Lycotec develops first longevity SIRT chocolate

UK based biotech company Lycotec has developed what it claims to be the world’s first longevity SIRT chocolate, which after ingestion provides a blood level of unmodified trans-Resveratrol, t-RSV, equal to its level after drinking red wine.

t-RSV is the molecule of plant polyphenol class which is typically present in red grapes, some berries, cocoa and nuts. There are a number of beneficial health effects of t-RSV from cardioprotective to antidiabetic. However, one of its properties is the ability to activate a group of SIRT genes. These genes are responsible for controlling cellular stress protection and longevity.

When t-RSV is consumed as part of food, a beverage, or as an isolated extract in the form of most supplements, it quickly gets modified and inactivated in the digestive tract, Lycotec explains. Drinking red wine, it adds, is the only known exception when t-RSV can reach the blood in an unmodified active form at a detectable level.

One of the main challenges of fortification of chocolate is a quick degradation of molecules or substances newly introduced into it. The main reason behind this is the intrinsic composition of chocolate, which by its nature is a product of microbial and fungal fermentation. It not only has an acidic environment but also active degrading enzymes present there. This in combination creates a rather hostile environment for many newly introduced ingredients, which can lead to their breakdown and inactivation, Lycotec says.

To help overcome this, Lycotec has developed a technology which can protect these ingredients from degrading factors of the chocolate matrix and the human digestive system. The technology, it notes, creates a chocolate where t-RSV is protected and which helps to increase its absorption in an unmodified active form.

For clinical validation, a number of resveratrol-fortified chocolate prototypes were made: five based on dark chocolate, with 85% cocoa and five on milk chocolate, with 37% cocoa. Pieces of the same but unfortified dark and milk chocolate were used as control samples.

Lycotec says it was important to select for the trial people who would be the most likely target population of this product – healthy middle-aged men and women. It was a double blind, cross-over pharmacokinetic study, in which volunteers’ blood was collected every hour for four hours after ingesting the chocolate.

The study confirmed that the technology worked and the level of unmodified t-RSV in the blood of volunteers after ingesting all prototypes of the experimental chocolate was significantly higher than in the control groups. In the milk chocolate series, the best prototype gave a sevenfold increase and for the best dark chocolate, 14-fold growth.

Although this level remains three to four times below that after consumption of one of the most t-RSV rich red Burgundy wines, Lycotec says it was achieved by ingestion of one piece of 10g of the chocolate, while for the wine it was half a bottle.

An additional important observation of the clinical study was that after ingestion of this dose of the Lycotec chocolate, the postprandial concentration of the blood glucose was still below that of its safe upper threshold of 6 mmol/L. Consumption of the control chocolate, however, led the glucose to reach this level and even higher.

This, the company says, means the product has a lower glucose impact on the body than conventional chocolate, which makes it safer for people with diabetes and more positive in calorie intake management.

These results, it adds, shows the Lycotec chocolate can break the monopoly of red wine as the only significant source of unmodified active t-RSV in human blood.

Dr. Ivan Petyaev, who invented the technology, says the main aim is to create a functional food, which expands consumers’ access to clinically proven absorbable t-RSV.

The Lycotec chocolate will be introduced to the technology and scientific community later this month at the 10th World Congress on Polyphenol Applications, in Porto, Portugal. It will be commercially launched by the end of this year by Lycotec’s partner Cambridge Chocolate Technologies.