d9 Designs Inc. announced an advancement in caffeine technology: the development of d9-Caffeine. d9 Designs Inc., a consumer products manufacturer focused on commercializing the use of Deura9™ (d9-Caffeine), has achieved Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status for d9-Caffeine as a food ingredient in the United States. d9-Caffeine is a longer-lasting version of caffeine that is enriched with a naturally occurring form of hydrogen known as “deuterium.”
While effective, the advantages of caffeine have a brief duration, and excessive consumption can lead to anxiety, jitters, gastrointestinal distress, and other side effects. In many individuals, a tolerance to caffeine may arise, requiring a progressively higher quantity to achieve the same desired effect and leading to excessive consumption of caffeinated beverages. Caffeine is also extremely bitter; therefore, many manufacturers add "bitter blockers" to meet the demand for higher caffeine levels, which results in the addition of unnecessary artificial ingredients that leave an unpleasant aftertaste.
- Rapid and prolonged effects: d9-Caffeine is rapidly absorbed and provides the same stimulatory effects of conventional caffeine, but it lasts 3+ times longer.
- Less is more: Because d9-Caffeine lasts longer, a lower amount is needed with the potential to reduce excessive consumption of caffeinated beverages.
- Tolerability: d9-Caffeine reduces the formation of caffeine’s metabolites that may contribute to anxiety, jitters, and other negative effects in certain consumers.
- Consistency: Unlike conventional caffeine, slow and rapid metabolizers of caffeine handle d9-Caffeine similarly, with rapid metabolizers less likely to build tolerance to it.
- Better tasting: Because less d9-Caffeine is needed to achieve a prolonged stimulatory effect, fewer if any artificial bitter blockers are needed.
- Broad application: Because d9-Caffeine has the same physical properties as caffeine, it can replace conventional caffeine in almost any existing application.
The Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status of d9-Caffeine was based on established scientific procedures following evaluations of the comparative pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, genotoxicity potential, and overall safety and tolerability between d9-Caffeine and conventional caffeine. The full text of the peer-reviewed published studies supporting d9-Caffeine are available here3 and here.
Across all domains of assessment, d9-Caffeine exhibited a similar safety profile as conventional caffeine, while maintaining the same stimulatory effects, but with a prolonged duration of exposure and marked reduction in the downstream metabolites of conventional caffeine. d9-Caffeine was determined by an independent panel of food safety experts to be GRAS under conditions of use such that the total daily consumption of d9-Caffeine from all sources was less than or equal to 90mg d9-Caffeine/day.
