Linnea: Leveraging Lignans

With pharmaceutical roots, Linnea, Locarno, Switzerland, has been hard at work substantiating the science behind its products for over 25 years. In the 1990s, as the dietary supplement industry gained widespread recognition, focusing efforts on this market seemed like a natural progression for the company. Since then, it has developed and nurtured a portfolio of proprietary botanical ingredients like bilberry, vinpocetine, and more recently lignans.

With regard to the former, Linnea’s Bilberry 25 is widely recognized as the industry reference standard, especially for U.S. companies exporting to Japan where residual solvent levels need to meet strict import parameters, according to the company. As for vinpocetine, Linnea claims the market has exploded over the last 18 months, as companies continue their search for nutraceutical ingredients that have application in memory and cognitive support formulations.

Linnea believes the dietary supplement industry has moved into a mature phase in terms of growth and new products. As a result, it says new product development will take a lot more effort than in previous years, especially as it relates to scientific research. Perhaps this is the philosophy that led the company to its most significant endeavor of late—a license agreement with Hormos Medical Corporation, Turku, Finland, which al­lows Linnea access to a proprietary product it calls HMRlignan.

HMRlignan is a naturally occurring plant lignan, 7-hydroxymatairesinol, from the Norway Spruce (Picea abies). In humans, 7-hydroxymatairesinol is a direct metabolic precursor of the mammalian lignan, enterolactone. The gentle hormone like action of enterolactone is desirable in peri-meno­pausal and post-menopausal women, as well as middle-aged men, due to its reported potential in long-term cardiovascular protection and protection against gender-related hormonally induced cancers (e.g., of the breast and prostate).

Clinical research has shown HMRlignan to be a highly efficient enterolactone precursor. In a multiple dose four-week study with healthy volunteers, HMRlignan was well tolerated with no adverse effects. In addition to raising enterolactone levels, HMRlignan also provides significant blood plasma levels of the strong antioxidant and free radical scavenger 7-hydroxyma­tairesinol.

Linnea claims a single dosage of just 10-30 mg daily is sufficient to elevate clinically protective blood enterolactone levels. This means the consumer does not have to mix large volumes of powders in water, swallow multiple or oversized tablets or capsules, or eat handfuls of flaxseed on a daily basis in order to obtain the recommended daily intake of lignans. This is also great news for dietary supplement marketers, as HMRlignan is more bioavailable at a lower dosage, offering a clear cost advantage in the formulation and manufacturing environment.

Because HMRlignan is not in a food matrix it has a superior bioavailability. Other lignans, such as flax, are glycosides—bound to sugar molecules—that must first be cleaved in the body before they can be meta­bolized into the target molecule enterolactone. HMRlignan is a pure lignan in the aglycone form (not bound to sugars) and upon arrival in a healthy intestinal tract, is more efficiently transformed into enterolactone.

As the industry's first and only direct enterolactone precursor, Linnea believes HMRlignan will have particular success in both the women’s and men’s health markets of the future.—R.W.


Linnea
Via Cantonale
6595 Riazzino (Locarno), Switzerland
Telephone: 41-91-850-50-55
Fax: 41-91-850-50-70
E-mail: rward@linnea-worldwide.com
Website: www.linnea-worldwide.com