How important is delivery of nutraceutical ingredients?
The delivery of nutraceuticals and bioactive compounds to improve human and animal health and nutrition are very important. Delivery technologies can enhance solubility. Technologies such as microencapsulation/encapsulation can facilitate controlled release, improve bio-availability and protect and extend the shelf life and stability of micronutrients and bioactive compounds during processing, storage and distribution. Microencapsulation can lead to the development of new flavor delivery systems to improve food quality and functionality. Controlled release may eventually lead to in-situ flavor and color modification of products. Understanding the mechanism of targeted delivery will provide a solid foundation that will enable food and supplement manufacturers to design smart food systems capable of ensuring the optimal health of a particular species. More and more companies are putting into practice controlled release technology, the majority of whom are interested in improving the biological availability of nutrients. There are significant amount of opportunities to use the technology to stabilize sensitive substances such as probiotics and enzymes; extend their shelf life and to deliver them into the distal portions of the gut where they will have their most activity. Why not use microencapsulation to overcome interaction and to preserve the potency of a particular nutrient? By protecting nutrients their potency can be maintained for a long time.
It is important to note that nutrients are not the only ingredients that can be delivered. Other bioactive compounds such as organic acid acidifiers targeted at the colon, antibiotics, and a host of others would be delivered using microencapsulation technology. For example, certain compounds have to be used at a higher rate in order to achieve optimum response simply because some of it is broken down before it reaches the targeted site. Typically, manufacturers compensate for this loss by overdosing. Vitamin C, because it is so unstable, is overdosed in order to achieve a certain amount. Overdosing represents money being thrown in the wind. Use of expensive flavor compounds to mask taste and off flavor is no different. By microencapsulating, which involves protecting an active with a food grade coating the size of the human hair, the amount of bioactive compound needed to illicit a response can be reduced.
Many nutraceuticals have offensive flavors, sometimes they are very difficult to incorporate in food systems because of solubility issues. Some compounds have poor bioavailability and may be unstable in certain processing conditions. The bioactivity of bioactive compounds may be reduced or eliminated when exposed to oxygen, heat or digestive enzyme. Microencapsulation as a delivery system has been used to eliminate this issue.
Microencapsulation has the potential to allow a new world of tiny coated particles of multiple products, nutrients, acidifiers and other compounds, wrapped up in a single matrix to be delivered simultaneously. For example, one could walk around with an ingredient that releases 12 hours of energy.
Post treatment of bioactives by microencapsulation which provides a chemically, physically and microbiologically stable environment for bioactive and coatings for ingested material to prolong delivery and enhance stability in water have been deliverable solutions. The delivery technologies involve primarily single nutrient delivery systems. These are often involved with pH and temperature control release systems. Manufactures are interested in multiple, compatible and synergestic nutrients delivered together. Animals such as ruminants (cows) with complex gastrointestinal tracts are the focus of many nutrient delivery because of the microbial destruction of nutrients in such systems. Additionally, the higher milk production of dairy cows require more efficient use of their feed and more targeted delivery of certain nutrients such as amino acids. We can now feed Vitamin C and Lysine to dairy animals because of microencapsulation technology. Additionally, even though particle size may be different, advances in microencapsulation technology now permits the coating of multiple ingredients that may not have the same particle size distribution. Manufactures are embracing this breakthrough because it opens up new potentials that otherwise were not previously available.