New anti-inflammatory fatty acid, sciadonic acid, gaining recognition in topical treatments as developers work toward making it a dietary ingredient

With all of the illnesses and other conditions that tend to happen in people for one reason or another, it’s always useful to have an effective nutritional supplement that can aid in potential treatment and recovery. Fortunately, there are many such products in circulation, promising to cater to your every need. Future products made under a relatively new company headed by Dr. Alvin Berger, a lipid chemist, will fall under this very category. Now, he is looking to find out exactly how he can formulate a new offering that will serve the market well.

Berger currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of a company called Sciadonics, Inc., and their flagship products are going to be based around sciadonic acid, which is described as a “new to market” anti-inflammatory fatty acid that can be used in a number of topical products that need an effective dietary ingredient. Sciadonic acid is also referred to as SCA, and it’s an unusual non-methylene-interrupted fatty acid that comes from the seeds of a number of gymnosperms. In case you didn’t know, gymnosperms are an ancient family of plants with seeds that are unprotected by an ovary or a fruit. Some examples of these are ginkgo, conifers, and cycads.

According to Berger, it took a long time for him to learn general mastery of sciadonic acid and truly understand its potential for use in dietary supplements. He even referred to the story of sciadonic acid as “another one of those overnight debuts that took decades,” and that it would have been able to rise to prominence much sooner had it not been for the coincident rise of fish oil. “I had all this background in the late 80’s and through the 90’s working on SCA,” explained Berger. “I was watching the lipid space evolve around me, and at the time it was all fish oil, fish oil, fish oil. When I first started developing a product everyone said there would be no market for it.”

After realizing that it was fish oil’s time to shine back then, Berger simply shifted his focus onto other things. However, it didn’t take long for him to appreciate the fatty acid’s place on the proverbial dietary table. One of the biggest reasons for this was the knowledge that the seeds where SCA came from were already being consumed as they were thought to possess certain health-enhancing qualities.

As of right now, Berger is keen on creating a topical product as an initial step to showing SCA’s overall effectiveness. That’s the main motivation behind his move to create a subsidiary with the help of some associates, as they aim to market a topical product that can be sold directly to consumers in the open market. They’ve made a fair amount of progress so far, but have not been free from obstacles.

“We have been discussing a plan to go forward with an oil-based supplement,” Berger said. “But the GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) regulatory requirement has been a bottleneck.

Berger truly believes in the potential of SCA to introduce a new fatty acid product in the market that can improve the lives of its users. If SCA can indeed deliver on its promised effects, such as anti-inflammatory effects on one’s skin, or reduction of wrinkles and redness that is normally associated with oxidative stress, then probably does have a bright future ahead of it.

Sources include:

NutraIngredients-USA.com 1

NutraIngredients-USA.com 2