Betaine competencies

Nowadays, betaine is used in a variety of biological and technical applications. The biggest application areas are:

• in animal production, where betaine is used to prevent stress-induced losses in performance and reduce methionine and choline supplementation
• in aquaculture, where betaine is used to improve seawater adaptation and feed palatability
• in fermentation processes, as an osmoprotectant and metabolic regulator
• human applications are being developed intensively 

Health benefits

Betaine protects cell functions from osmotic disturbances especially in mammalian kidney and epithelial cells. Betaine is used in skin and oral health products to protect epithelia from various stressors. A methyl donor, betaine can convert homocysteine to methionine and thus lower plasma homocysteine levels. High levels of homocysteine are linked to increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. The homocysteine-lowering effect of betaine is found both in short-term (single dose) and long-term (several weeks) clinical studies.

Betaine can also enhance the liver function by providing methyl groups that have been depleted due to number of reasons. Althought liver and kidney cells naturally produce betaine, the synthesis may not be high enough to meet the increased needs caused by lifestyle and diet. In the clinical trials the effective daily doses have been 1-6 g/d.

Expertise

Danisco's health and nutrition group has accumulated know-how of betaine as a physiological metabolite and osmolyte in farm animals and humans since the early 1990s. Since the spectrum of organisms and applications studied is broad, we need people with different fields of expertise. Our networking with universities and other institutions has boosted our capabilities to focus the betaine research activities in the rapidly changing business environment.

Research tools

Betaine research at Danisco has focused on understanding the role of betaine, compared with other related nutrients, as a methyl donor and in osmoregulation. The role of betaine in various stress situations is a special focus area:

• Clinical analysis: the absorption and excretion of betaine or its metabolites can be measured from blood, urea or fecal samples. In order to understand the metabolic effects of betaine, we have followed the distribution of betaine in the body using labelled betaine or measured metabolite concentrations in different tissues.
• Histological samples: histological techniques have been applied to study the effect of betaine on the structure of intestinal tissues during eimeria infection.
• Feeding trials: the effect betaine supplementation on pig and poultry performance and other physiological characteristics have been studied in animal feeding trials.
• In vitro techniques: the specific questions of betaine absorption or tissue specific metabolism as well as the effects of betaine on osmoregulation and gene expression are studied using in vitro techniques.
• Betaine analysis: betaine can be measured from diverse matrices by high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods. Matrices are betaine products, animal feed, cosmetics, different kinds of foodstuffs ranging from grain products to vegetables, blood and urine etc. HPLC methods and pre-treatments are developed depending on the matrix analysed.

Betaine publications

Reprints of betaine publications are available upon request - please contact us at info.ingredients@danisco.com