Bioactive company Brightseed announces the formation of a Bioactives Coalition to advance education and advocacy of science-backed bioactive compounds among food and health industries, consumers and policymakers. 

The company notes that bioactive compounds in plants, fungi and other natural sources are critical to maintaining human health but currently lack a universal definition and are absent from US dietary guidelines. 

“Given the advancement in science and technology, the time is ripe to help build a widely accepted consensus on the definition and role of bioactive compounds for integration into dietary guidelines or current regulatory frameworks,” says Jan-Willem van Klinken, Brightseed’s SVP of Scientific and Medical Affairs. 

“Bioactives are the ‘missing good’ in our food system and a core component required for proactive and preventative health. With the tools and research momentum available today, we can go beyond vitamins, minerals and proteins and begin including bioactives as an important part of nutrition and modern medical education.”

At next week’s Nutrition 2023, Brightseed will host a symposium on the role of bioactives in human health and current challenges that prevent a universal understanding of their dietary value. 

Missing in dietary recommendations  
The coalition includes researchers and experts at the intersection of agriculture, food and health.

It will facilitate interactions between food and health system leaders who champion the adoption of bioactive compounds into US dietary guidelines. 

“Consumers have not been given the full story on how powerful a diverse, plant-based diet can be to improve their quality of life vastly,” highlights Jed Fahey, a nutritional biochemist at John Hopkins University, US, whose research on plant-based nutrition targets disease prevention.

“Bioactive compounds are a major piece of the puzzle missing in health and medical education, our current dietary recommendations, nutrition security policy and in developing a global food democracy,” he continues.

“Our knowledge and discovery of bioactives are now growing exponentially, facilitating expanded education to influence sustainable food system shifts and make a huge impact on population health.”

“Dark matter” of nutrition 
The coalition also aims to educate on the mounting scientific evidence, advancements in research and discovery and critical perspectives to inform bioactive use and regulation in functional food, beverage and supplements.

Brightseed states that although science has long known that bioactive compounds in plants and other natural sources are critical to human health, they are often referred to as the “dark matter” of nutrition due to the complexity of understanding their direct impact on human biology. 

“Plants contain tens to hundreds of thousands of biological active compounds called phytochemicals. These molecules are their defense systems. However, through millions of years of coevolution with plants, human biology is highly influenced by these plant compounds,” explains Mark Hyman, founder and senior adviser for the US Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. 

“They are biological signaling molecules that control almost every aspect of our biology. They have not been deemed essential for human health. Still, emerging research highlights the power of these compounds to control our immune systems, hormones, brain chemistry, microbiome, gene expression, our rate of biological aging and risk for disease.” 

He continues that bioactive phytochemicals can help upgrade people’s biological software and help prevent and treat many chronic diseases. “It is time to rethink our dietary guidelines, farming practices and food production systems to optimize the consumption of these powerful plant compounds.”

Accelerating health insights through AI 
Existing clinical evidence and AI-enabled advancements in R&D contribute to reevaluating bioactives for industry and consumer health use, highlights Brightseed. 

The company’s AI platform – Forager – can discover bioactive ingredients in plants and map these out to specific modes of action, providing insights into biological changes that occur at the cellular level.

Research published in 2022, co-authored by coalition member Dr. Taylor Wallace, found improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels with a daily intake of the bioactive flavan-3-ols of 400-600 mg, translating to two cups of brewed tea. 

“Bioactive compounds exert many complex interactions that influence human health. It is important to remember that small effects on many health markers can cumulatively have a large impact over time,” highlights Wallace. 

“Yet today, most consumers are only aware of the term ‘antioxidant,’ which has been used too broadly as a marketing tactic and means of communicating potential health benefits since the 1990s.” 

He notes that nutrition is moving faster toward a personalized, preventative approach. He argues that “regulatory frameworks need more flexibility in facilitating evidence-based communications versus marketing claims often absent from quality science.”

“Technology and AI are revolutionizing the relationship between food and medicine, revealing the connections between farming practices, soil health, and bioactives as indicators of food’s nutritional value,” adds coalition member Ashlie Burkart, chief scientific officer at Germin8 Ventures. 

“Regenerative agriculture emerges as a transformative solution, addressing challenges like nutrient collapse in our food system. By prioritizing farming practices that cultivate a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods and leveraging data-driven insights, we can better understand and address chronic conditions, reduce health disparities and promote well-being for both people and the planet,” she concludes.