September is Healthy Aging Month, the perfect time to support and prioritize brain health in a meaningful way. As people are living longer, the conversation around healthy aging is evolving. We see that consumers are increasingly interested in proactive approaches that support brain health not only when concerns arise, but as part of a broader strategy for maintaining cognitive function throughout life.
That shift is creating new opportunities for innovation in brain health, and for ingredients designed to work with the biology of the brain itself, like Lysoveta.
From Cognitive Support to Proactive Brain Health
The opportunity for brain health is expanding alongside the healthy aging movement. Brain health is on the rise, growing at double-digit rates and outpacing the overall supplement market. And with this growth, consumer expectations are also growing and changing.
The conversation is moving beyond traditional cognitive function support toward more proactive approaches to maintaining brain health over the long term. For some consumers, that means thinking about brain health as part of longevity. For others, particularly those concerned about a family history of cognitive decline, it can mean taking a more defensive approach.
This mentality is creating a greater demand for solutions that are targeted, scientifically grounded and designed around specific biological mechanisms.
A New Approach to Delivering Key Nutrients to the Brain
The brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a highly selective system that regulates which nutrients and molecules can enter the brain. This is where Lysoveta takes a fundamentally different approach.
Lysoveta is an innovative ingredient containing EPA and DHA together with choline in the lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) form. Developed for more than seven years and protected by more than 50 patents worldwide, Lysoveta was designed around a specific biological pathway involved in transporting essential nutrientsacross the blood-brain barrier called MFSD2A, a targeted route to the brain.
In 2014, landmark research published in Nature identified MFSD2A as a key transporter at the blood-brain barrier. This pathway plays an important role in transporting essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA, into the brain.
Rather than simply delivering nutrients to the body and relying on conventional transport, Lysoveta provides EPA,DHA, and choline in an LPC-bound form that can be recognized by the MFSD2A transport system.
This targeted approach is helping advance the next generation of cognitive health solutions by delivering key nutrients through this pathway designed to access the brain, and the emerging research around Lysoveta suggests there may be great potential for this solution.
Building Evidence for Brain Health
Preclinical research has explored Lysoveta's potential across several areas relevant to healthy aging, including cognitive performance, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and brain-cell regeneration. Research has also investigated Lysoveta in mice carrying the APOE4 gene, one of the strongest genetic risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease.
In this study model, Lysoveta supplementation resulted in significant enrichment of EPA in the brain. This is crucial as efficient delivery of EPA to the brain could be an important piece of the puzzle in developing next-generation approaches to brain and cognitive health.
The next step in validating these initial findings is human research, and Aker BioMarine is currently leading three human studies, with results from the first expected in 2027.
For an emerging ingredient, the progression from understanding the molecular pathway, to preclinical investigation, to human clinical research, is an important part of building the evidence base needed to bring solutions to market.
The Next Generation of Healthy Aging
Healthy aging is more than living longer, it’s about supporting the ability to remain engaged, independent, and mentally active throughout life, and brain health is an important part of the conversation.
As research continues to evolve, the opportunity for brands is to move beyond the question, “what nutrients support brain health?” to a more targeted approach like, “how can we deliver important nutrients to the brain in the most effective way?”
For healthy aging, this is an important distinction, and one that may help shape the next generation of brain health innovation. Lysoveta represents a new solution in an important market as an ingredient built around a defined molecular pathway and designed to help deliver EPA, DHA and choline across the blood-brain barrier.