5 ingredients driving the booming digestive health category

Gut-health solutions is not just about probiotics. Find four other ingredients for your next product innovation.

Todd Runestad, Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com

April 22, 2019

2 Min Read
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The digestive health category continues to thrive, no thanks to people’s busy schedules, poor eating habits, high-stress lifestyles and Big Ag’s use of gut-busting pesticides like glyphosate that is being shown to change gut microbiota abundance and composition and perhaps lead to celiac disease and gluten intolerance.

The digestive health category has nearly tripled in size in the last decade to reach US$2.96 billion in 2018, with sales predicted to reach $3.9 billion by 2021, according to Nutrition Business Journal.

Several botanicals have a traditional history of use supporting gut health, like peppermint, ginger and dandelion. And the bitters category of dietary supplements has gained steam in the last year or two. These are herbal tinctures that can enhance the entire process of digestion, absorption and elimination. Their sudden popularity is indicative of the many ways consumers are looking to address digestive issues.

“In my clinical practice,” said David Winson, a renowned herbalist, author and founder of the Herbalist & Alchemist line of herbal therapeutic supplements that includes bitters, “I regularly see people with significant digestive issues. I would say 60 percent of the people I have seen over the past 39 years have one or more gastrointestinal [GI] issue such as chronic dyspepsia, constipation, diarrhea, too much stomach acid, too little stomach acid, GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease], SIBO [small intestine bacterial overgrowth], IBS [irritable bowel syndrome] and other GI problems.”

Supplements give consumers a way to address this delicate issue in the comfort of their own kitchens. Here are leading ingredients that can help formulators stay on trend and provide relief to the burgeoning class of people with various types of digestive upset.

Read the rest of this article and learn more about the latest in digestive health in INSIDER’s digital magazine.  

About the Author

Todd Runestad

Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com, SupplySide Supplement Journal

Todd Runestad has been writing on nutrition science news since 1997. He is content director for SupplySide Supplement Journal and its digital magazines. Other incarnations: content director for Natural Products Insider (now rebranded to SupplySide Supplement Journal), supplements editor for NewHope.com, Delicious Living!, and Natural Foods Merchandiser. Former editor-in-chief of Functional Ingredients magazine and still covers raw material innovations and ingredient science.

Connect with me here on LinkedIn.

Specialty

Todd writes about nutrition science news such as this story on mitochondrial nutrients, innovative ingredients such as this story about 12 trendy new ingredient launches from SupplySide West 2023, and is a judge for the NEXTY awards honoring innovation, integrity and inspiration in natural products including his specialty — dietary supplements. He extensively covered the rise and rise and rise and fall of cannabis hemp CBD. He helps produce in-person events at SupplySide West and SupplySide East trade shows and conferences, including the wildly popular Ingredient Idol game show, as well as Natural Products Expo West and Natural Products Expo East and the NBJ Summit. He was a board member for the Hemp Industries Association.

Education / Past Lives

In previous lives Todd was on the other side of nature from natural products — natural history — as managing editor at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He's sojourned to Burning Man and Mount Everest. He graduated many moons ago from the State University of New York College at Oneonta.

Quotes

"There is not a colds-and-flu season. There is a vitamin D-deficiency season."

"There is no such thing as inclement weather. Only improper attire."

Link answers question, "When taking magnesium, should you also take vitamin D3 2,000 IU?"

"Cannabis is nature's most nearly perfect plant."

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