The challenges and opportunities of NPD for metabolic health

Metabolism is a cornerstone of human physiology, influencing everything from energy regulation to disease risk, noted panel moderator and senior content editor at Vitafoods Insights Kirstin Knight. Metabolic dysfunction is not only a key driver for conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity but also plays a role in neurodegenerative diseases, certain cancers, and even the ageing process.

Interest in food and drink that supports metabolic health has therefore never been greater – Innova Market Insights selected “precision wellness” as its second biggest trend for 2025, driven partly by the rise of GLP-1 drugs – and a growing number of food and drink brands are tapping into this trend.

But navigating the space – particularly in the era of personalisation – can be challenging.

Viewing the gut as a ‘gateway to health'

One exciting area of research in the metabolic health field is the gut. “More and more […] the gut is seen as a kind of gateway to health,” said Marjolijn Bragt, programme leader of Nutrition for Optimal Health at Wageningen Food and Biobased Research. “Understanding [how] the digestion of foods but also the gut barrier and the microbiome can influence your health [is important].

“Another area of attention is the gut-brain-axis, where we understand that what happens in the gut – the microbiome, for example, producing short chain fatty acids but also hormone-like compounds – can influence your mood, stress, and your satiety.”

A major barrier in terms of product development in this area, however, is that scientists still don't fully understand what a healthy microbiome looks like, making it difficult to give concrete advice to an individual.

“I can measure your microbiome, I can see from the literature that there may be gaps, and I could give you advice on what you need to fill those gaps,” said Nard Clabbers, founder of personalised nutrition consultancy NCNC Nutrition, “but you don't really know for sure if that's actually making your microbiome healthier. You can't really measure that; you can't really put it to the test.”

With metabolic health, there is the added challenge of defining the parameters and biomarkers of what constitutes good metabolic health, Clabbers added.

“…how do you measure someone that's healthy? And how to measure if your intervention actually makes them healthier or unhealthier? That's something that needs discussion within the scientific field, but also […] with the client or the consumer,” he said.

GLP-1 drugs: A double-edged sword for metabolic health

Susan Kleiner, founder of High Performance Nutrition consultancy, noted that GLP-1 drugs are “a double-edged sword” for metabolic health because, while they are effective in promoting weight loss among patients, they are also “totally messing up their microbiome”.

However, the nutrition industry should see this as an opportunity for product development.

“From our side, what kind of products can we develop? Because, definitely, weight loss is important – but how can we make that journey of weight loss and then afterwards, keep people as healthy as possible, and return them to fuller health when they've reached their goals?” she asked.

Introducing other metrics to measure metabolic health – other than weight loss – could be beneficial not just for consumers but also for companies in ensuring consumer loyalty, noted Clabbers.

“Weight loss is really important for many consumers and thus also for many companies, but it's also really hard to maintain that weight loss, so it's a very dissatisfying metric,” he said. “If you just communicate weight with your consumer, you're 95% sure that in a year they will be dissatisfied with your solution and you will have to find a new consumer.

“If [companies] can communicate health based on different parameters than weight, they have more opportunities to keep that client for a longer period of time.”

Creating useful 'companion products' for GLP-1 users

Elizabeth Thundow, vice president of consulting for food and nutrition at Kline + Company, said this would tie in well with the current trend of holistic health.

“With GLP-1s, a lot of the companion products at the moment are purely focusing on protein, making sure you get enough protein whilst you're on the drug to hopefully balance out the loss of lean muscle mass,” she said. “But I think there's opportunity for other types of companion products to support other health markers on that journey, not just body-fat ratios.”

One challenge for the industry, highlighted by Bragt from Wageningen University, is that consumers often expect an immediate effect when buying a product.

“We know that some processes can take quite some years before you will see, indeed, that you will get less heart disease or you will not get any type of diabetes. But I think the focus on nutrition and healthy lifestyle remains important,” Bragt said.

‘A wonderful opportunity’ for nutrition education

While GLP-1 antagonists offer a pharmaceutical and medical solution to the problem of overweight and obesity, the panellists agreed that these drugs have created an opportunity for the nutraceutical industry to engage the public in a conversation, grounded in science, about nutrition education. This is something that doctors and the medical community are not paid to do, at least in the US, according to Kleiner – but it is a golden opportunity that should not be missed, she added.

 “[GLP-1 users] are very receptive to it, because now they don't have this constant chatter in their head that they need to eat, eat, eat. That inner talk has quieted down, and now they would like to learn how to eat well. Most of the people that I've talked to really want to learn how to eat better, but they don't necessarily have access to good information.”

If the nutraceutical industry does not step into this role and offer scientifically validated nutrition information, the risk is that “the gap will get filled, probably with more faddish, less evidence-based information, and we'll be on a bad cycle again”, Kleiner warned.