 for personal care are in good company. It’s said that both Egyptian queens Nefertiti and Cleopatra utilized this ingredient as part of their beauty regimens. But the benefits of aloe don’t stop at the skin. This versatile plant has a long history of being used in first aid care, to improve digestion, and to treat skin disorders, among other uses.

 has been trending on TikTok and other social media platforms. While the interest in this ancient plant is refreshing, the importance of using aloe properly and understanding its different attributes is essential. What are the most common ways aloe is used? What key things should everyone know about this plant, and what are some of the most widespread misconceptions regarding its use?

 has long been heralded as a skin soother, balm, and excellent moisturizer. It’s found in many personal care products: shampoo, lotion, after-sun products, hand sanitizer, and more. “It has a long history of topical use,” says Jane Wilson, executive director of the International Aloe Science Council (IASC; Silver Spring, MD). Wilson says 

 use for skin conditions may have the longest history. During the pandemic, aloe has been a very popular ingredient in a certain personal care product. “Hand sanitizers are very drying due to the alcohol content,” says Wilson. “Aloe helps to counteract that.” 

 go beyond the skin. It’s frequently taken internally, in dietary supplement products, says Wilson, along with food and beverage products. When taken orally, aloe is thought to be a natural laxative relieving constipation and potentially helping individuals who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). According to 

, aloe may also help fight cancer, as the plant is full of antioxidants.

 also plays well with other ingredients. “Something I’m starting to see in the marketplace is aloe being combined with other botanicals or other nutrient-types of ingredients,” says Wilson, “which are made up to make those ingredients work better.” One example she shares is pairing 

 with cannabidiol (CBD) which she says creates better bioavailability.

Santiago Rodríguez is the technical director at Lorand Laboratories LLC, based in Texas. He says it’s exciting to see more dietary supplements utilize aloe in their formulations as well as it being used in beverages. “No doubt the marked increase in awareness of the importance of immune health is opening the door to more market share for aloe,” Rodríguez states.

 is a wonderful, versatile ingredient that can be used in many different applications, there are some common misconceptions about using it. “I think some of the misconceptions around aloe are similar to that of other products,” says Wilson. “People say that there’s no science to support it.” But that, Wilson points out, isn’t true. She notes that there are hundreds of articles on PubMed regarding aloe and its various uses.

Rodríguez says that people often question the safety of taking aloe internally. “Aloe taken internally as a nutritional supplement or food is not only beneficial but safe,” says Rodríguez. “Aloe has components, mainly an acetylated mannoside polymer known as acemannan that provides optimal nutritional support to immunity function.” Because of this, Rodríguez says, “It helps the body modulate immune function.”

It's important to know though, Wilson says, that not all aloe products are the same. IASC offers a certification program for both raw ingredients and finished products. According to Wilson, these products must contain at least 15% 

 in their formulations to be certified. “We test the products to verify that the 

 is present, and we look at some marker compounds to verify that it’s authentic,” says Wilson. There are currently around 50 companies represented in the certification program, with more being added regularly.

Unlike other trendy ingredients, some of which are hard to find or pricey, aloe is generally inexpensive and widely available in the United States. “It’s a very accessible ingredient,” notes Wilson. “People can grow it at home or buy leaves at the grocery store or natural food store and prepare it at home.” If they’re not into that though, Wilson says, there are plenty of created products with aloe in them.

Aloe is also an ingredient that spans age ranges. There’s been an increased interest in the ingredient on TikTok lately, says Wilson, where influencers are talking about their experiences of using aloe and how it’s improved their skin or digestion. “It’s exciting to see how information about 

 is changing with time,” Wilson says. “A new generation is becoming interested in and excited about 

.” Nourish by WebMD website. Updated August 6, 2020.

Articles

What are aloe’s most common uses and misconceptions?

Aloe vera is trending again. What do we know about this versatile plant?

It’s been a long time since mushrooms were just for sautéing or stuffing—assuming they ever were.

But if American consumers are only now catching up to their non-culinary assets, perhaps that’s because “we were too busy with microwave popcorn to notice,” figures Jody Hall, CEO and founder, Wunderground Coffee (Seattle). “So it took a pandemic to show us that health is the new wellness, heightened stress and anxiety are epidemic—and mushrooms have become the superfoods of the year.”

, as functional mushroom varieties have been staples of traditional healing practices for ages. And with contemporary research uncovering the reasons why, “The West can now wake up to what the East has been experiencing in diet and medicine for thousands of years,” Hall concludes: “the benefits of adaptogenic mushroom superfoods.”

As the descriptor “adaptogenic” implies, chief among those benefits is the ability to keep the body on an even keel. Adaptogenic mushrooms “help us balance and regulate our bodies,” Hall says. “Think: cortisol, anxiety, sleep, immunity.”

And she speaks from experience. “I’m a believer,” Hall confesses. “I know how I feel personally since making my latest company about adaptogenic mushrooms: I’m just as busy, but I don’t feel stress in my body. Instead, I just know I have a lot to do, and I get it done. I feel more focused. My mood is lifted, and my feelings of ‘existential dread’ are quelled.”

It almost seems mystical, which is fitting given that mushrooms are “foundational to planetary life,” Hall continues, noting that they date back roughly 700 million years. “That’s 200 million years before plants,” she says. “Even humans have only been here an estimated 2 million years.”

In the millennia since, mushrooms’ mycelial networks have helped “keep forests and animals healthy and nourished,” she explains, by moving nutrients to plants and trees. “And yet their DNA is similar to ours,” she says. “We both breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; we both generate our own vitamin D.”

Which makes the West’s relatively late awakening to mushrooms’ magic all the more curious.

It’s a conundrum that Jeff Chilton, president of organic mushrooms extracts supplier Nammex (Roberts Creek, BC, Canada), has long pondered. In fact, he considers mushrooms “literally a forgotten food—what I call the missing dietary link.”

And for good reason. “When I started work as a large-scale commercial mushroom grower in 1973,” Chilton explains, “classical nutritionists claimed that mushrooms had no food value. Can you imagine?”

But as more species entered supermarkets in the 1990s, and as marketing efforts ballyhooed fresh mushrooms’ proven health benefits, “a new image of mushrooms as tasty, nutritious foods changed consumer perceptions,” Chilton says. “Seeing them in this new light helped pave the way for accepting mushrooms as functional foods and nutritional supplements.”

Continuing to pave the way is the steady accumulation of science, of which Sandra Carter, MA, MPH, PhD, founder, Om Mushroom Superfood (Carlsbad, CA), says “there’s already an abundance”—particularly around mushrooms’ immune-health benefits.

Research demonstrates “the impact of mushrooms’ prebiotic fibers that create a favorable environment for a healthy and diverse microbiome,” Carter says, “as well as the effects of how mushroom beta-glucans stimulate the immune system to be ‘battle ready.’”

More specifically, those beta-glucans, found in mushroom cell walls, bind to dedicated receptors in our lower intestines, ramping up cytokine production in response to pathogenic viral or bacterial attack, Chilton says.

But while mushrooms’ beta-glucans are attracting attention, less well known is their complement of L-ergothioneine, a sulfur-containing amino acid and antioxidant found at higher levels in mushrooms than in most any other food.

That’s important, Chilton says, as humans don’t produce ergothioneine themselves. However, he notes that it’s present in many parts of the body exposed to high oxidative stress—hinting at its antioxidative role.

Moreover, Carter adds that ergothioneine is “the only antioxidant for which all mammals have a cellular transport mechanism in every cell.”

Such factors, plus “a very large body of scientific data,” lead Chilton to consider ergothioneine “a longevity ‘vitamin’ with the potential to mitigate some chronic diseases of aging.” As such, he wagers, “‘Ergo’ will become a sought-after compound, and mushrooms will be the most important natural source.”

One serving of mushrooms can pack anywhere from 2.4 to 4.9 mg of ergothioneine, according to a 2014 

, with king oyster, maitake, oyster, and shiitake varieties delivering the most. But all mushrooms, Chilton stresses, enjoy strong scientific support for their wellness benefits.

Reishi, for example, is among the most-studied of mushrooms and enjoys widespread use among herbalists and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. Not only is it high in beta-glucans, but Chilton also says “it has triterpenoids, which help calm the nervous system, promote sleep, and alleviate insomnia.”

Lion’s mane, meanwhile, acts as a nootropic, stimulating production of nerve growth factor—“a compound that assists in the regulation of organization neurons, as well as in neurite outgrowth, helping with memory and cognition,” he continues.

No wonder “we’re seeing a lot of love for lion’s mane,” Hall claims. “People like how it makes them feel sharper and more focused.” And chaga’s been feeling the warmth, too, she adds, mainly for how it “uplifts mood and helps with immunity and gut health.”

Finally, Carter notes that “the mushroom associated with energy is cordyceps,” which has a record of research establishing its benefits in older adults “in terms of ‘vitality’ and quality of life,” she says, and in athletes “in terms of improving VO

The variety of mushroom products appearing on shelves is “making it much easier for consumers to include these benefits in their everyday routines,” Carter notes, citing powders, capsules, bars, beverages—“even culinary items like mac-and-cheese, pancakes, granola, and frozen veggie burgers”—as widely available. Indeed, she says, “Functional mushrooms are making appearances everywhere.”

And while retail distribution still skews heavily toward the natural channel, she says, functional mushrooms are making inroads in mass channels and can set their sights on club and box stores next. “There’s tremendous opportunity for success if we work together to educate and promote these benefits,” Carter says.

And if industry formulates products that consumers will enjoy using. Chilton notes that Nammex’s mushroom extracts are teaming up with CBD and cannabis in “really fascinating combinations that demonstrate mushrooms’ versatility,” as he puts it.

But where he sees real potential is in the beverage space. “As demand for sugary drinks drops,” he notes, “many innovative beverages are using mushrooms as primary or secondary ingredients. Some beverages containing cordyceps are appearing in the energy and athletic segment as substitutes for highly caffeinated drinks, and chaga—traditionally consumed as a drink—is also in various beverages: teas, coffees, kombuchas, and basic soft drinks.”

Hall chose coffee as the platform for the Wunderground brand because it’s “the most ritualistic beverage on the planet,” she says. “We drink it daily, which is what adaptogens need to be most effective. And we get most of our antioxidants from coffee, so I decided to add mushrooms’ benefits to make it easier to add wellness to this ritual.”

Each 12-oz cup of filter coffee has 500 mg of 8:1 potent organic mushroom extracts, Hall says. “And our reishi uses a 15:1 dual extract, which means that 15 kg of mushroom are tapped for 1 kg of extract—providing a much more concentrated extract, and delivering higher benefits in terms of polysaccharides and beta-glucans.” Dual extraction also captures mushrooms’ triterpenes, which “promote a healthy immune system.”

Hall is quick to note that Wunderground sources its ingredients from certified USDA-organic mushroom fruiting bodies grown on wood substrate—which she claims makes the company’s products “a lot more potent than most supplements, which typically use mushroom mycelium grown on a grain substrate. Mushrooms are what they eat, so to get the most beta-glucans and polysaccharides, you want to select products made from mushroom fruiting bodies grown on wood.”

Chilton would agree. “The fungal organism we call a mushroom has three ‘plant parts,’ and all supplements must divulge this,” he points out. “These parts are the mushroom itself, the mycelium, and the spores. Some companies grow the mycelium on sterile grain and don’t remove that grain, which can be compared to tempeh, from the final product.”

The issue, he says, is that product labels will read “mushroom” when in fact “there’s no mushroom produced, and what’s sold is primarily grain starch. You can even watch the manufacturing process and wonder, ‘Where are the mushrooms?’ Consumers need to be careful because the word 

 is used everywhere by these companies, and the presence of grain either goes unnoted or might appear in the fine print.”

Due in part to his urging, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) produced, with Chilton’s assistance, a policy clearly stating that “you cannot call these products mushrooms,” he says. Alas, “Few companies adhere to this despite FDA having a compliance policy stating that mycelia can’t be called mushrooms.”

For her part, Carter thinks this life-cycle debate only “leads to confusion,” noting that the industry has seen impressive advances in controlled mushroom cultivation, “allowing for the optimization of individual species’ bioactive compounds,” she says.

What’s more, “The ability to grow on a nutritious substrate such as oats or rice allows for the cultivation of the mushroom’s full life cycle—and, in turn, the opportunity to capture all of the unique compounds found in the different stages, as well as secondary metabolites.”

She reminds fruiting-body proponents that even pioneering mycologist Paul Stamets “focuses on the mycelial stage of the mushroom, while others focus on extracts from fruiting bodies,” she says. “So there are clearly well-substantiated benefits to both, as well as benefits from ‘whole-mushroom’ products containing both mycelium and fruiting bodies.”

That’s why she thinks that “companies that continue to ‘bash’ others in an attempt to prove superiority are doing a disservice to the channel,” adding that she’d “much prefer to see more leadership in promoting the overall benefits of mushrooms and less attacking.”

After all, though functional mushrooms haven’t reached “probiotic level in terms of popularity,” Carter views the category as “just at the tipping point.”

With Grandview Research valuing the U.S. market at upwards of $1 billion in 2021 and forecasting compound average growth of 11.2% from 2022 through 2028, she says, “I do believe there’s much more opportunity for this channel to grow.” That’s something the whole industry can agree upon.

, vol. 144, no. 7 (July 2014): 1128S–1136S

Functional mushrooms keep the wellness space fertile.

Functional mushrooms: Complexities and competition grow as the market blossoms

Depending on your mindset, the pace of change in today’s world can be either a source of never-ending excitement, or a cause for constant anxiety. And to a growing number of American adults, it appears that modern life’s vagaries sure do feel more like the latter.

In its “Stress in America 2021” survey

, the American Psychological Association found fully 63% of adults agreeing that uncertainty as to what the next few months might bring gives them stress, while nearly half—49%—claim that even as society emerges from lockdowns, the pandemic still makes planning for the future not just hard, but impossible.

That’s no way to live, and so Americans have turned to any number of modalities to cope. But in an irony that’s almost poignant, some of the most popular options—we’re looking at you, prescription meds—carry an uncertainty all their own thanks to side effects, safety concerns, and increasingly steep price tags.

So rather than wait for the next chill pill to get cooked up in a futuristic pharma lab, more consumers are looking to the past—and to botanicals—to help manage in our anxious moment.

“People are understandably stressed right now,” concedes Wilson Lau, president, Nuherbs, and CEO, NuTraditions (San Leandro, CA), “but they’re also asking themselves, ‘Am I uncomfortable enough to need pharmaceuticals, or would a little help from a natural substance that’s been used through the ages be enough?’”

To him and others, the answer’s obvious: “As people try to address their health and happiness proactively, what better way is there than with ancient traditions and herbal products that come from the earth?”

Botanical ingredients do seem uniquely suited to this era. Not only do they hold out the hope of relief when many crave it; they also tick the “natural” box that commands such a premium with those same consumers. Even better, contemporary science is finally elucidating the mechanisms behind botanicals’ benefits, vindicating their long history in healing traditions from Ayurveda to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

So while botanicals may be ancient ingredients, they may also be the wellness wave of the future.

That’s certainly Beth Lambert’s bet. “There’s a great need to maintain overall health and wellness that neither food nor pharmaceuticals alone can address,” says the CEO of Herbalist & Alchemist (Washington, NJ). “This is especially true for those under stress, not sleeping enough, or not getting a balanced diet—basically, most of the general population. Botanicals can close this gap, helping the body function as it should and providing a welcome route on the path to wellness.”

Even skeptical consumers might sign on to that promise—and those consumers are out there. “There’s plenty of distrust of the pharmaceutical industry,” notes Brien Quirk, director of R&D, Draco Natural Products (San Jose, CA), “especially with ‘forever chemicals,’ pesticides, and recalled drugs in the news. But botanicals, by contrast, have long track records and a full spectrum of healing bioactives at a much lower cost and with safer long-term use.”

Assets like that have goosed botanical demand. As Cal Bewicke, CEO, Ethical Naturals Inc. (Novato, CA), points out, while U.S. supplement sales overall flourished along with COVID-19—rising 14.5% in 2020 and an estimated 7.5% in 2021, according to 

 Market Overview—botanicals “exceeded both these growth rate levels with a 17.3% increase in 2020 alone,” he says.

Lambert can see why. “During the pandemic,” she says, “people began focusing on their ‘self-health.’” That is, as conventional medicine found itself at a loss for solutions early on, consumers naturally gravitated toward “what had been used in the past and as part of other systems of medicine,” she says. In other words: botanicals.

“And when stress became a factor that added to the pandemic’s uncertainty,” Lambert continues, “people again turned to herbs,” establishing a degree of trust and habituation that keeps botanicals in the picture even today, as vaccinations and the sheer course of evolution rendered COVID-19 less of a threat than it once was.

That trust and force of habit have combined with a “greatly expanded awareness of the botanical message” to make herbal solutions “all the more mainstream,” Quirk says.

And indeed, the same herbal options that were once the darlings mainly of “older hippies, counterculturalists, and back-to-nature consumers like vegans” now attract much broader audiences under an ever-bigger tent, Quirk argues.

One such audience—and one that may actually intersect with some of those “older hippies” and “counterculturalists”—is the wave of boomers entering retirement. “Demographic changes taking place with the baby boomers are increasing the demand for antiaging products that forestall memory loss and the other inevitable signs of aging,” he says. “And many of the key bioactives in this space, such as resveratrol, fisetin, quercetin, pterostilbene, and apigenin, originate in botanical sources.”

That we even know this testifies to the fact that “the body of science on herbs is enormous,” Lambert notes, adding that “when I get asked about botanical research, I point people to the U.S. National Institutes of Health resource PubMed, which is part of the National Library of Medicine.”

Why? “A simple PubMed search for an individual botanical, or even just for terms like 

will yield peer-reviewed articles and published studies in the hundreds to thousands,” she declares.

Bewicke agrees, arguing that botanicals have planted themselves so firmly within the mainstream thanks in large part to the science now supporting their legacy of use. And that science continues to grow, he adds, “as companies invest more in clinical studies to substantiate health claims.”

Ethical Naturals is among those companies, having “done two studies at Rutgers University to support the effectiveness of our Cranberex cranberry extract in addressing UTIs,” Bewicke says. “We also did a successful study on our VinCare grape extract for cardiovascular support. Other studies have applied to 

But while Lau celebrates botanicals’ status as subjects of scientific study as much as any other sector advocate, he celebrates their history, too—as do consumers.

“People are reverting to what’s natural and easier to understand,” Lau insists. “How a particular herb works may be extremely complex, but the idea that it comes from the earth makes it seem simpler and purer—and, thus, more desirable.”

This owes to an intense yearning among future-shocked consumers “to return to their roots and to how their ancestors did things,” Lau argues. That being the case, “Consumers find herbs’ long histories and proven track records extremely compelling. It’s harder to convince someone that ‘X’ is great for ‘Y’ when ‘X’ has just been discovered; but telling them that ginger has a long history in multiple herbal traditions for supporting healthy digestion just makes sense.”

But when you boil it all down, Lambert believes, botanicals’ success stems from quality.

“When consumers get the result they’re looking for—which they often do with well-designed, quality herbal formulas—that strengthens the category,” she concludes. As such, she says, the SKUs racking up sales for Herbalist & Alchemist are those that demonstrably support immune, cardiovascular, digestive, kidney, and liver health, as well as those addressing stress and sleep, and musculoskeletal concerns.

Over at Draco, “Mushrooms still seem to be the hottest drivers,” Quirk says, “generating our biggest sales.”

He chalks it up to their “mystique,” adding that mushrooms aren’t just whole-food, pesticide-free ingredients replete with vitamins, minerals, soluble fiber, and amino acids; they also contain “natural antibiotics as plant-defense compounds” and are the epitome of adaptogens—“the most potent of all botanicals in terms of immunomodulation, balancing and not overstimulating the immune system,” he claims.

“Consumers have discovered that medicinal mushroom extracts have broader immune benefits than even vitamin C, selenium, or zinc,” he adds—“all of which still have value in a complementary formula, but don’t seem to have the wealth of current research that mushrooms do.”

Like Lambert, he directs the curious to PubMed, where “countless extensive studies back mushrooms’ wellness benefits not just for immune support but for cardiovascular support, metabolic and blood-sugar support, anti-inflammation, mood, sleep, cognitive function, and more.”

And while he’s witnessed interest across the demographic spectrum, “it seems like young people are really pushing the trend,” he says. Maybe it’s their fondness for fermentation, gut health, or self-experimentation—“younger people tend to be braver and more open-minded about trying nonconventional herbs from other cultures,” he argues—but whatever it is, it’s working.

The appearance of functional mushrooms in everything from standard-issue supplements to functional coffees, chocolates, smoothies, instant drink powders, and even some conventional foods and beverages proves to Quirk that they really have earned a higher profile with the public.

But for Lau, the extent to which all botanicals have colonized novel applications deserves respect. “It’s gone beyond traditional capsules, tablets, and tinctures, and even beyond the gummies and functional foods that were trendy a few years ago,” he observes. “Who would have imagined that Hello Dreams, from our NuTraditions retail brand, would be delivered via an oral strip that you swallow?”

The brand uses a super-concentrated version of Nuherbs’ Calm Down botanical blend to deliver an effective dose in the oral-strip format. And because the product’s “hero herb” is sour jujube date seed, it can claim scientific support for its sleep-promoting and relaxing properties, Lau says.

“The next level in our cards is to do scientific research to show that this particular product and the Calm Down blend work,” he says. “We’re definitely working toward conducting those studies.”

As they do, they and others in the botanical space will have to contend with the headwinds tempering the triumphs in the space—the first of which involves the botanical supply chain.

As Lambert explains, “The lead time for products that start with the growing and harvesting of raw materials is longer than for products like probiotics, vitamins, and minerals.”

And yet if growers try to fill the coffers by planting fields of a particularly on-trend herb, any drop-off in demand once the fad fades could prove financially catastrophic. “So with any attempt at assessing demand a rollercoaster,” Lambert concludes, “suppliers are responding by finding multiple sources, diversifying geographically, and managing customer expectations.”

Bewicke agrees. “Maintaining a constant supply of high-grade botanical extracts today requires ever-greater commitments to quality and planning,” he says. “But key suppliers and brands are working together to build on the same high standards that brought these products to more consumers in the first place.”

They’ll need that shared strength to battle the next threat looming in botanicals’ path: global warming. “With more extreme-weather events in the forecast,” Lau says, “the botanicals we use will be impacted, whether in terms of availability, quality, or both.”

Here, again, it pays to think ahead. “Brands need multiyear, multi-regional plans to address the eventuality that severe weather 

 affect the botanicals they use. It’s not a question of if but of when that disruption happens.”

“The good news,” Quirk offers, “is that suppliers and growers 

 addressing sustainability issues like never before, generating supply resiliency from alternate sources, implementing the sustainable harvest of wild-crafted sources, and using sustainable agriculture to ensure continued supplies.”

Which helps explain why Lau, like others, remains so optimistic.

“We’ve been in this business for more than 40 years and were bullish on botanicals when my grandmother and parents got it all started,” he says. “We continue to be bullish because there’s nothing better than the gifts Mother Earth has given us. So it’s our responsibility to be good stewards of the land and of herbal traditions so that future generations can enjoy what we’ve had the privilege to experience. Let’s be the shoulders they can stand upon.”

“Stress in America™ 2021: Stress and Decision-Making During the Pandemic.” American Psychological Association survey (2021).

Botanicals may be ancient ingredients, but they may also be the wellness wave of the future.

Bullish on botanicals: Why now’s the time for a botanical bonanza

Adaptogenic supplements are on a tear, with sales of adaptogen-containing products surging worldwide since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Matthew Oster, senior industry manager of consumer health at Euromonitor International (UK), says global adaptogen sales jumped 10% in 2020 and 14% in 2021.

This growth has given rise to product innovation. Analysts say that adaptogens are still in their infancy and have much more room left to run. Forward-looking brands will find plenty of opportunities for new product development as they follow the trends driving the adaptogens market.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the global mental health crisis, creating a new source of stress for consumers. One December 2021 Suffolk University/USA Today phone survey of 1,000 registered voters across the United States found that 63% of Americans found the year 2021 to be some variation of “awful,” “confusing,” “crazy,” “depressing,” “a catastrophe,” “frightening,” “frustrating,” “challenging,” or “lackluster.” This survey also found that over 87% of Americans believe there is a mental health crisis in the United States.

 As consumers try to prioritize their mental health, the search for supportive natural ingredients is driving growth in the adaptogen market.

“In consumer surveys we’ve run, mental wellbeing has become the chief factor that consumers consider when answering the question, ‘What does being healthy mean to you?’, so it stands to reason that demand has gravitated from specific immunity functionalities to these mental health concerns,” Oster explains. “The rise of interest in mental health solutions, and adaptogens in particular, intuitively makes sense as consumers of all stripes are processing the trauma, dislocation, and insecurity that have become commonplace across cultures during COVID-19.”

Oster says there’s been a dramatic increase in formulations containing ashwagandha in the last few years. Ingredients like ginseng, passionflower, and valerian root are also on the rise. He notes that promising research around the gut-brain axis and the growing body of evidence supporting psychobiotics is also giving adaptogens a boost.

Consumers are increasingly looking not only to reduce stress and improve relaxation but also to relieve anxiety and prevent sleeplessness, says Sayantan Paul, senior food scientist for Spoonshot (St. Paul, MN). While ginseng dominates the adaptogens category, other ingredients like ginger, mushrooms, and licorice are also popular, Paul says.

“Mushrooms contain ergothioneine, an antioxidant that may protect against cell and tissue damage,” Paul explains. “Social media conversations show that 21% of the posts that mention adaptogens also mention mushrooms. Ashwagandha is also gaining huge traction in the food products space.”

Adaptogens are increasingly finding their way into drink formulations, especially as consumers search for caffeine-free stimulants they can consume in a quick, convenient manner. Urban consumers, in particular, are increasingly stressed; incorporating adaptogens into mainstream beverage formats like teas and lattes is a way to deliver the functional benefits of adaptogens in a format consumers already know and love, Paul says.

“Ayurvedic botanicals like ashwagandha and turmeric continue to break into new frontiers in categories like beverages,” Paul notes. “Research on adaptogens is also focused on finding new ways of making ingredients more palatable without the use of flavors or masking agents.”

Spoonshot data shows that while supplements account for the largest portion of adaptogen product formats on the market, with 35% distribution, beverage formats like tea, coffee, and energy drinks are also quite popular. Drilling down, 23% of adaptogen products on the market come in the form of tea, and 7% of adaptogens are in the form of functional coffee. According to Spoonshot’s data, all beverage formats combined (tea, coffee, juice and smoothies, drink mixes, and energy drinks) account for 44% of the adaptogens market.

The adaptogens space is still relatively new, which means brands of all sizes have room to participate in this market. Adaptogens represent only about 1% of the American dietary supplement marketplace and 2% worldwide; therefore, most supplement consumers haven’t yet established preferences in this niche, Oster says. With consumer awareness still low, the adaptogens market is a blank slate for enterprising brands.

“Consumer interest in these products is quite dynamic and hasn’t yet settled on any particular brand, ingredient, or format,” Oster explains. “This has given the marketplace space to experiment, with considerable investment seen around emerging formats, from gummies to beverages to chews and jellies. This has also allowed enterprising formulators the opportunity to combine stress relief and relaxation functionalities with other, more recognized benefits like sleep, immunity, or digestion.”

The adaptogens market is rapidly growing, with analysts expecting it to continue its momentum into 2023 and beyond. Consumers will continue prioritizing their mental health, which means the need for stress-relief supplements will not abate in the near future. As adaptogens become more mainstream, research-validated ingredients will hold strong appeal for a stressed-out, pandemic-addled consumer base.

January 10, 2022: National Poll with USA Today

Examining the factors behind the rapid rise of adaptogenic supplements

What’s driving the adaptogens market?

With prices reaching extortionary heights and the global supply chain being run to all appearances by a demonic supervillain, it’s no wonder that minds in the botanical industry have fixated on fears of adulteration. Human nature being what it is, bad actors will invariably respond to trying times like ours by trying to manipulate the authenticity, identity, and even safety of botanical ingredients.

Yet while current circumstances seem uniquely dire, “This issue’s been around for as long as humankind,” declares Stefan Gafner, PhD, chief science officer, American Botanical Council (ABC; Austin, TX). And it won’t go away, either: “On the contrary,” he maintains, “suppliers and manufacturers have to be especially vigilant in times of short supplies and price hikes, as industry is now experiencing.”

Fortunately, a whole cadre of herbal professionals have made it their work to ferret out what shenanigans they can, and they’re leaving the whole sector more secure for their efforts.

Surveying the supply-and-demand dynamics in the botanicals space, John Travis, technical manager, NSF Certified for Sport, NSF International (Ann Arbor, MI), draws this lamentable conclusion: “High prices and increased demand make for a dream scenario for unscrupulous suppliers.”

Holly E. Johnson, PhD, chief science officer, American Herbal Products Association (AHPA; Silver Spring, MD), agrees, offering a recent anecdote from the elderberry space as a case study in how these dynamics play out on the ground.

“As consumer demand for the herb’s immune-support benefits skyrocketed during the pandemic,” she explains, “companies were keen to deliver new formulations containing elderberry—putting pressure on existing supplies.”

So when a leading supplement manufacturer was motivated by the dearth of raw material to subject a number of elderberry CPGs and ingredients to analysis, it surprised no one that some of the materials under scrutiny failed HPTLC and HPLC testing, Johnson says.

And elderberry is hardly alone. Gafner notes that ashwagandha and even Echinacea extracts—“for which we just received the first industry reports of a new kind of adulteration,” he says—are also seeing the very degree of increased demand that makes them subject to foul play, too.

But while the threat of adulteration seems perennially to hang over expensive and otherwise scarce botanicals like cordyceps, ginkgo, St. John’s wort, and bilberry—not to mention such essential oils as lavender, rose, bergamot, neroli, and mandarin—Gafner doesn’t believe that botanicals are “uniquely vulnerable” to the threat.

Consider, for example, that olive oil, fish, oregano, pomegranate juice, and other foods all frequently find themselves in adulterators’ crosshairs, he notes.

 set botanicals apart is that they now change hands mainly in the form of extracts, or formulated into products like tablets, capsules, gummies, and liquids—platforms in which the botanical ingredients “can’t be identified just by looking at them,” Gafner says.

Complicating identification even further is the intricacy of their chemical composition, he adds, which creates a situation that “unethical botanical suppliers and manufacturers may take advantage of.”

They’ve come up with some creative methods, but Travis notes that adulteration often occurs as “outright ingredient substitution or dilution with less-expensive, inferior ingredients,” the latter of which “of course gives the supplier a considerable price advantage, assuming it doesn’t trip whatever identity test is used to catch it—as it often doesn’t.”

Gafner adds that an even newer tactic rearing its head is the undisclosed “fortification” of a botanical with chemically synthesized or fermented constituents, or constituents purified from natural sources—so, for example, the addition of synthetic curcumin to turmeric extract, or the fortification of ginkgo extract with rutin or quercetin extracted from Japanese sophora.

“It’s important to emphasize that such practices are undisclosed,” Gafner stresses. “This is an essential component of adulteration: The seller is trying to create a false sense of identity and value for their economic benefit—and to the buyer’s economic detriment.”

As vexing as the cat-and-mouse game may be, Johnson is in no hurry to throw in the towel. “Botanical adulteration may indeed be a centuries-old problem,” she admits, “but we now have a plethora of modern regulations, guidance, standards, and methods to ensure quality of botanical materials, supply-demand pressures aside.”

And they are making a dent. Remember that supplement manufacturer who ran the passel of elderberry products through the testing gauntlet? “Interestingly,” Johnson notes, “while more than half—14 out of 25—of the raw materials failed testing, only two of the finished products didn’t pass. What this indicates to me is that many product companies are indeed compliant with the cGMPs in 21 CFR Part 111 and have strong ingredient-qualification programs to evaluate, and then reject, poor-quality or adulterated ingredients before letting them reach consumers.”

But here again, botanicals’ oft-noted chemical complexity can confound even fine-tuned tests, some of which aren’t up to the task—or even validated for the purpose—of identifying them.

And as Travis is quick to note, “Actors in this space understand this and know how to fool the tests.” A brand may deploy, say, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to identify goldenseal extract, he posits, but “can this method distinguish goldenseal from its common adulterants? Can it detect if the ingredient was diluted with 

He even notes that a 2018 study on this very issue underscored the lack of “apparent, visible spectral features of the species that permits differentiation between adulterants and goldenseal,” according to the study’s authors.

In the face of such analytical limitations, Gafner suggests that industry members “respond by adapting their test methods, or by adding qualified suppliers as backups if quality is below expectations.”

And whatever they do, he says, they shouldn’t feel like they’re flying solo in the process, as industry organizations and others recognize the challenges facing the botanical sector and are here to help.

“Some trade groups have information resources about adulteration and how to detect it,” he points out, citing AHPA’s Botanical Identity References Compendium as one such guide. But “the most prominent effort” to his mind is the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP), which provides resources and in-depth assessments of how well various analytical methods perform at authenticating those botanicals at documented risk of adulteration, he says.

“Also, BAPP will soon release its Best Practices SOPs for the Disposal/Destruction of Irreparably Defective Articles,” Gafner adds, which he describes as “a strategic tool” to help companies work with certified third parties to ensure that “irreparably defective” botanicals—that is, material that can’t lawfully be reconditioned to remove adulterants—exit the supply chain via proper destruction or disposal.

Beyond that, Travis cautions brands to “be alert when encountering a ‘good deal’ and attentive when qualifying incoming materials to avoid being duped by inferior adulterated ingredients.”

And Johnson’s “best advice” for brands is that “now is the time to review internal company policies and procedures related to sourcing botanical ingredients, setting specifications, and qualifying suppliers to be in a strong position to acquire high-quality ingredients into the future. Brands that have longstanding, trusting relationships with suppliers, as well as rigorous quality systems in place, are best positioned to continue delivering safe, authentic ingredients and products to consumers.”

Those relationships, Gafner admits, “are usually built over many years,” but when well-tended can prove “especially valuable once supply situations become more challenging.” And to prepare for the adulteration crises to come, he encourages brands “to join a trade organization or nonprofit like the American Botanical Council to tackle any future problems together.”

FT-NIR characterization with chemometric analyses to differentiate goldenseal from common adulterants

It’s no wonder that the botanical industry has fixated on fears of adulteration in these challenging times.

Identity crisis: The global supply chain is in chaos. Can you trust your botanicals’ authenticity?

When a wellness ingredient can claim consistent therapeutic use for close to several millennia, it’s fair to say that 1) it’s no longer an up-and-comer, and 2) it must be doing something right.

Such is certainly the case with elderberry (

), which was as much of an herbal staple in Ancient Greece as it is in our own COVID-cursed era.

And as it happens, the pace of science both supporting elderberry’s benefits and elucidating its actions has ramped up significantly even over the past few years, with PubMed listing more than 400 published studies on elderberry (or elder berry, as it sometimes appears; more on that later) from the last half-decade alone.

Looking back a full decade to 2012, Holly E. Johnson, PhD, chief science officer, American Herbal Products Association (AHPA; Silver Spring, MD), notes that roughly 50 to 80 elderberry studies have hit publications each year since, “many of which investigate its bioactivity and mechanistic influences on the immune system,” she adds.

So with elderberry’s fortunes rising along with the research, can we expect the good luck to continue? If brands make the most of this powerful botanical, we sure can.

According to the American Botanical Council’s (ABC; Austin, TX) annual 

 Herb Market Report, mass-market elderberry sales grew first from about $51 million in 2018 to nearly $108 million in 2019, and then to almost $276 million in 2020—an almost stratospheric rise that, in light of the pandemic, was clearly no coincidence. And while the ABC hasn’t crunched 2021’s numbers yet, Stefan Gafner, PhD, ABC’s chief science officer, is confident remarking that the past three years’ domestic growth alone “has been quite impressive.”

interviewed Chris Tower when he was vice president of sales and business development at Artemis International (Fort Wayne, IN). (In August, Tower joined Euromed USA Inc. as general manager.) Tower confirmed that demand for Artemis’s ElderCraft elderberry extract “was off the charts” during that same period, he claimed, adding that, “for perspective, we exhausted our two-year safety stock of frozen berries within calendar 2020 and had to implement a carefully managed allocation process to fulfill sales commitments to customers through the first quarter of 2021.”

While a “relative ebb” had finally descended on the frenzy by 2021’s Q2, with summer ’22 now in full swing and families on the move, Tower declared, “ElderCraft sales and new-product launches have significantly surged again. And flu season is still on the horizon.”

Of course, all of this is in keeping with elderberry’s track record of periodic surges—a track record that traces back ages.

“Elderberries have a long history of medicinal use,” Gafner points out. “Traditionally, the berry was used for a number of issues, mostly in the form of a juice or syrup as a mild laxative, diuretic, and diaphoretic—perspiration-promoting—agent for the common cold.”

As recently as the flu season of 2018-2019, which Melanie Bush, Artemis’s vice president of science and research, describes as “particularly bad,” “mainstream awareness of elderberry had already been rising, dovetailing nicely with its emerging public reputation as a helpful remedy” for such illness outbreaks.

That awareness merely solidified with COVID-19, and for good reason: “These little dark berries are all about immune support,” Bush says. But don’t take her word for it; survey the science.

Bush notes, for example, that a human pilot study

 conducted in the early-2000s concluded that elderberry can reduce influenza-symptom severity and duration, with a subsequent study

 published less than a decade later demonstrating elderberry extract’s direct antiviral and antibacterial action in a lab setting.

Those findings paved the way for a now oft-cited large-scale human clinical trial

 involving long-haul flight passengers confirming elderberry’s ability to reduce symptom severity and duration in upper respiratory tract infections like colds and flu.

 evaluating all clinical data generated to date leveled this “clinically relevant verdict,” says Bush: “Supplementation with elderberry extract reduces symptom duration and severity in colds and influenza. There you have it.”

What more could anyone want? Well, mechanistic data wouldn’t hurt, and that’s just what more recent research is delivering.

Consider that some of the main bioactives in European black elderberry are anthocyanin flavonoids, Bush explains, with cyanidin-3-sambubioside predominant among them. Studies now show that cyanidin-3-sambubioside appears to block the binding of influenza viral glycoproteins to host cells, she says, thus blocking virus entry and replication.

“Additionally,” Bush continues, “polysaccharides from elderberry were identified as having immune-boosting properties

—evidence that was corroborated in a brand-new study in which the polysaccharides in ElderCraft extract exerted direct immune-stimulating properties in dendritic cells and cytokines.”

Finally, she points to new studies nearing completion and publication that demonstrate ElderCraft’s inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 replication 

, as well as its support for a healthy immune system “by way of exerting prebiotic benefits in humans for a healthy gut,” she says.

Tower noted that because elderberry’s anthocyanins are relatively heat-sensitive and can degrade at temperatures above 90°C—conditions frequently encountered in conventional processing methods—Artemis extracts its ingredient using a proprietary water-extraction and ultrafiltration-concentration process called Iprona Polyphenol Technology (IPT).

“The IPT process’s uniqueness in large part retains and concentrates the full embodiment of our whole fresh and frozen Haschberg European black elderberry fruit,” Tower claimed. That leaves the finished ingredient “highly stable” in its dried extract form, he said, as well as highly water-soluble, palatable, and “organoleptically representative of fresh elderberry fruit.”

Those advantages have helped the ingredient chart an “exceptionally robust” course into formulations ranging from gummies and syrups to soft gels, capsules, chewable tablets, RTD beverages, teas, effervescent powders, and more, said Tower. “And on an even more niche level,” he noted, “ElderCraft formulates well into liposomal suspensions and functional chewing gum.”

Again, to ensure that these formulations deliver the potency consumers expect, Bush suggests that brands insist on elderberry extracts standardized to anthocyanin content and “made with gentle processing that retains other important bioactives within the fruit matrix.” But beyond that, she says, brands should also be on high alert for adulteration.

“When an ingredient’s star rises and it becomes popular,” she explains, “there’s always risk of bad actors getting a piece of the action through dishonest practices like adulteration. Unfortunately, elderberry is no exception.” The result, she says: “Misbranding is an issue in the market, as low-grade elderberry ingredients get passed off as more premium extracts.”

Most clinical data pertain to extracts from the plant’s berry, and not to those from other plant parts, for example. But given that the going rate for destemmed elderberries can be as much as times ten times that of berries with the stems attached

, shady suppliers have an incentive to get in on that action even while selling stem-on berries. Thus, Gafner concedes that though he’s seen little indication of flowers, leaves, or other structures winding up in elderberry products, “brands that economize may inadvertently buy product that’s not all berry.”

But the “bigger concern” for Gafner and others is intentional adulteration with extracts from lower-cost plants containing similar anthocyanins—say, black rice. It’s a temptation that pandemic- and now harvest-induced supply shortages have exacerbated

, he says, and recent studies do, in fact, hint that such adulteration of elderberry supplements “appears to be quite common.”

Gafner’s advice is therefore not buying based on price. “And make sure your extract is authentic,” he says. “If you don’t have an in-house laboratory, you should use a reputable contract-analytical laboratory to authenticate the material.”

Tower agreed. “Adulteration of elderberry—particularly extracts—remains so commonplace that ‘buyer beware’ should be the default position,” he wagered. “When sourcing and qualifying elderberry ingredients, it’s essential to work with leading, transparent, trusted suppliers with clear chain-of-custody oversight from harvest through manufacture, and comprehensive shared quality parameters, including species authentication.”

Again, standardization to anthocyanins is key, he said, adding that brands should “pointedly question suppliers offering high-ratio ‘so-called’ extracts at a low cost.”

With elderberry’s fortunes rising along with the research, can we expect its good luck to continue?

Nutritional Outlook Vol. 25 No. 7S

Aloe vera is trending again. What do we know about this versatile plant?

Functional mushrooms: Complexities and competition grow as the market blossoms

Bullish on botanicals: Why now’s the time for a botanical bonanza

What’s driving the adaptogens market?

Identity crisis: The global supply chain is in chaos. Can you trust your botanicals’ authenticity?

Respect your elders: Checking in with elderberry

Adaptogens explained: What makes an herb an adaptogen?

All mushrooms are magic