As consumers around the world continue to increase consumption of a wide array of nutritional supplements and nutraceuticals, many are wondering how to profit in the increased demand for African nutraceutical ingredients.
Several ingredients originating on the African continent such as such as African Mango have been promoted as weight loss supplements on popular US television shows, causing a surge in demand.
But weight loss ingredients aren’t the only African herbal remedies getting attention from the worldwide supplement markets. Indeed, many Westerners looking to bulk up and put on muscle are seeking out little known, all natural muscle building ingredients.
There is in fact a strong cultural narrative has been propagated extensively that basically says that in addition to doing strength training exercises and eating right athletes should also be taking bodybuilding supplements to help there bodies build muscle. Apparently the “fitness advice for men” industry has convinced a large segment of the population that using nutraceutical supplement should be an integral part of the routine of anyone who wants to build muscle and keep the mass that they have gotten from working out.
That said, many scientists have studied how supplements can be used to provide the body with nitrogen, proteins, and other essential nutrients that are helpful to those wishing to gain strength, recover from a workout, and/or gain mass. Recovery is, many agree, just as important as the exercise itself when it comes to gaining mass and strength. Therefore, the public’s interest in this type of supplementation does seem to have a basis in scientific fact.
Apparently, during recovery, your muscles grow and regain the lost cells during the workout. Once your muscles have recovered by getting the proteins and nutrients they need, you can hit the gym and lift more often, and as you can probably imagine, the more often you lift weights, the faster you will get the results that you have been looking for.
Two other type of supplement getting a lot of attention in recent months are those that provide multiple antioxidants, so called “super-foods” as well as other vitamins and nutrients. These products, which are sometimes marketed as “green health drinks” also commonly contain numerous additional fruit and vegetable extracts, and probiotics.
Probiotics, either combined in these nutrient dense health drinks or as stand alone dietary supplements have become a major sector in the supplement market over the last several years, and the demand for them continues to grow, with no signs of a slowdown. While probiotics sold on the global market are not commonly sourced from Africa, this is something we will be keeping a close eye on.
As we know Africa is home to a diverse supply of powerful botanicals not yet discovered by the west, so I think we can probably rest assured that there will be many more African ingredients that will also become popular with major nutraceutical producers in coming years.
Resources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22260513
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/06/10-african-super-foods-you-need-to-be-eating-and-drinking-right-now/
https://naturesmagicgift.com/digestion/probio-lite-review-does-it-really-work/