The company’s chief executive officer Gary Troxel said the ingredient, for which clinical trials demonstrated weight management benefits, had been licensed to “select partners” in the US dietary supplements space.
Bush mango has been on the market pre-DSHEA and is therefore exempt from New Dietary Ingredient requirements. It has been featured in a Life Extension weight loss product for more than a year.
It is also applying for self-affirmed GRAS (generally recognized as safe) to enter the food supply.
GHA holds a patent (Patent No. 7,537,7900) and has several claims patents pending and had trademarked the ingredient as IGOB131, Troxel said.
Research conducted by Dr Julius Oben, PhD, head of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon found, as the company said in a statement that, “IGOB131 unlocks leptin resistance via lowering C-reactive protein levels and helping restore the weight control effects of leptin on appetite and metabolism.”
Two studies by Dr Oben, who has researched west African herbal extracts for more than 20 years, are published in the journal Lipids in Health and Disease.
A study published last year (doi:10.1186/1476-511X-8-7) concluded: “Irvingia gabonensis administered 150 mg twice daily before meals to overweight and/or obese human volunteers favorably impacts body weight and a variety of parameters characteristic of the metabolic syndrome.”
Other data has revealed satiety effects could be delivered at a range between 300mg and 3150mg per day, depending on the target population and the particular food or supplement matrix in question.
Pregnant women were the only contra-indicated population sub-group, although headaches, flatulence and sleep difficulties were recorded among study and control groups in one study.
“We commissioned a larger study to determine if there was a statistical significance of previous work and measured other parameters associated with weight loss factors,” said Troxel of Dr Oben’s work.
“We found IGOB131 was an effective agent to aid in healthy body recomposition by addressing multiple pathways and mechanisms that improve overall health.”
Troxel said his company had three other western African herbs in the pipeline and said it continued to work with local farmers and suppliers to develop others.
The flesh of Irvingia gabonensis, or bush mango, has been consumed for centuries by west African natives such as Cameroonians and Nigerians, along with fresh or dried seeds that are commonly used in local cooking as flavourants and texturants.
South African supplier, Afriplex, said in August last year that its version of bush mango had attracted the interest of at least two major US food producers.
Bush mango will enter a similar space as another African fruit extract, hoodia gordonii, which suffered a blow in November 2008 when Unilever shelved its plans to incorporate it into weight loss foods, despite spending €20m on it.
But the ingredient remains on-market in many products, most notably on the US dietary supplements market.
Bush mango provokes a different biological mechanism to hoodia as it doesn’t suppress appetite, rather promotes satiety by delaying the exit of food from the stomach via the presence of soluble fiber.