BIOSENTIAL INC.

Biosential Inc. was founded in 1997 by Craig Hudson, MD and his wife Susan Hudson and is based in Toronto, Ontario. In the past 10 years Biosential has grown from an idea that wouldn’t go away to a global entity dedicated to developing, testing, manufacturing and distributing quality functional foods. With a view to supplement the body using food where possible instead of medications, these functional foods take advantage of established scientific advances and tweak them through a nutritional rather than chemical lens.

In a health climate that often polarizes the medical and the natural, principals Craig & Susan Hudson operate from an appreciation of the advances and potential of medical research and seek to leverage the benefits of modern science with a healthy respect for the nutritional needs of the whole person.

History

After spending the early years of his medical career in research at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Craig Hudson left academia to pursue the quiet life of a psychiatrist in Stratford, Ontario. He was struck immediately by the number of people complaining of sleeping problems and wishing to escape a dependency on sleep medications. From his knowledge of the scientific literature he was aware of the benefits of synthetic tryptophan, if used properly, in the treatment of insomnia, anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Many people, however, could not follow through with the elaborate instructions in order to achieve the desired results of synthetic tryptophan since it can only bring its benefit under certain conditions.

Dr. Hudson surmised that if all these factors were rolled into a food bar, the effects could be achieved in a simple, more natural way, the way nature really intended. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid we need to get from food, so food ingredients should be the vehicle by which it is introduced to the body. The first prototype, the ZZZBar, was developed by Susan in their Stratford kitchen. It looked and tasted pretty terrible but it worked and was the beginning of a novel food approach to treating common but debilitating Central Nervous System complaints.

In 2004, after 7 years in research and development Biosential’s first product, Zenbev® Drink Mix, was launched in Canada. Zenbev is an organic, powdered beverage mix that combines a strategic protein with a carbohydrate to deliver a food source of tryptophan efficiently to the brain. The protein is derived from pumpkinseeds which have been crushed to remove their oil and milled to a fine powder which further concentrates the tryptophan but does not alter its biochemical structure. The carbohydrate source is dextrose providing the open doorway for the tryptophan to cross the blood brain barrier.

Once tryptophan is in the brain it responds to the available light. In daytime conditions tryptophan naturally metabolizes to serotonin which lowers anxiety. In darkness tryptophan metabolizes to serotonin and then to melatonin, allowing the brain to produce its own sleep hormone.

This formulation was tested in a clinical study where it was compared to synthetic tryptophan with carbohydrate and to a placebo. The formulation performed comparably to the effect of synthetic tryptophan on most variables and actually out-performed the drug in reducing the number of night-time awakenings and the amount of time subjects were awake in the middle of the night (Protein source tryptophan versus pharmaceutical grade tryptophan as an efficacious treatment for chronic insomnia, Nutritional Neuroscience, April 2005). Unlike synthetic tryptophan, natural source tryptophan is safe and approved for sale in Canada in accordance with the Natural Health Product (NHP) Directorate. Similar approval has been sought and granted in Europe and the USA.

Biosential has invested heavily in research and development beginning with laboratory studies conducted at the Guelph Food Technology Centre prior to publication in peer-reviewed journals. Early on, the principals of Biosential recognized that investment in R&D must be protected by a significant investment in Intellectual Property defence. Biosential has been granted 4 US patents, 3 Canadian patents, 2 South African patents, and one in Australia, China, New Zealand, India and Hong Kong. Examination of additional international patents has progressed well with patents imminent for Australia, Europe Japan, Korea, Mexico and South America. Biosential’s patents offer broad protection with respect to composition as well as methods of use claims. Zenbev® is Certified Organic by QAI.

Zenbev® Drink Mix was launched in Ontario in September 2004 and is now sold in over 200 health stores in Canada. In the spring of 2005 Zenbev® Drink Mix was launched in Ireland and is now sold in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. New markets are currently being explored and evaluated throughout the world.

BIOSENTIAL INC. MISSION STATEMENT

Created by Nature. Delivered by Science.
Biosential aims to develop natural food products blending the best of nature with the latest science. By enhancing, rather than altering basic structures available in botanicals, Biosential combines natural ingredients in a way that can be most efficiently utilized by our body in the context of the world in which we live. From idea inception to substantiation via rigorous clinical research, the goal is harmony: body, mind, science.