Finding Options: The Research Behind Nanoboost Vitality

"Support means options."

But how do we know which options are the right ones for what we want?

For Nanoboost Vitality, this was especially hard to figure out. On top of carefully curating the nutrients for Nanoboost in general, we chose to include L-Theanine, L-Tyrosine, a helping of soluble fiber, and sucralose instead of sugar in Vitality.

TL:DR: Here’s how we chose them, and why.

Nanoboost features our custom blend of over 20 vitamins and minerals. Of course, everyone knows that it’s good to get your nutrients, but the nitty-gritty details (no powder puns intended) of why and how to get it best might as well be a secret.

Unsurprisingly, most people don’t know (or care) about why balanced nutrition is important until something goes wrong. When faced with not enough nutrients, your body can struggle to compensate or even function. You get tired, feel sluggish, and everything just starts to slow down. So, one of the big things we cover with Nanoboost is B vitamins. These vitamins are known for their role in ‘energy metabolism’, which is how our body gets, stores, and spends energy. Not getting enough B vitamins is like a driving car low on oil - putting more than you need back in won't get you better performance, but having enough to work properly is important. Minerals such as selenium are also important for efficient energy usage: selenium gets used to build proteins that activate the thyroid hormone. Without it, the body can’t signal itself to use energy. People with health conditions that lower thyroid hormone in to keep itself warm and people with untreated health conditions that lower thyroid hormone in their bodies often feel cold, sluggish, and constantly tired.

With that in mind, our goal with Nanoboost is to help make sure most needs are covered so that you can worry less about filling a nutrient gap in your diet. We try to pick nutrient forms that are easier for the body to absorb while still being flavorless - it’s only good for you if you eat it, after all. The Daily Value (DV) percentages are at 20% for most of these nutrients, to ensure that the amount is well within what almost anyone can tolerate.

For more information and transparency, each section of this post will feature some of the references we consulted for further reading.

B-Vitamins

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772032/

Selenium Deficiency

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482260/

This amino acid (a building block of protein) is typically found in green tea, and the studies we’ve reviewed for it have indicated that it’s safe, well-tolerated, and useful for reducing anxiety. We don’t know everything on how it works, but what we do know is that it passes through into the brain to work on parts that help you relax and de-stress.

Overall, the pool of evidence for this is growing, and the studies already conducted are fairly well-designed. Examine has a great overall summary, and there’s some solid Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT’s) and a meta-analysis (paper that looks at lots of trials) on this list:

Theanine

https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/

Relaxation effect

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0924-2244(99)00044-8

Meta-analysis of tea constituents, including L-Theanine.

https://doi.org/10.1111/nure.12120

Anxiety and Sleep

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6836118/

L-tyrosine is another common amino acid that the body needs. While it can be used in building protein, the body can turn L-tyrosine into dopamine and norepinephrine, two molecules the brain uses to carry signals, especially during stressful situations. Under exercise or high-stress situations, it’s possible to run out of the L-Tyrosine you naturally produce for making more dopamine and norepinephrine. Without these signaling molecules, it’s harder for the body to keep up.

Since L-tyrosine is already found inside the body in large amounts, it’s no surprise that L-tyrosine is safe and well-tolerated. The only exceptions we could find were with people who are taking L-DOPA, an MAOI such as rasagiline, or people who have hyperthyroidism - you should always consult your doctor before using any dietary supplements.

Again, Examine has a well-written summary, and there’s a large systematic review that looks at lots of papers like a meta-analysis. This makes it a stronger piece of evidence all on its own since it carries the weight (and further citations) of all the other studies it references.

L-tyrosine

https://examine.com/supplements/l-tyrosine/

Systematic review on L-tyrosine's effects in stressful situations:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.08.014

It’s no secret that most people know getting fiber is healthy. However, the big questions are “Why?”, and “How?”.

For starters, there are two types of fiber: soluble, and insoluble. Soluble fiber can be broken down by gut bacteria and be absorbed by the body while insoluble fiber goes through the gut without being broken down small enough to be absorbed. Insoluble fiber passes out of the body as part of the stool (it comes out in your poop, in other words).

Higher fiber diets in general can help control cholesterol by sticking to it in the gut. This prevents the body from taking in more cholesterol, which can lead to complications in the future, like heart attacks and stroke.

Soluble fiber is also useful for dieting and weight control. While being broken down in the gut, soluble fiber becomes a goo that makes the food in the gut thicker and more viscous, which makes you feel full for longer.

This has two good side effects. One, soluble fiber feeds good gut bacteria that keep bad gut bacteria from settling in its place. Two, the feeling of being full stimulates the gut to make more serotonin, which helps you feel happier and keeps things in your gut moving along smoothly.

There’s plenty of references out there that sing fiber’s praises from the rooftops, but we’d recommend these ones for the next time you need some bathroom reading.

High Fiber Diets

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559033/

Serotonin & Gut Motility - Therapeutic Relevance

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526216/

Is sugar a ‘guilty pleasure’ for you? For many, sugar is even worse than an indulgent small problem. But, at the end of the day…sweet things taste good.

There’s a lot of alternatives out there for sugar, but in the end we chose sucralose. It tastes sweeter than the same amount of sugar would, but the body doesn’t use it for energy. Most of it isn’t even absorbed, and the tiny amount that does gets removed from the body normally.

When we taste tested sucralose, it’s important to note that we had this sugar-substitute in its pure form. This tastes different from sucralose you can get at the grocery store, since those products often contain fillers that affect the taste. This isn’t a bad thing on its own; it’s hard to measure out the ridiculously tiny pinches of sucralose you would need to sweeten something, so blending it with filler makes it easier for most people to know how much they’ve used without needing a super expensive balance to weigh it out.

You might be thinking “what’s the catch? Is it safe?” To be clear: we’re not able to answer that question for you specifically, but for a vast majority of people, sucralose is found to be safe. From our reference list below, you’ll find its safety profile is adequate enough for regulatory agencies in the US and Europe, and the sweetener companies who manufacture it funded larger studies to further prove its safety.

While it’s true that there are small studies that point out potentially bad things for sucralose, more often than not, these studies are:

     - Too small to be significant; it’s way harder to cherry-pick test 1000’s of test subjects versus 10

     - The difference found is so small/uncertain, it could just be due to random chance

     - The experiment is poorly designed, or just asks a misleading question.

We’ll always keep our eye out for updates and even newer alternatives, but for now, sucralose is our best choice, widely accepted, and tastes great in Vitality.

FDA:

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/additional-information-about-high-intensity-sweeteners-permitted-use-food-united-states

European regulatory bodies are satisfied with its safety profile:

https://food.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-12/sci-com_scf_out68_en.pdf

Sweetener company funded safety study, finds no potential to hurt genes/DNA

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34454695/

At the end of the day, if any of these ingredients don’t work for you, no amount of population-level evidence will change that. It is what it is, and that’s okay - Nanoboost, Vitality, and Base aren’t going to be the right choice for everyone. When in doubt, always talk with your doctor, pharmacist, or other trusted medical professional about taking supplements, especially if it could interact with medications you take or conditions you have. We’re doing our best to make options, and we’re always open to making improvements, different versions, and more depending on what people want and what we can get.