The fundamental role of carriers on probiotic stability and performance

Proof of functionalized mineral as new concept of inorganic stabilizer for gut probiotics with outperforming results – improved stability, effective gut delivery and enhanced self-life benefits.

Probiotics are live bacteria that are incorporated in food and pharmaceuticals to confer health benefits on the host. The health benefits are related to the gut microbiota and gut-associated immune system. To increase shelf life, probiotic formulations are generally dried to a powdered form before administration. Consequently, for effective delivery of probiotics to the host intestine, it is necessary to stabilize probiotics during the stages of production, storage, and ingestion. Omya has developed a functionalized mineral for enhancing the stability & performance of probiotic formulations. Together with NIZO, research was conducted to evaluate the mineral’s performance in probiotics production and delivery.

In the study performed at NIZO, the stabilizing effects of Omya’s functionalized mineral on probiotic viability were evaluated during the relevant phases of probiotic production and delivery by testing product formulation, in vitro digestion and shelf-life stability. A proof-of-principle was demonstrated using a representative in vitro digestion model. Overall, Omya’s functionalized mineral was shown to be an effective stabilizing agent in all of production (spray drying), delivery (shelf-life), and application (digestion). Moreover, outperforming the benchmark maltodextrin.

The study’s digestion results demonstrate the mineral’s potential for probiotic stability application and to support effective gut delivery.

Omya as well as NIZO emphasizes the valuable cooperation. Due to transparent and open teamwork, good alignment and expectation management the realization of the project was very time efficient. Both parties gained complementary and thus valuable insights of combined scientific and process technology.