Dr. Paul Lohmann highlights mineral salt innovations for women’s health and stress relief

Dr. Paul Lohmann, a company specializing in mineral salts, sees women’s health and mental well-being as key areas where its targeted solutions offer support. We meet with Dr. Loreen Hericks, the company’s product manager in pharma and cosmetics, to examine its ingredients targeting these health areas and explore what drives innovation and product development.

She tells Nutrition Insight that customers and market trends drive innovation at the company.

“It can be that we see the demand or a trend on the market, but we see us also as an innovation partner for our customers, where they can come to us with an idea or problem, and then we have joint product development with customers, to create customized products.” 

“We are open to everything,” she continues. “If we have a new application area where our mineral salts fit, then we promote this, or if we find a completely new compound on the market which could be interesting, or a customer comes to us asking, ‘are you able to develop this?’ This can also be completely new, as long as it fits into our philosophy and we can do it.”

Women’s health

One of the main topics Dr. Paul Lohmann featured at the recent CPHI trade show was women’s health. 

Hericks illustrates: “We saw this trend nearly everywhere, in journals, on social media and at other fairs like Vitafoods. We decided this is a topic we should focus on and support women’s health.” 

Most of the company’s products in this health area are used in supplements. However, she adds: “We saw that women’s health can also be important from the pharmaceutical view because sometimes it’s not enough when you consume a nutritional supplement, then you need a pharmaceutical formulation to overcome deficiencies.”

The company offers mineral salts at women’s different life stages, explains Hericks. “For example, in the premenopausal phase, we offer zinc salts to support reproduction. During pregnancy, women have a higher demand for iron and we offer different iron salts as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) or supplements, which can be used to fulfill these higher iron demands.” 

“With increasing age, the risk of osteoporosis also grows. Therefore, we have a broad range of calcium salts to prevent osteoporosis at higher ages.”

Dr. Loreen Hericks, product manager in pharma and cosmetics at Dr. Paul Lohmann.She presents an innovative product in this area — calcium citrate malate. “This is a product where we combine the cation (positively charged ions) calcium with two different anions (negatively charged ions), malate and citrate, so that we can combine the advantages of both anions in one product. Clinical studies show that this combination has a higher bioavailability, meaning it can be better absorbed.” 

Calcium citrate malate is a reacted molecule with 22% calcium. It supports bone health in women and men, especially with vitamin D. 

Hericks adds: “We also have a lot of products, especially zinc salts, which have beneficial advantages in the bone healing processes.” 

Stress management

Another focus area of the company is on magnesium, where Dr. Paul Lohmann focuses on sleep improvement and stress reduction, explains Hericks. 

“During our busy daily lives, we sometimes forget to consider our stress levels. When we have too much stress or not enough sleep, stress can harm our health. For example, we can have a higher risk for cardiovascular issues like heart attacks.”

“We have a broad range of magnesium salts because magnesium can reduce stress by blocking the stress hormones such as adrenaline, which also influences the sleep hormone melatonin. Therefore, magnesium glycinate is a good mineral salt and recommended compound because glycine, as an amino acid, also has a calming effect and thus improves sleep quality.”

Hericks also highlights the company’s magnesium citrate malate, which combines the anions citrate and malate with magnesium, which can be promoted for mental health. 

“We formulate it into a mental performance drink powder, which can then be dissolved in water. This product has excellent solubility and is therefore applicable for liquid applications.”

The company’s mental performance powder quickly dissolves in water, says Hericks.Innovation path

Hericks underscores that the company’s customers are an essential driver for innovation. She highlights the importance of customer exchanges in determining their needs, requirements and demands. For example, customers reach out to the company for a specific ingredient or advice on entering a growing market, such as sports nutrition. 

“We also conduct market research on different platforms to determine new products. The fairs are also essential for us to see where our competitors and customers are working, and we try to get the information from there.”  

“We saw that gut health is a hot topic and is becoming more and more of a focus, but sports nutrition is also becoming more and more important. To be prepared, we have already worked on product development to support our customers in fulfilling these trends,” Hericks details. “We work on concepts to combine different minerals in one product, which will be presented at Food Ingredients Europe.”

Although Dr. Paul Lohmann doesn’t produce finished products, the company creates new promotion samples each year that it takes to fairs. These samples demonstrate to the company’s customers for which application the ingredients fit and give an impression of how it looks and tastes. 

“We don’t produce the final formulation, but we help develop a formulation they can use,” continues Hericks. 

“We have a good application technology department. We work with our customers to find formulations for them or to support them in finding a good formulation, for example, for direct sticks that can be consumed.” 

Dr. Paul Lohmann focused on women’s health and stress management at the recent CPHI trade show.Applications beyond nutrition

In addition to nutritional supplements, several of Dr. Paul Lohmann’s mineral salts have applications in topical products or as pharmaceutical ingredients. 

“Biopharmaceuticals are a growing area in the pharmaceutical sector,” asserts Hericks. “Therefore, we also offer mineral salts, for example, for upstream processes as cell nutrients, for downstream processes, but also in the final formulation, where they can act as a stabilizer, for example, or a preservative in vaccines.”

Whether a product is on the market as a supplement or API depends on a customer’s wishes and whether Dr. Paul Lohmann has developed documentation on products as APIs. 

The company’s mineral salts can also be used in cosmetic products for beauty-from-within and topical applications. For example, mineral salts can increase viscosity or act as buffers in creams, help to add volume to hair and soothe the skin. 

Hericks adds that Dr. Paul Lohmann’s specifications for cosmetic ingredients include microbiological parameters and that the company has a “full documentation package to meet the refinements for the cosmetic market.” 

“When we visited the in-cosmetics fair in Paris, France, we saw that, in general, skin care is a big topic, such as skin protection and anti-wrinkles. There we have products like our copper gluconate, which has benefits on these properties.”