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Unlocking nutrient potential: Lubrizol Life Science explores innovations in ingredient absorption

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01 Nov 2023 — In the constantly changing field of nutrition and well-being, experts are continually exploring ways to achieve the best possible bioavailability of crucial nutrients to ensure their efficacy. Nutrition Insight continues its conversation on the topic with Alan Connolly, R&D manager of nutraceutical ingredients at Lubrizol Life Science, Health.

Last week, Connolly, alongside experts from Gencor and Balchem, discussed the latest bioavailability trends and research, highlighting the importance of maintaining functionality through digestion, absorption factors, delivery technology and multi-ingredient solutions.

Stressing the significance of ingredient absorption in the context of nutraceuticals and supplements, Connolly reminds us that “micronutrient deficiencies are affecting people worldwide. Deficiencies such as iron, vitamin A, zinc, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin D and iodine have severe consequences, including reduced immunity, congenital disabilities, blindness, reduced growth, cognitive impairment and even death.”

“Some of these nutrients are not very bioavailable. Therefore, there is a big focus on solutions that aim to improve the stability and bioavailability of nutrients in nutraceutical formulations.”

Overcoming limited ingredient absorption 
As the world grapples with widespread micronutrient deficiencies, the urgency to enhance the stability and bioavailability of vital nutrients is pressing. Connolly asserts that supplements are essential to addressing various micronutrient deficiencies, but poor absorption remains a hurdle. Two people shopping for supplements.Micronutrient deficiencies are affecting people worldwide, according to Connolly.

“For example, iron deficiency is estimated to be the most prevalent micronutrient deficiency worldwide and is the most significant cause of anemia. Iron supplementation is a recognized way to tackle iron deficiency. However, there are some issues with iron supplements currently available in the market.”

He explains that these issues can include a metallic off-taste, poor iron absorption or side effects such as stomach upset, constipation and nausea. “Innovations focus on improving iron bioavailability, helping consumers achieve optimal iron intakes while bypassing some of their side effects or challenges through iron supplementation.”

“Particle size is an important aspect of ensuring absorption in the body. In general, smaller particles are absorbed easier, and micronization and high-pressure homogenization are commonly used.”

Powerful combinations 
Connolly outlines that it has been shown that the combination of some ingredients can increase the bioavailability of nutrients or have a detrimental effect on absorption.“For example, the mineral can be combined with other ingredients to boost iron absorption.”

“Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is one of the most popular ingredients combined with iron, being present in a significant percentage of iron supplements. It has been observed that its combination significantly increases iron absorption. Vitamin C can reduce the physical state of iron to its absorbable form,” he adds.

However, he underscores that several dietary inhibitors in nutrition limit the absorption of certain nutritional supplements.

“Regarding iron absorption, calcium, phytates and polyphenols are known dietary inhibitors that do not allow an effective absorption of iron throughout the body. Phytate and polyphenols are the major iron absorption inhibitors in plant-based foods because they make a complex with dietary iron in the gastrointestinal tract in a comparable way.”

Another way to overcome undesirable ingredient interactions highlighted by Connelly is by utilizing microencapsulation techniques on the ingredients that are prone to interfere with the absorption. This can help isolate the component through a protective layer without compromising its bioavailability.

Iron absorption innovation
Connolly tells us more about the multiple technologies Lubrizol Life Science employs to ensure the vital absorption of its iron supplement products.

“Our microencapsulated iron, Lipofer microcapsules, combines multiple technologies to enhance iron absorption with low gastric irritation. It has several proven benefits. The bioavailability of iron has been shown in a clinical trial to improve iron status in healthy people in as little as four weeks.”

The technologies used ensure the product’s “pleasant taste,” which helps consumers stick to recommended daily intakes, finish the supplementation, does not lead to digestive tract effects and allows for a reduced interaction with other active ingredients. Supplements under microscope.

Microencapsulation technologies offer improved bioavailability and functional properties for formulators.

Microencapsulation technologies offer improved bioavailability and functional properties for formulators.

Besides increased bioavailability, Lubrizol Life Science’s microencapsulation technologies also offer “improved functional properties for formulators, including water dispersibility, organoleptic properties and reduced interactions with other active ingredients.”

According to Connolly, these technical advantages can enable formulators to develop “more complex applications, resulting in lower overages and more stable products.”

Micronization and encapsulation technologies
Liposomes — small and spherical lipid vesicles — have long been thought to offer the highest bioavailability, but they can only be used in liquid applications, explains Connolly. They can degrade during standard processing conditions and are very expensive to produce.

“For powder applications, a different particle delivery system is required. The Lipofer product combines micronization and encapsulation technologies to deliver a product that is very stable and can be used in both powder and liquid applications while still ensuring maximum absorption in the body.”

“We are currently developing a microencapsulated vitamin C source that is both protected from oxidation and water dispersible without compromising its bioavailability, thereby enabling the formulation of stable liquid supplements. We also have a source of microencapsulated curcumin, branded Curcushine microcapsules, with superior absorption and proven clinical data showing it improves overall skin appearance.”

There are several problems with some nutrients in terms of “off-taste taste, reactivity, interaction with other ingredients and unwanted color changes, among others,” that must be solved to obtain “stable, bioavailable and good-tasting products” that also prevent consumers from possible side effects such as “tract irritation caused by the intake of nutraceutical formulations.”

Connolly concludes: “Lubrizol has applied its core technological competencies to overcome  issues related to off-taste taste, reactivity, interaction with other ingredients and color change by developing specialized microencapsulated expertise that combines multiple technologies to  ensure the delivery of nutrients with optimum performance.”

By Milana Nikolova

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Here’s how Helene and other storms dumped a whopping 40 trillion gallons of rain on the South

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More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.

That’s enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It’s enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.

“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.”

The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.

Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.

Clark did the calculations independently and said the 40 trillion gallon figure (151 trillion liters) is about right and, if anything, conservative. Maue said maybe 1 to 2 trillion more gallons of rain had fallen, much if it in Virginia, since his calculations.

Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it’s more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina’s Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.

Then add Helene, one of the largest storms in the last couple decades and one that held plenty of rain because it was young and moved fast before it hit the Appalachians, said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero.

“It was not just a perfect storm, but it was a combination of multiple storms that that led to the enormous amount of rain,” Maue said. “That collected at high elevation, we’re talking 3,000 to 6000 feet. And when you drop trillions of gallons on a mountain, that has to go down.”

The fact that these storms hit the mountains made everything worse, and not just because of runoff. The interaction between the mountains and the storm systems wrings more moisture out of the air, Clark, Maue and Corbosiero said.

North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.

Before 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, “I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,” Clark said. “And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We’re seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet.”

Storms are getting wetter as the climate change s, said Corbosiero and Dello. A basic law of physics says the air holds nearly 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit warmer (7% for every degree Celsius) and the world has warmed more than 2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.

Corbosiero said meteorologists are vigorously debating how much of Helene is due to worsening climate change and how much is random.

For Dello, the “fingerprints of climate change” were clear.

“We’ve seen tropical storm impacts in western North Carolina. But these storms are wetter and these storms are warmer. And there would have been a time when a tropical storm would have been heading toward North Carolina and would have caused some rain and some damage, but not apocalyptic destruction. ”

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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‘Big Sam’: Paleontologists unearth giant skull of Pachyrhinosaurus in Alberta

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It’s a dinosaur that roamed Alberta’s badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.

On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground.

They call it “Big Sam.”

The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

It didn’t die alone.

“We have hundreds of juvenile bones in the bonebed, so we know that there are many babies and some adults among all of the big adults,” Emily Bamforth, a paleontologist with the nearby Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, said in an interview on the way to the dig site.

She described the horned Pachyrhinosaurus as “the smaller, older cousin of the triceratops.”

“This species of dinosaur is endemic to the Grand Prairie area, so it’s found here and nowhere else in the world. They are … kind of about the size of an Indian elephant and a rhino,” she added.

The head alone, she said, is about the size of a baby elephant.

The discovery was a long time coming.

The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look.

“At the time, sort of in the ’70s and ’80s, paleontology in northern Alberta was virtually unknown,” said Bamforth.

When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned “it’s actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.”

“It contains about 100 to 300 bones per square metre,” she said.

Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.

About a year ago, they found the second adult: Big Sam.

Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.

“Their distinguishing feature is that, instead of having a horn on their nose like a triceratops, they had this big, bony bump called a boss. And they have big, bony bumps over their eyes as well,” she said.

“It makes them look a little strange. It’s the one dinosaur that if you find it, it’s the only possible thing it can be.”

The genders of the two adults are unknown.

Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.

The skull was found upside down, “as if the animal was lying on its back,” but was well preserved, she said.

She said the excavation process involved putting plaster on the skull and wooden planks around if for stability. From there, it was lifted out — very carefully — with a crane, and was to be shipped on a trolley to the museum for study.

“I have extracted skulls in the past. This is probably the biggest one I’ve ever done though,” said Bamforth.

“It’s pretty exciting.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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The ancient jar smashed by a 4-year-old is back on display at an Israeli museum after repair

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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.

Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.

Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.

The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.

The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.

It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.

Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.

Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.

Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.

Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.

Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.

The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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