Health Benefits

Health benefits and nutritional impact of food

Consumers are increasingly making food choices based on perceived health benefits and health impact. This means food and ingredient producers can create a distinctive and successful position for themselves in a crowded market by offering healthy food options – for example through novel bioactive ingredients, alternative proteins and milder processing.

While the impact of diet on health is well-accepted in general, any specific claims must be meticulously validated. And that can be a big challenge. Effects are often quite subtle and only apparent over long periods. Moreover, there is huge biological variation between people in terms of what is considered “normal” and how we respond to specific nutrients.

Our videos

The probiotic journey, from discovery to health beneifit substantiation

The market for probiotics and live biotherapeutic products continues to grow, as we increase our understanding of how they can improve health. Probiotic and pharmaceutical companies are looking for ways to use the naturally occurring bacteria in our bodies to amend dysbiosis of the gut, skin and more. Then they must get their products to market, quickly and cost-effectively. But there are many challenges that will define a company’s success or failure – especially when working with living organisms, that don’t always behave the way we want. In this webcast, NIZO's multidisciplinary and multi-stage approach in the probiotic journey, from discovery to health benefit substantiation, will be explained.

Digestive and immune health benefits - Client statement Nutrileads

NIZO supports a healthy lifestyle by substantiating health benefits of food. In this video, Ruud Albers, CEO of Nutrileads talks about his collaboration with NIZO in an integrated approach to build a convincing case, in which the scientific and regulatory guidance, targeted preclinical studies, well-designed clinical trials, biomarker analysis and expert interpretation are combined.

Optimization of in vitro MicroColon technology for maintaining a more representative infant fecal microbiota.

Developing infant nutrition products is a costly and time-consuming business. NIZO’s MicroColon model offers companies a solution to pre-screen ingredients, early in the development process. But could it be further optimised for the needs of infant nutrition companies? Guus explains this during this short video.

Perspective on dairy proteins in medical nutrition: Focus on high protein ONS drink

NIZO has found that dairy based proteins are the best option for medical nutrition products, Specifically high protein medical Oral Nutritional Supplement – or ONS – drinks.  Given the scale and long-term potential of the market, this makes ONS drinks a very interesting opportunity for dairy producers and product manufacturers. Why are dairy proteins preferable? The other main option for use in ONS is plant-based proteins. In this webcast the functionalities of dairy and plant based proteins will be compared for ONS drinks.

Digestive and immune health benefits - Client statement FrieslandCampina

NIZO supports a healthy lifestyle by substantiating health benefits of food. In this video, Marjolijn Bragt of FrieslandCampina talks about her collaboration with @NIZO in an integrated approach to build a convincing case, in which the scientific and regulatory guidance, targeted preclinical studies, well-designed clinical trials, biomarker analysis and expert interpretation are combined.

End-to-end health and nutrition support

NIZO has developed an innovative approach to health benefit substantiation that allows you to thoroughly assess the health impact of specific foodstuffs in an affordable manner and timescale. We can support you at any stage of the process of exploring health impact, from selecting and optimizsing ingredients to explaining and demonstrating health benefits. Our offering includes:

Scientific advice and study design
In-vitro and in-silico health benefit analysis
Human intervention studies including challenge models
Microbiome and biomarker analytics

Science-driven substantiation and storytelling

Our extensive expertise in all areas of food development means you can start your health impact exploration with us at any stage. And thanks to our pilot plant and food analytics capabilities, you can carry out health benefit investigations in parallel with process development and sensory experience investigations.

At every step, you can be sure that our support is guided and driven by rigorous science – from how nutrients are absorbed in and affect the gut environment, to how those local changes translate to systemic health impact. We use that science to develop novel approaches that enhance your ability to detect and communicate health benefits – for example, using our E. coli and rhinovirus challenge models to speed up investigations into the impact of nutrients on the immune system. In this way, we help you both rigorously substantiate health claims and tell compelling stories to your market.