“Energy balance” addresses overall metabolic health, not just weight management, says Sabinsa at SupplySide East

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At April’s SupplySide East trade show, Sabinsa Corp. (East Windsor, NJ) explained how its branded Coleus forskohlii extract ingredient, ForsLean, is approaching the weight management and metabolic health market in a new way. Recently, the company announced it received new patents in several countries based on newly gleaned information about how the ingredient, which was primarily marketed as a body-composition ingredient, works to achieve what Sabinsa is now calling “energy balance”-that is, the conversion of white fat to brown fat. (The patents are: Japan Patent Number 6472453, U.S. Patent Number 10085963, and Australian Patent Number 2015351423.)

In a press release, the company described the effects of ForsLean and its active constituent, forskolin, thusly: “Whereas Sabinsa’s original ForsLean patents defined its use and composition in promotion of lean body mass, reduction of adipose tissue (fat), and weight loss, the new patents outline a molecular mechanism: how forskolin actually aids in fat conversion into heat, a novel concept called energy balance. Humans possess white fat tissue (WAT) and brown fat tissue (BAT). While WAT stores energy in the form of triglycerides, BAT dissipate energy in the form of heat. Forskolin, by recruiting secretory factors like bone morphogenic factors (BMPs), aids in the conversion of WAT to BAT, which is crucial for fat utilization and effective energy utilization (balance). This is a preferred preventive measure from obesity and metabolic imbalance.”

At SupplySide East, Sabinsa’s worldwide president Shaheen Majeed underscored the greater metabolic health implications of ForsLean beyond just weight control. “The conversion of white fat to brown fat is one of the most significant factors that people should be looking at to help reduce obesity, increase lean body mass, etc.,” he said. “The easiest way to market ForsLean would be to say, ‘Hey, let’s go after the weight-loss or weight-management market.” However, [these new discoveries about ForsLean] have now triggered what we call ‘energy balance.’ Energy balance addresses many metabolic states in the body, so we want marketing companies to look beyond weight management when using ForsLean. We want them to look at ForsLean for cardiovascular health, and maybe even as pre-workout or post-workout ingredients. There are a lot of different areas ForsLean can address now.”

Majeed also points out that unlike some thermogenic ingredients, ForsLean is “ephedra-free, caffeine-free, and has none of those stimulants that you would find in other, fat burner–type weight-loss products. Coleus forskohlii doesn’t work like that.”

With its new patents, ForsLean is now the only ingredient that can claim to use Coleus forskohlii for energy balance, Majeed adds. “No other Coleus can say that,” he said.