Top Editors ... The Feelgood Factor

Title: The Feelgood Factor
Date: 17/03/2008
Autor: Maureen Byrne

Feeling good, looking good, and living a long and healthy life are firmly on consumers’‘wish list’; but what role can food and drink play in helping to achieve these aspirations?

Apart from perhaps a few hypochondriacs who might enjoy being ill, the vast majority of people want to feel happy, healthy, and energised in their day to day lives. The food and drink industry has realised that there are great opportunities for developing products that go beyond basic nutrition, and can not only help with keeping consumers healthy, but also play a role in cognitive function, mood and even help to slow the ageing process.
There has been a significant shift recently in focus from disease prevention to ‘positive health’ or ‘wellbeing’. The inherent goodness of foods such as chocolate is increasingly being analysed and promoted, and ingredients such as GABA are being developed for adding to foods to create ‘the feelgood factor’.
At the recent World Food Technology & Innovation Forum in Dublin, organised by the World Trade Group, it was clear from the presentations that a lot of research and development work being undertaken by big players is focusing on brain function, mood, anti-stress and beauty.
Dr Sunil Kochhar, for example, outlined three topical research domains for nutritional research at the Nestlé Research Center as: understanding the impact of nutrition on cognitive development in children; understanding the role of nutrition to protect against cognitive decline in the elderly; and understanding the role of nutrition in the development and physiology of the enteric nervous system, and developing nutritional strategies to prevent mood disorders and/or restore wellbeing.
A lot of work is being carried out at the Nestlé Research Center in the area of ‘nutrimetabonomics’ to find out how food affects metabolism, and in particular the effects of chocolate on mood. In one project, 90 subjects were given chocolate as a snack twice a day for two weeks, and were assessed for psychological and cognitive states. It was found that the chocolate consumption resulted in less stress, and subjects feeling more energetic.
Dr Kochhar’s researchers have also found that there is a specific chemical ‘signature’ that may be programmed into the metabolic system, which results in some people being chocolate lovers, and others chocolate avoiders. A simple set of lab tests on urine and plasma can now determine which group a person belongs to.
More good news for chocolate lovers was delivered by Dr Debra Miller of The Hershey Group, which carries out considerable research into the health benefits of cocoa. Dr Miller reported that two tablespoons of cocoa has the equivalent ORAC activity (the accepted measurement of antioxidant activity) of 196g of blueberries. “Chocolate and cocoa are associated with cardiovascular benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, reducing unhealthy blood cholesterol, and improving blood flow,” she said. However, she pointed out that eating chocolate is an enjoyable, emotionally engaging affair, and that it would be inappropriate to refer to disease prevention on chocolate products.
Dr Miller also pointed to the fact that consumers are increasingly looking for ‘balance’. “Trends are moving towards ‘wellness’, which is all about physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing,” she said.

Adding benefits
As well as looking at the intrinsic benefits of certain foods, many manufacturers are answering demands for ‘wellness’ foods by adding functional ingredients that not only address health problems like heart disease, but also help to combat tiredness, stress, hunger pangs and ageing.
Trend watchers Health Focus reported at the conference that their research had found that Tiredness and Stress were the top two health concerns among consumers in Europe and the USA, and in sixth place was ‘Wrinkles/Cosmetic Signs of Ageing’.
An interesting paper was given at the WTG conference by Dr Takashi Kometani of Ezaki Glico, a food manufacturer in Japan that has worked in collaboration with university researchers and an ingredient supplier to formulate chocolates containing GABA. GABA is a type of amino acid that is naturally occurring in many foods, and is produced for Ezaki Glico by supplier Pharmafoods. It is made by a fermentation process, and is incorporated directly into the chocolate sweets.
Benefits claimed for GABA include lowering of blood pressure, improvement of renal function, improvement of hepatic function, acceleration of alcohol metabolism, suppression of obesity, and stress reduction. Trials have been undertaken by Ezaki Glico, in conjunction with a local university, which include subjects ingesting chocolate containing different levels of GABA before doing an arithmetic test. Another rather unusual test involved a group of 12 people with a fear of heights crossing the cablesuspended Tanise Bridge in Japan, which is 54m high and 297.3m wide.
Those in the group who ate the GABA-enriched chocolate had lower stress levels than those who did not, according to saliva tests taken at various intervals along the bridge.
Levels of chromogranin A and immunoglobulin A in the subjects’ saliva were interpreted to decide on stress levels.

Lessons from Japan
Japan has often led the way with trends in functional foods, some of which have had an impact on Europe. Lee Linthicum of Euromonitor gave a detailed presentation at the WTG conference on the Health and Wellness market globally, and more specifically Japan. First Mr Linthicum outlined the global picture. “We valued the global health and wellness market at US$500 billion in 2006,” he said. “Of that, ‘better for you’ and ‘naturally healthy’ products commanded about 60% of sales last year.
“We expect functional food and beverages specifically to grow at more than double the rate of the overall food and beverages market between 2006 and 2011. The functional beverages market is slated to increase by another 40% between these years to reach retail value sales of more than US$70 billion.
Value sales of packaged functional foods are predicted to increase by another 30% in the same period, reaching US$50 billion,” said Mr Linthicum.
Turning to Japan, he pointed out that it has a much more permissive regulatory environment than Europe and the USA: “In the EU, new foods take on average 31 months to gain regulatory approval. In Japan, it only takes a few months.”
One of the biggest trends in Japan at the moment is the concept of ‘beauty from within’. The most popular beauty functional ingredients are collagen, ceramide, and hyaluronic acid. The market for collagen-containing drinks is particularly dynamic. One example is Asahi Collagen Water, but there are many similar products on the market.
“Of the major multinationals, Coca- Cola is once again leading the way with the launch of Minute Maid Beutia beauty drink on 25 June 2007,” said Mr Linthicum. The beverage contains tocopherol (vitamin E), hyaluronic acid and vitamin C and targets women 20 to 40 years old.
Will beauty foods work in Europe?
“To be honest, they haven’t proven that successful in recent years,” said Mr Linthicum. “Parmalat’s Juenesse ‘beauty’ dairy line is not living up to expectations. But the real barometer for the potential success of such dairy products is Danone’s new Essensis line.”
Essensis yoghurt contains omega-6, green tea antioxidants and vitamin E, plus a probiotic culture. According to Danone, clinical trials have demonstrated that two 110g pots of Essensis daily can lead to a 15% reduction in the amount of water lost by skin cells after a period of six weeks, rising to 25% after 18 weeks.
According to Mr Linthicum, sales have been waning since the launch, although consumer recognition of the product is high amongst consumers in France, at 40%. Danone maintains that the brand creates a whole segment and needs time to develop.

What can we learn from Japan?
According to Euromonitor, heart health, weight management, digestive health and beauty foods are likely to have the best potential, but offerings will need to be customised to suit European consumers. Dairy, sugar confectionery, gum, snack bars, sports drinks, energy drinks and juice are likely to be the most successful delivery formats, but regardless of format, manufacturers need to steer clear of ‘over-medicalising’ “We hear from field researchers in Europe over and over again that consumers don’t want medicalised foods,” said Mr Linthicum.

Beauty from ingredients
Ingredients suppliers are ready to respond to the coming trends. For example, DSM has a large portfolio of ingredients that offer various health benefits. One of its flyers is entitled ‘Beauty from Within’ and lists the products that can help to reduce the signs of ageing. It offers various mixes of vitamins and other active ingredients, such as a CustoMix Beauty; CustoMix Energy and CustoMix Immunity.

DSM’s All-Q brand co-enzyme Q10 is said to help energy generation in the body, and also has antioxidant properties. According to Dr Theodor Glaser of DSM, All-Q is the first formulation that makes co-enzyme Q10 stable for water-based beverages, dairy products and energy drinks. Omega-3 has been well documented to have properties that are beneficial to brain health, heart health, and joint health, and a number of companies now offer this ingredient, which is usually derived from fish oil.
At the WTG conference, Omega Ingredients was promoting its new form of Omega-3 based on plant sources, called Hi-omega Flaxoil. This is available in both powder form, which is suitable for beverages; and granule format, which is suitable for applications such as sausages. Both forms are encapsulated, so they are heat stable.
There are many more examples of,wellness ingredients, in areas such as satiety, which was the subject of a presentation by Dr David Mela of Unilever, and which has stimulated a lot of research.
One piece of hot news at the WTG conference came from Lipid Nutrition, which had a booth in the miniexhibition. Henk Zwier, business development manager told FBI that the first ever launch of a product containing Lipid’s PinnoThin took place the previous week. The product, which is called Naturally Gorgeous, is a skimmed milk and juice drink that ‘helps you to stay fuller for longer’, thanks to the addition of PinnoThin, a natural ingredient derived from pine nut oil.
It seems that consumers are seeking more from their food to help them to live longer, happier and more energetic lives, even into old age.
However, time and again, the importance of sound science to back up claims was emphasized at the conference. Dr Michele Kellerhals of Coca-Cola European Union Group said that although mental state and performance is a big area to target, far fewer cognitive studies than cardio vascular studies have been carried out to date; and even fewer skin care studies have been done. “The chain of evidence of physiological claims is tough, especially those related to brain health,” he said. And as far as getting health claims accepted by the EC, Dr Kellerhals warned that of around 8,000 claims submitted so far, “most will not make it”.

What’s in store for the future?
Certainly more products that contribute to the ‘feelgood factor’ in NaturallyGorgeousis the first product to incorporate Lipid Nutrition’s PinnoThin one way or another, and possibly more for the ‘look good factor’. And if Dr Kellerhals is correct in his predictions, we will see more gene scans and personalised nutrition, which could become ‘mainstream within 15 to 20 years’. One thing is certain, however: getting health claims accepted in Europe will not get any easier.