From Alzheimer's to weight loss, researchers unearth links between vitamins, minerals and various health conditions.

The resin from a tree in India, the guggul tree, contains a substance effective in controlling high cholesterol. The compound, guggulsterone, blocks the action of a cell receptor, FXR, which helps to regulate body cholesterol levels.

Consumer awareness of eye-health, along with landmark research supporting supplementation benefits, gives direction for nutritional products companies.

A $4.5 million study to be conducted at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston will examine the health benefits of soy isoflavone supplementation in reducing bone loss in postmenopausal women.

We all know broccoli is good for us, but there is yet another reason to eat it.

A Nutrition Business Journal report titled "Consumer Research in the Nutrition Industry II," concludes consumers are ill-informed about nutritional science, brands and regulations, making them easy prey for misconceptions and misinformation.

The food and nutritional industries tend to "deconstruct" foods. With the aid of science, healthy constituents are found and extracted and/or purified, and then promoted as supplements for food fortification.

Probiotic products have been marketed for a number of years, primarily in the yogurt category or as live microbial dietary supplements whose biological activity needed to be preserved. This tends to limit their consumption to supplements taken after meals or in fresh dairy foods. One technology now makes it possible to "have your probiotic and eat it, too!"

The interest in foods with healthful properties has increased the need for food formulators to offer additional benefits in the foods and beverages they manufacture.

Health-conscious consumers—and manufacturers and marketers of nutritional products—are becoming more familiar with the health benefits of "good fat." A primer on nutritional fats and oils—from omega-3 fatty acids to chia seed oil—is provided.