiential it can be, the more they’ll want to put it into their routine.”

With consumer experience in mind, Lonza continues rolling out its new flavor  and aroma capsule coatings, which the company 

 at last November’s SupplySide West trade show. 

Imbuing an already visually appealing capsule with complementary flavors and aromas adds to the consumer’s experience. For instance, said Erickson, imagine the aforementioned sleep-product capsule combining melatonin and lavender oil. What if you added lavender aroma to the capsule? “So you open up the bottle and you smell the lavender, and then you take the capsule, which has other ingredients in it to help with sleep,” Erickson said. “It’s a whole experience that you can easily remember to do—and want to do and look forward to doing. That really increases compliance on the consumer’s side.”


Lonza’s new Capsugel Wave technology enables companies to encapsulate, simultaneously, oil- and water-based ingredients in one capsule, while achieving a unique, gradated visual effect.

Cool capsules! Lonza’s new Capsugel Wave technology makes a splash at Natural Products Expo West

 While gummies and pills remain popular supplement delivery forms, marketers predict that more consumers will also demand functional foods and beverages moving forward. Many ingredient suppliers in the health and wellness industry are already rising to the challenge of ensuring their ingredients can go beyond tablets and capsules and survive demanding food and beverage manufacturing processes which often involve high heat, high pressure, and additional challenges. At March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA, we spoke to two companies who discussed their ingredients’ transition to the food world.

The ingredient EpiCor, a postbiotic comprising whole-food fermentate from yeast 

has long been an established branded ingredient in the immune-health supplements market. The ingredient, which is backed by more than a dozen published studies, is now touting its compatibility with foods and beverages. As a postbiotic, EpiCor can withstand processing conditions that other types of ‘biotics, like some live probiotic bacteria, can’t.

“EpiCor will always have a strong foothold in supplements. It’s been where we’ve spent a lot of time and energy, focusing specifically on the dietary supplement category,” said Jenna Nelson, channel lead, EpiCor Postbiotic, a Cargill brand, at Expo West.

Now, however, the company is promoting EpiCor's benefits for health and beverages. “Based on the makeup of EpiCor and the fact that it provides health benefits but is also inanimate, it allows formulation flexibility into foods and beverages that a lot of other 'biotics—and by that, I mean most probiotics—can’t withstand, such as high heat and acidity,” Nelson said.

In short, she said, the company is now stressing that one of EpiCor’s “major selling points” is that it’s inanimate. “So you can put it into all these foods and beverages and still have it maintain its efficacious dose. We’ve done a lot of prototype work over the past 12 months in everything from a cookie to a smoothie to a chocolate, even hard candies. So we’ve developed a lot of prototypes that we’re then showcasing to potential customers as far as how they can bring EpiCor to market.”

The ingredient is also making inroads in the pet nutrition space. The company’s EpiCor Pets line is clinically studied in dogs and cats, offering benefits to animals including digestive and immune health, skin and coat health, and allergy relief.

Over in the collagen market, representatives from Lonza Capsules & Health Ingredients (Greenwood, SC) discussed how the company has begun testing its flagship UC-II undenatured type II collagen ingredient in food and drinks.

“We tested UC-II in food and beverage applications beyond supplements, and it seems that it’s very stable in those prototypes that we tested,” said Elnaz Azari, PhD research and innovation project leader, Lonza Capsules & Health Ingredients, at Expo West. Those prototypes ranged from nutrition bars and pet foods, which undergo extrusion; dairy products, which undergo ultra-high-temperature processing; and carbonated and non-carbonated beverages—far beyond the gummies and pills that most companies had previously been formulating EpiCor into. 

“In different degrees, we tested, and it retained its structure, stability, and the amount of undenatured type collagen," Azari said. Lonza also used a proprietary version of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to confirm how much native type II collagen survived in the final products. (UC-II is also unique in that it’s effective at a very small, 40-mg dose.)

“This is something very interesting and new for the UC-II ingredient that expands our market beyond supplements,” Azari concluded.

Ingredient suppliers from all reaches of the health and wellness industry are validating their ingredients for food and drink delivery systems.

Suppliers ready their ingredients for functional food and drinks: Natural Products Expo West report

Not so long ago, when you said “juice,” people pictured either an orange juice you’d drink at breakfast or maybe an apple juice you’d give to kids. How times have changed. Today, juice can be a sophisticated, indulgent treat. At the March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA, FruitSmart Inc. (Prosser, WA), a supplier and processor of fruit- and vegetable-based juices and ingredients, discussed why, with the addition of functional ingredients, nuanced and interesting flavors, and even smaller packaging sizes, the juice market can capture a new subset of customers.

“The real trend of juice has always been focused on breakfast time—100% orange juice, apple juice, cranberry juice,” said Wayne Lutomski, the company’s president, at Expo West. But, like it did toward so many things, the COVID-19 pandemic changed consumers’ feelings.

“As part of COVID,” Lutomski said, “people were looking for new flavor experiences, and they want 100% juices that have unique blends to help deliver that. It’s an indulgent treat for them. So you get a little bit of the health benefits from the fruit and the juices, but you get a neat flavor experience, too.”

Their preferences will also depend on when they’re drinking juice. For instance, Lutomski said, “if they’re drinking something in the evening, they want a flavor experience that goes beyond an apple or an orange.” They’re looking for flavors more sophisticated, unusual, and adventurous, he said.

At the show, Lutomski shared some of FruitSmart's juice concepts catering to this new kind of consumer. One was a juice combining apple, beetroot, and red and black pepper. Lutomski said FruitSmart has partnerships in place with vegetable suppliers (like the one who supplied the red and black pepper) and botanical suppliers to source these added ingredients.

Companies not only have the option of enticing consumers with unexpected flavors and spices to create exciting new juice flavors, they can also promote ingredients that add functional health benefits. For instance, at the show, FruitSmart distributed prototypes of an “immunity blend” juice combining seven different types of juices and herbs: raspberry, blueberry, elderberry, apple, acai, vanilla, ginger, and turmeric. Yet another sample was a smoothie-like juice containing raspberry juice, protein, and fiber. The fiber is upcycled from fruits and added back into the juice to boost protein content. (FruitSmart has expertise in a broad range of applications, including juices, purees, concentrates, essences, fibers, seeds, seed oils, and seed powders.)

Botanicals with relaxation or energizing effects are trending, as are herbal ingredients like lavender, hibiscus, and echinacea, Lutomski said. These lend not only unique flavor but health appeal.

To blend all these ingredients into a pleasant-tasting mix requires expertise, he said. Take the immunity-blend prototype. “There are seven different juices in that one. How do you find the right balance for that?" he said. "You need somebody who knows what they’re doing to get that right balance and deliver that for the consumer. Fortunately, that’s something we have and can do.”

Another trend he sees coming down the line for juices is smaller packaging. Lutomski thinks that as consumers become increasingly interested in consuming juice as a treat, they’ll want it in smaller serving sizes, “so you want to have really creative packaging in a small pack.”

As a final tip, Lutomski advised that apple juice can be a carrier for flavoring, one that doesn’t overpower other flavors and that can actually help blend flavors out and give the overall product a better mouthfeel. “Apple juice really is a fundamental base for a lot of these flavors that you can do. And it also helps because it’s relatively inexpensive right now compared to, say, orange. Apple is typically your least-expensive fruit juice that you can find. And that helps. And because it’s such a great carrier for other flavors, you can do a cost-effective product in the marketplace. And that’s really important right now because everyone is fighting inflation, and retailers are pushing suppliers to bring the price down. Apple works really well in that scenario.”

At Expo West, FruitSmart, a supplier of fruit- and vegetable-based juices and ingredients, explained how consumer perceptions of juice are changing.

Juice is now an indulgent treat rather than just a breakfast-time staple: Natural Products Expo West report

Nuun's new Sport Hydration Electrolyte Powder Drink Mix. Photo from Nuun.

 the Nuun hydration-products brand. Founded in 2014, Nuun is known for its just-add-to-water electrolyte effervescent tablets that help keep consumers hydrated. At March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA, the brand rolled out its newest offering, for the first time branching out into a mix-in powder for its flagship Nuun Sport Hydration product.

Anthony Iannello, Nuun’s director of brand marketing, explained why the company decided to introduce its first mix-in powder. The mix-in powder, he said, is even more portable than the effervescent tablets. Whereas the tablets come in a tube of 10 tablets—already very portable—the mix-in powder is even more convenient in stick packs that let customers carry around single servings at a time. Product-wise, another difference is that the tablets are effervescent, providing a carbonated experience, while the mix-in powder is not.

There’s another way the mix-in powder stands out. “The powders are actually being categorized as a food versus a supplement, which allows the brand to make some stronger claims around hydration as a food supplement,” Iannello said. The company calls the powder an “electrolyte drink mix” instead of, say, an “electrolyte supplement.” It's positioned as a food much in the way that other sports powders are positioned as food.

Vishal Patel, Nuun’s director of product development, explained why the company is heading in this direction. “By classifying it as a food, we can make more compliant claims around it being a drink mix—that it’s for hydration, that it’s for water,” he said. This communicates to the consumer that a hydration product like Nuun is more than just a supplement.

“With supplements—technically, you don’t need to take supplements, right?” Patel said. “They’re meant to supplement your diet. When you add the word 

in my opinion, people think they don’t need it. It’s like, ‘Okay, I can supplement this, but maybe I’m already getting enough electrolytes in XYZ.’…But with food, you need food to live. You need hydration to live. So when you have products that fit in that category, it’s not an added supplement; it should be more regularly in your food intake…The proper positioning for the product should be a food because hydration is a necessity.”

By portraying hydration as a daily requirement and not just a supplemental concern, Nuun is expanding its audience to all people, not just sports enthusiasts. “Our positioning is around proactive hydration and trying to make hydration a daily need state,” Iannello said. “Being a food plays more into that—that this is a need, not a supplement to your lifestyle. Hydration is an everyday need.”

This message is the basis of Nuun’s new “But First, Nuun” consumer marketing campaign, which the company is now rolling out. “What Nuun is trying to do is educate consumers on the benefits of proactive hydration, on not waiting until you’re at a point where you need to replenish, recover, or rehydrate,” Iannello explained.

This is a departure from how hydration products have been marketed. Typically, he said, “the hydration category has been positioned as either being 1) seasonal, as in it’s only needed when it’s really hot out; 2) occasional, as in I only need it after I exercise to replenish; or 3) reactive, as electrolytes for post-exercise. It’s been about replenishing, recovering.”

“What we really want to preach,” he continued, “is that daily, proactive hydration is really how consumers should view that need state.”

With more consumers paying attention to health and wellness nowadays, now is an opportune time to spread that message. “It’s interesting,” Iannello said, “Hydration has really come to the forefront recently with consumers as being the number-one health and wellness strategy for 2023…I think there [are reports] that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, and I think if you surveyed 10 folks, you’d probably hear 7 or 8 of them say, ‘Yeah, I have headaches,’ or ‘I’m groggy because I’m not hydrating enough.’”

The hydration category itself has changed over the years. Whereas hydration used to just mean “sports drinks,” today, Iannello said, Nuun sees the category more as “functional hydration.”

“Now you’ve got this functional-hydration segment, which includes Nuun, and it’s grown exponentially. It straddles more than one aisle of the store. Retailers are still trying to find the right place to sell it,” he said. “And it’s exciting.”

Promoting the benefits of functional hydration will benefit the entire market, Iannello said. “I look at it as a rising tide lifts all ships. As awareness of functional hydration grows, it’s only going to benefit a brand like Nuun…That’s partly why we are so excited about this ‘But First, Nuun’ campaign and this core insight of proactive hydration, because we feel that a lot of the competitors really talk about hydration as 

 And this is an opportunity for Nuun to occupy a white space and really help consumers reshape how they perceive hydration as a daily need state, as a daily habit.”

Another way Nuun changed the market, he said, was by separating the concept of electrolyte replacement and carbohydrates, opening the door to hydration beverages without a lot of extra sugar.

“Historically,” Iannello explained, “the sports drinks category was very much built on an optimal formula that includes carbohydrates in addition to the electrolytes.”

Patel added, “When you look at sports drinks—the traditional ones like Gatorade, etc., in the 1960s—when they wanted to create a sports drink, they wanted to do two things. One, they know that electrolytes help with hydration, almost solely replenishing what you lose in your sweat and help with the absorption of fluid. Second, sugar and carbs help with energy. Gatorade was developed for football players who need a higher amount of carbohydrates because it’s a really high-intensity sport. So they essentially just combined those two. They said, ‘Let’s just put energy 

But an effective electrolyte product doesn’t need enormous amounts of sugar; it just needs a small amount of carbohydrate to activate the electrolytes’ absorption and render them useful in the body.

Glucose does aid absorption, Patel said. “Yes, the glucose will help,” he explained. “Water and electrolytes will absorb passively. There are two types of absorption—active, when you need something to speed it up, and passive, like when we drink water it’s going to absorb. It’s going to take time, because depending on your hydration status, it may have to pull electrolytes or even glucose from your small intestine to absorb it. We know that, in the absence of sugar, it’s going to absorb, but when you add a little bit of sugar—we feel like it’s the 1 g we’ve done a lot of research on—it activates a mechanism where it turns from passive absorption to active absorption…So when you combine that glucose with that sodium molecule, it just speeds things up.” Absent the presence of glucose, he said, the body will still absorb electrolytes, just more slowly, and your body may feel somewhat bloated, which is “just your body telling you that it needs something to pull the water into circulation,” he said.

But, again, that doesn’t mean consumers 

a super high amount of carbohydrates in their electrolyte products. Over the past 10 years, Nuun has done clinical research to identify what it believes is the most effective ratio of electrolytes and sugar. Its products are formulated with just 1 g of sugar, which it believes is all that’s needed to aid electrolyte absorption.

It’s also allowed Nuun to set itself apart from other higher-sugar hydration products on the market. The brand touts its products as containing 90% less sugar than “the leading electrolyte drink mix.” Less sugar also benefits consumers who may experience gastrointestinal issues when drinking overly-sugared products, Patel added.

Essentially, he said, by giving consumers the option of a product that focuses mainly on electrolytes and not carbohydrates, it gives them flexibility to take Nuun for electrolytes and then to consume carbohydrates in other ways. For instance, Patel said, consumers could eat a nutrition bar or a banana to boost carbohydrates. “And then leave Nuun to just the hydration,” he said.

Nuun is launching a new mainstream ad campaign to communicate to consumers why daily, proactive hydration is critical.

Nestlé’s Nuun brand explains why its new hydration product shouldn’t be considered a supplement but rather a daily necessity like food: Natural Products Expo West report

In the U.S., organic wheat is the largest organic grain/seed crop with 451 million acres, followed by organic corn with 319,953 acres (based on data from 2019).

https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/grains-oilseeds/corn-grain

Fun fact! In the U.S., organic wheat is the largest organic grain/seed crop with 451 million acres, followed by organic corn with 319,953 acres.

Organic grain

 titled “Protections For People With An Eating Disorder” has been 

 to remove restrictions to the sale of dietary supplements marketed for weight management. Industry trade groups and stakeholders such as the Natural Products Association (NPA; Washington, D.C.) and Natural Grocers have been actively lobbying lawmakers in Colorado to protect consumer access to dietary supplements. Similar bills targeting dietary supplements have been recently vetoed by governors in the states of 

“This is a big victory for consumer access in Colorado and we want to thank Majority Leader Moreno for his leadership and willingness to collaborate on a good solution. We wish more state lawmakers in other capitals would exercise the same approach to science, reason, and common sense,” said Kyle Turk, director of government affairs for the Natural Products Association (NPA; Washington, D.C.). “Far too often, legislators simply ignore science, data and the consequences of poorly-designed legislation that ends up hurting consumers, but this was not one of those instances. Our team immediately had the opportunity to share the impact language in the bill would have on consumers and industry stakeholders. We are grateful to the Majority leader and other stakeholders in the eating disorder community who considered the facts and recognized that there is no data point connecting eating disorders and the use of dietary supplements.”

A Colorado Senate Bill (SB 23-176) titled “Protections For People With An Eating Disorder” has been amended to remove restrictions to the sale of dietary supplements marketed for weight management.

Colorado bill for protection of people with eating disorders amended to remove restrictions to dietary supplements

Pharmako Biotechnologies (N.S.W., Australia), a delivery systems innovator focused on solutions for lipophilic ingredients, talked about its new PlexoZome liposomal technology at March’s Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA. PlexoZome is Pharmako’s fourth innovative delivery platform to enter the market. It joins the company’s AquaCelle micellar delivery system, its LipiSperse powder-dispersion technology, and its compressible powdered oil technology. These technologies render difficult-to-disperse and difficult-to-absorb ingredients easier to formulate with and more bioavailable.

At Expo West, Pharmako’s cofounder and commercial director, Eric Meppem, said, “The beauty with the PlexoZome technology, which is the trade name for our liposomal tech, is that we can apply it to both hydrophilic and lipophilic actives.” This is a new step for the company, whose previous technologies were mostly designed to help with lipophilic ingredients like carotenoids, polyphenols, omega-3s, and CoQ10.

Meppem explained that liposomes are bi-layered structures with an aqueous core and a liquid-filled ring that allow the combination of both hydrophilic and lipophilic substances.

Liposomal technology has become quite trendy in the nutrition space today, Meppem said. However, he alleged, “most people have been looking at liposomes, but they haven’t necessarily done a lot of work with some of the science to support them.”

What does that mean for health and wellness companies? It means that if they’re buying a liposomal ingredient from a supplier with assurances that it is a true liposome—but it really 

a liposome—the buyer is getting fleeced.

In fact, Meppem said, liposomes are complicated to work with. Not everyone can create nor validate a true liposome. “Liposomes are quite technical,” he said. “Liposomes don’t occur naturally. It’s not like you mix something up and form an emulsion; you actually have to create them. They don’t occur spontaneously. They don’t happen by themselves. It’s a pharma tech that’s been translated across to nutraceuticals.”

First off, he said, a manufacturer needs to have the right knowledge to produce liposomes. “Liposomes are really small,” Meppem said. “ We’re talking a thousandth the size of a piece of human hair. So, really tiny. They’re a nanostructured vesicle. To get something that tiny, you need to have the right equipment and the right process—and, obviously, the right ingredients.”

Unfortunately, not all companies have the required expertise. Some of those companies are now coming to light. “There’s people in the market—in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in the UK,” Meppem said. “In the UK, a couple of brands have famously been told to either take them off the market or stop calling them liposomes by the fair-trade commissioner over there. So there have been cases around the world now, and we know just from what we’ve seen on shelf and what’s at market that there are some proper liposomes, and there are some which are definitely not liposomes.”

One way to tell if a liposome is actually a liposome is to conduct testing, he said. “There’s a couple of ways to validate them,” he said. The first is to examine their size to ensure they are nanoparticles and not just microparticles. Secondly, he said, you need to measure the structure’s “zeta potential” (liposomes are negatively charged). Then, you can even use a transmission electron microscope and employ other tools, like a cryochamber, to examine the structure further and ensure it’s actually a bi-layered structure.

Doing such inspections has enabled his company to catch non-liposomes on the market. “When we looked at one of the competitors, it looked, from a particle analysis and from zeta potential, that they almost formed liposomes, but under the transmission electron microscope, it was like a stringy structure. So they’d almost formed liposomes, but they were almost more like a microemulsion or a nanoemulsion,” Meppem said. “When we looked at PlexoZome from Pharmako, they were discreet little circles.”

To demonstrate that PlexoZome is truly liposomal technology, Meppem said Pharmako has just started working with two different universities on mechanistic and pharmacokinetic studies to demonstrate absorption both orally and topically. Meanwhile, for those companies working with a liposomal supplier, he advised asking the manufacturer how they are validating that its products are truly liposomes.

The company explained why its PlexoZome liposomes are true liposomes—and why others on the market might not be.

Is your liposome ingredient really a liposome? Pharmako Biotechnologies advises testing to be sure. Natural Products Expo West report

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has signed 

 into law to regulate the sale of delta-8 THC products. The bill implements part of Beshear’s Novemeber 2022 

 establishing a regulatory structure for the safe sale and purchase of delta-8 THC.

“This regulatory structure to ensure that Delta 8 is sold and purchased safely in the commonwealth can and will also serve as a template for when the General Assembly fully legalizes medical cannabis,” said Beshear in a statement. “We want Kentuckians to have access to the resources they need for relief. We want to make sure they can do that safely, and this bill is a good first step.”

“House Bill 544 makes it illegal for anybody under the age of 21 to purchase Delta 8. It’s going to require it to be behind the counter or in a secure cabinet, and it’s going to require labeling and batch testing to look for those dangerous residuals that can be left behind,” said Representative Rebecca Raymer, one of the bill’s sponsors. “I want to thank the great leadership team that was supportive of this bill and my colleagues in the House and Senate for voting unanimously for it, and I thank Governor Beshear for signing this important piece of legislation today.”

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has signed House Bill 544 into law to regulate the sale of delta-8 THC products.

Featured Content

Do immune health claims attract regulatory attention?

Is a decline in immune health supplement sales inevitable?