PLT Health’s new Nutricog brain health botanical ingredient addresses broad cognitive benefits, including memory, learning, focus, and decision-making

A new botanical-based brain-health ingredient from PLT Health Solutions Inc. (Morristown, NJ) addresses a broad range of cognitive-performance abilities. The new Nutricog ingredient is a patented blend of haritaki (Terminalia chebula) and boswellia (Boswellia serrata) and is standardized to gallic acid, ellagic acid, and amyrins. The company says it spent five years developing Nutricog.

According to PLT Health Solutions, Nutricog was tested in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial on 100 healthy male and female subjects between the ages of 40 and 65 years. Subjects took either Nutricog or a placebo for 120 days and were assessed for cognitive-performance improvements, including any improvements to attention, working memory, and decision-making using measures such as the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Other measures included the Athens Insomnia Scale and biomarker testing for brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF).

In the study, “users of Nutricog demonstrated significant improvements compared to placebo across multiple cognitive domains, including learning, memory, sustained attention, working memory, and executive function, where increases in cognitive speed were seen concurrently with improvements in accuracy while multitasking,” the company reports in a press release. “The earliest clinically significant benefits—memory and focus—for Nutricog were shown to start at just 15 days after commencing use.”

Subjects showed improved verbal and visual episodic memory when evaluated by the RAVLT and CANTAB tests. Specifically, they showed a 1.4-times improvement in Immediate Recall (short-term memory), and 2.3-times improvement in Delayed Recall (part of long-term memory), and a 2.1-times improvement in Recognition (ability to use familiarity to make connections in fractions of a second) between baseline and the study’s end.

In terms of learning, when assessed using RAVLT, Nutricog subjects showed a 1.6-times improvement in Total Learning (ability to learn with repeated exposure) and a 2.7-times improvement in Learning Rate (speed and effectiveness of acquiring new information) between baseline and the study’s end.

When it came to enhanced focus, attention, and concentration, subjects were evaluated based on Proactive Interference, which “refers to the reduction in memory performance for recently acquired information as a result of prior learning of related materials and has been shown to play an important role in forgetting.” Proactive Interference also demonstrates how working memory and attentional focus are performing. Over the study, the Nutricog subjects “began to show improvement in Proactive Interference scores starting at 15 days from commencement and had a full 11.5-times improvement over baseline at 120 days,” the company’s press release reports. It notes that additional improvements in attention and working memory were found based on CANTAB testing.

Finally, Nutricog subjects were able to think faster and more accurately. Several CANTAB tests showed subjects with significantly improved speed of performance, without a reduction in accuracy—effects especially notable in tests looking at non-verbal, visual memory, and multitasking functions. As the company explains, “The ‘Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff’ describes the tendency for improvements in cognitive performance in speed to be offset by reductions in accuracy—and, similarly, improvements in accuracy to be achieved with reductions in speed.”

Because Nutricog has such wide-reaching cognitive benefits, it can be formulated into a broad selection of products. “With Nutricog, we see products for improved memory or faster learning as natural landing spots because of the impressive benefits it offers in these areas,” said Jennifer Murphy, MS, RD, director of innovation and clinical development for PLT Health Solutions, in the press release. “At the same time, improvements in overall cognitive performance combined with significant increases in peripheral BDNF suggest Nutricog may offer support for positive structural changes in the brain, and Nutricog represents a new ingredient on the cognitive health landscape that can stand alone as a hero ingredient and attract consumers. The power of these clinical results is not just that Nutricog showed significance in such a broad array of areas, but that the amount of change versus placebo that was demonstrated.”