The benefits of fermented nutrients with Ralf Jäger

Sebastian Krawiec: Pharmachem is showcasing GPM Fermented Nutrients this year as SupplySide Global. I wonder if you can kind of talk about what exactly are the benefits of fermenting nutrients.

Ralf Jäger: So, the GPM technology actually is a double fermentation process. You take a mineral or vitamin, you go through a yeast fermentation and then through a probiotic fermentation. And the outcome of that actually is you're taking your mineral and you're encapsulating it in a food style matrix, so it's encapsulated with carbohydrates and protein, and as a consequence, the product is a food based mineral now, so it's easier on your stomach, so you have less side effects from taking it, but it also increases the absorption of those ingredients. For example, in clinical studies, if you're taking zinc, you can actually see a 40% increase in zinc absorption into your blood; iron, for example, around 30%.

SK: What is the advantage from kind of a production standpoint of fermenting versus like other types of delivery systems, like micro encapsulation, or liposomes, stuff like that.

RJ: So you basically want to mimic food. You basically want to take the minerals from like a food style matrix. So, whilst the other encapsulation methods also increase the absorption, liposomes, for example, but we actually using a real food matrix that consists of protein and carbohydrates, so macronutrients that you need.

SK: Can you talk about some of the recent research you guys have done on fermented zinc and iron and what that found? Yeah,

RJ: So, we did a study on we did a couple of different studies. One was on GPM Zinc. We took the zinc oxide, compared it to the GPM Zinc, and then we measured zinc concentrations in plasma after oral ingestion of the product. We found a 40% increase in zinc concentrations for using the same amount of zinc, either from original mineral or from the GPM technology. And the same is true for iron. So we did a study similar to that, where we actually looked at iron concentrations in plasma after the ingestion, and found that GPM, again, increases the concentration of iron that you see in the blood, in this case, around 30-35%.

SK: You also have GPM Immunity Blend with the addition of a postbiotic. What is the significance of that additional postbiotic?

RJ: So, what we're doing in the double fermentation, the first is the yeast fermentation, and then there's a probiotic fermentation. Then the product goes through a heat, spray drying process that actually will kill the bacteria. The probiotic becomes a postbiotic. So, we actually selected a probiotic strain that once it's actually heat killed, that remains in the product and becomes a postbiotic, and at exactly the levels that we have in the product, it has clinical studies showing that it improves your immune health. So not only do you get the improved absorption of the mineral or vitamins, you have an additional immune benefit coming from the postbiotic that remains in the product.