Tapping Into the Power and Potential of Bioactives

Move over vitamins. Bioactives are the new frontier of functional ingredients.

Bioactives are small molecular compounds found in plants, fungi, and aquatic sources. Recently, there’s been a surge in interest in identifying bioactive compounds with the potential to be used in food formulations thanks to their potential health benefits.

“Plant bioactives are where it’s at right now,” says food scientist and researcher Taylor Wallace, a member of the Bioactives Coalition, a group formed last year to promote awareness of bioactives. As an editor on three scientific journals, Wallace says he sees a steady flow of article submissions on the topic of bioactive compounds.

Bioactives differ from classical nutrients associated with deficiency diseases in that the lack of them won’t necessarily have a negative health impact, the way, for instance, a lack of vitamin C can lead to scurvy. However, while a growing number of bioactives have been linked to health benefits, only about 1% of useful bioactives have been identified, says Jan-Willem van Klinken, senior vice president of medical, scientific, and regulatory affairs at bioscience startup Brightseed.

“We have seen, especially in the last 10, 20 years, that more and more of these compounds actually confer health benefits, and they’re basically an untapped potential,” says van Klinken.

Lutein, for example, has been linked to eye health and preventing macular degeneration and cataracts, and resveratrol has been linked to cardiovascular health. Earlier this year Brightseed teamed up with hemp brand Manitoba Harvest on the launch of a fiber supplement formulated with a bioactive fiber found in hemp hulls. The new powdered product supports gut health, the companies claim.

There’s been a spike in interest in bioactive ingredients as people have become more concerned about health and immunity since the COVID pandemic, says Mayuresh Bedekar, director of product strategy–bioactives at Glanbia Nutritionals, a global supplier of nutritional ingredients. And more money is being committed to research, Bedekar adds.

“There is a lot more research and a lot more safety data that is coming out,” Bedekar says. “A lot more claims are being made on finished products, mainly on dietary supplements.”

The Road to Recommendations

However, there are still hurdles when it comes to making claims and recommendations.

Companies that formulate products using bioactive ingredients with documented benefits may be eligible to make structure/function claims, which can only use specific language to describe how they may impact, as the name denotes, the structure or function of a human body. These claims aren’t preapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); it’s the producer’s responsibility to back up their claims and the company must file a notice with the FDA when it brings such a product to market.

Producers can also take the GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) designation approach for new substances like bioactives that are intended to be added to food. GRAS means that there’s an expert consensus that an ingredient is safe when used properly.

Companies can either choose GRAS “self-determination,” where a company doesn’t need to let the FDA know it’s using an ingredient in a food, or a GRAS Notice, which is a scientifically supported formal declaration.

“When it comes to bioactives, there are two things we need to prove,” Bedekar says. “One is the efficacy at a particular dose, and the second thing is the safety at that particular dose in the target consumer base.”

Wallace was a member of the expert panel with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that published the first ever guideline and intake recommendation for flavan-3-ols, a group of bioactive compounds found in apples and tea, among other sources, which have been linked to heart health. The recommended intake is 400 milligrams to 600 milligrams per day. The research done to support this recommendation, he says, laid the groundwork for data and evidence required to make a recommendation for bioactives.

Wallace thinks that there are a few other bioactives, including lutein and anthocyanins, that are ready for intake recommendations because there’s enough evidence to indicate the possibility that they provide health benefits. “There are probably a handful of others that one could argue would be approaching what would be a reasonable amount of evidence to say, okay, this warrants an expert group to look at this data,” says Wallace.

But few bioactives have sufficient evidence yet to back up benefit claims and intake recommendations. Brightseed’s van Klinken says that developing daily recommended intakes (DRIs) for bioactives is challenging. “Developing a DRI is very costly and time prohibitive,” he says.

He thinks that bioactives are sufficiently different from other supplements and classical nutrients, like vitamins, that they may warrant a separate review framework.

The food industry is certainly paying attention to bioactive ingredients, says van Klinken. “My experience is that the food industry is very interested,” he says. “It sees this as a way of differentiation in their current product portfolio.”

Glanbia’s Bedekar agrees and points out that bioactives are being used as a “plus” selling point. Bioactives are being added to healthy snacks, energy beverages, cereals, and cookies. “A lot of these manufacturers and brands are saturated with their product offerings,” he says. “If you have a protein bar, can you add a bioactive to it to make it that plus?”

For food companies and producers looking to add bioactives to their recipes, there are considerations. One important one is the sensory impact, says Fereidoon Shahidi, university research professor and distinguished scholar with the Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods Laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Supplement makers generally don’t have to worry about flavor (chewable supplements being the exception), but functional foods formulated with bioactives need to have sensory attributes that are acceptable to consumers, Shahidi says, noting that they should be assessed for flavor, texture, and aroma. Sometimes it takes only a few molecules to cause a change in taste, he says.

Additional Considerations

Processing methods are also important because that could change a bioactive’s structure, and also its interaction with the food matrix, Shahidi continues. The food matrix can obstruct or facilitate absorption of bioactive compounds.

The matrix matters, Wallace concurs. He offers the example of green tea extracts, which were studied as part of the flavan-3-ols intake recommendations. The researchers found that safe levels were different for food and beverages than for dietary supplements. Concentrating compounds in order to add them to a food or beverage can cause safety concerns. In their natural state, plant bioactives usually occur in such low amounts that they’re not harmful to humans. “The form matters,” he says. “It’s really about the food matrix, and it can really change how the compounds interact in the product.”

Finally, while there is a niche segment of consumers who are willing to pay for new products with potential health benefits, getting bioactives into more mainstream markets will require more research—and broader consumer acceptance. Wallace hopes that public and private research will identify the bioactive ingredients that are the most promising. That way, he says, “everybody can begin to align resources around which compounds are going to work better. Then we can market those more efficacious products to consumers.”ft