10-year-old Swiss biotech firm Evolva has completed the resveratrol manufacturing cost-reduction programme it embarked on for the antioxidant nearly two years ago when it bought defunct Fluxome’s business for €550,000.
Regular consumption of flavanols and flavanone bioactive compounds, found in tea, citrus fruits and fruit juices, can lower the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 21%, according to a cohort study involving nearly 180,000 women and begun in 1976.
The UK should update vitamin D food and supplement content estimations that have the knock-on effect of distorting population intake levels of the sunshine vitamin by about 3%, a study has concluded.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition has launched a new tool for members that puts together in one place data on recent enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission regardling claims made in advertising. The resource can help them avoid making...
Thera Innovations, a Canadian importer of dietary supplement ingreidients, has anounced a new supply deal for more bioavailable forms of curcumin and quercitin. The ingredients, branded as Theracumin and EMIQ, and are souced from Theravalues Corporation,...
Futureceuticals says its HiActives broccoli sprout powder fills the void for a highly functional functional food and supplement ingredient, as the firm’s proprietary sprouting process and gentle-drying method creates a whole sprout powder (not an extract)...
Dietary capsaicin – the active ingredient found in chilli peppers – may trigger a reaction that reduces the risk of colorectal tumours, according to Californian research on mice.
Dutch-Swiss ingredients giant DSM Nutritional Products (DNP) has called ‘time’ on Teavigo, a decade after launching the proprietary, weight management-focused green tea extract.
Puna Noni, a Hawaiian company marketing juice of the tropical Noni fruit, has received a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration citing numerous violations, including cancer treatment claims and GMP failures. Considering the exhaustive list...
Long-term use of vitamin C and E supplements do not increase the risk of cancer, while vitamin C may offer some colorectal benefits, according to a new analysis from Harvard researchers.
The science to support the potential benefits of nicotinamide riboside for age-related conditions continues to grow, with a new study from Europe indicating the compound may boost the number and size of mitochondria.
An article published this week by the American Botanical Council lays out the story underlying a German court’s recent decision to lift a ban on kava, including the ways in which the legal goalposts moved around during the process. Kava’s reinstatement,...
Plandai Biotechnology Inc. will not be required to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for New Dietary Ingredient status in order to market and sell its Phytofare Catechin Complex as a dietary supplement, enabling the firm to start marketing...
The amount of polyphenols absorbed and used by the body may be greater when taken with other polyphenols, according to a research review of the antioxidants.
The Food and Drug Administration has overstepped its bounds by ruling that a study’s endpoints, rather than the intended use of the product or ingredient being studies, determines whether an Investigational New Drug application must be filed in the opinion...
Consulting firm Ingredient Identity is offering a way to help companies manage their social media platforms to avoid crossing regulatory boundaries. The new subscription service can help flag posts that make disease claims that could bring unwanted attention...
The transformation of Rainbow Light mirrors that of the herbal industry as a whole, the company's new director of integrative science says. Christopher Hobbs, a fairly newly-minted PhD, has worked with the firm as a formulator from the beginning...
A response published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine by four well-known nutrition researchers takes strident issue with an editorial published in the same journal that multivitamins are not useful. The authors of the first paper “ignored decades...
Magic bullet syndrome is something that has plagued the dietary supplement ingredient business over the years. While this is often negative for consumers, who put their faith into an overhyped (while still possibly effective) ingredient, it’s not so good...
A polyphenol-rich supplement containing broccoli, green tea, tumeric, and pomegranete - a combination known as pomi-t - could have significant clinical benefits for men with prostate cancer, according to new data.
Cocoa polyphenols can suppress oxidative stress that provokes the proliferation of cancerous cells in the colon, according to a study published in the book Cancer: Oxidative Stress and Dietary Antioxidants.
A new study that concludes that high intakes of resveratrol may not reduce a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer has ‘very little to offer in the way of new or compelling information’, says the managing director of Biotivia.
Breast and colorectalcancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D at the time of diagnosis may have better chances of survival and remain in remission longer those who are deficient, according to a scientific review.
A vitamin A form called retinoic acid that is commonly found in sweet potatoes and carrots, can help turn breast cells showing cancerous potential back to a healthy state, researchers have found.
When scientists seek to counteract bad press for omega-3s it is a matter of taking two steps forward while taking one back, said Bruce Holub, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
The unique microbial composition of female breast tissue has given scientists new insight into the interaction between different bacteria in the human body and the effects this has on health.
Booming consumer demand for curcumin is driving an innovative but highly competitive supplier landscape, but Terry Lemerond, founder & president of EuroPharma,Inc., says his company has never talked down the competition, preferring to talk up their...
Folic acid is backed to deliver important health benefits in the scientific literature and by regulators – but is over-consumption a real problem? asks Robert Verkerk, PhD, the founder, executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health...
Innovation in omega-3s has come in many forms. New delivery modes, new raw material sources, and new chemical forms. But through it all, the story has always been about EPA and DHA as whole molecules. That might be about to change.
The economic downturn has had a depressing effect on new product launches in the herbal dietary supplement industry, said Steve French, managing director of the Natural Marketing Institute. But the good news is that opportunity abounds, in that herbal...
Evidence for the nutrtional benefits of bioactives is steadily accumulating, and the time has come engage regulators in a process of determining dietary reference intakes (DRIs) for the best-researched substances, said Jim Griffiths, vice president of...
Breast cancer patients with high levels of vitamin D in their blood are twice as likely to survive the disease as those with lower levels, new research has suggested.
The makeup of microbes living in our gut may be a risk factor for colorectal cancer and could drive the development of intestinal tumours, say researchers.
Biomimicry, or the practice of taking cues from nature for design of products for human use, could transform the way dietary supplments manufacturers interact with their consumers, an expert says.
The final report from a government task force finding no preventive effect of multivitamin usage in relation to cancer and cardiovascular disease has been modified in an appropriate way to reflect the tight focus of the review, said the Council for Responsible...
Influential figures in the herbal sphere aren’t always involved in what most would term “natural” products. So it is with Gordon M Cragg, PhD, the latest recepient of a prominent award from the American Botanical Council.
Biothera, a company long known for an extensive research program backing both its nutraceutical and pharmaceutical ingredients derived from bakers yeast, has completed a mode of action study on its Wellmune dietary supplement ingedient.
MegaFood, a leading manufacurer of whole food supplements, has teamed up with an organic orange juice supplier for a ‘grove to tablet’ line of vitamin C supplements.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a long awaited brief in POM Wonderful’s appeal of a false advertising case against the company. As expected, FTC contends that POM’s ads were deceptive, and the company lacked sufficient clinical data to back up...
Once again, negative results from a tightly focused study with a nutraceutical ingredient have been generalized in the mainstream media as a blanket condemnation. In this case, it was the news that megadoses of vitamin E fed to cancer-prone mice caused...
Tea polyphenols are poised to enjoy strong growth over the next decade, with a new market report calling for the global market in the ingredients to hit $368 million by 2020. That makes sense to observers, who say the popularity of tea, green tea in...
With surging interest in the potential health benefits of polyphenols around the globe, experts suggest that there are still some major sticking points in the polyphenol success story.
Bioavailability has always been the achilles heel of polyphenols. Scientist felt they had a good handle on why these molecules exerted their health effects, but had a far less clear view of how to get them to the locations in the body where they could...
A paradigm shift is needed in the study of polyphenols to better understand the bioavailability, bio-activity, and the role of the gut microbiota in polyphenol metabolism and health benefits, say experts from academia and industry.
Vitamin D could play a vital role in the regulation of cardiovascular function - and the risk of several disease states - by controlling arterial stiffness and levels of nitric oxide, according to new research in mice.
A patent-pending blend of compounds from kava with none of the potentially adverse liver effects may see the much-maligned herb re-emerge in the dietary supplement space, say researchers from the University of Minnesota.
By Michael McGuffin, President of the American Herbal Products Association
The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) is planning for 2014 with the assumption that the hot button issues for the New Year are likely to include three of the same subjects that demanded our attention in 2013: cGMP compliance, GMO labeling, and...
Many large clinical trials of vitamin supplements, including those concluding vitamins are of no value or may even be harmful, have a flawed methodologies that means they are 'useless' in determining the real value of such micronutrients, according...
By Steve Mister, President & CEO, Council for Responsible Nutrition
These are confusing times to be a dietary supplement consumer – one day, a particular nutrient is touted as a magic bullet, and the next it’s a waste of money. In this constant news cycle we live in, consumers are left even more puzzled about what’s really...
