GENR8-ing a Buzz

Former EAS founder courts endurance and strength training athletes with a science-backed super carb.

By
Joanna Cosgrove
Online Editor

Athletes who consume “performance nutrition” products can be roughly split into two groups: endurance athletes (e.g. runners) and physique/strength trainers (e.g. body builders). Products formulated to appeal to endurance athletes would ordinarily not appeal to physique/strength trainers. But a new product from Dana Point, CA-based GENR8 Inc. is poised to change that perception. Helmed by former EAS co-founder, Anthony Almada, MSc, GENR8’s staple ingredient is a patented sugar-free, barley starch-derived carbohydrate that promises muscle recovery twice as fast as typical carb-based products that employ maltodextrin and sugars.

The ingredient, called Vitargo, is owned by a Swedish company, and is currently under license to GENR8, but was once part of the EAS product fold. After selling EAS, Mr. Almada was asked by Dr. Eric Hultman, the researcher who conducted the first human study on the carbohydrate, to introduce it to the then current owner of EAS, Bill Phillips.Dr. Hultman is credited with pioneering the practice of carbohydrate loading to improve endurance back in the 1960s and also conducted the first creatine loading study in the 1980s. “EAS was the first company in North America to have Vitargo, but they never did anything of any prominence with it,” commented Mr. Almada. “Bill was never comfortable with going after the endurance market. At that time, the research suggested only an endurance and carbohydrate replacement relevance. It never received its own product name [at EAS] and was used sparingly in a way that didn’t include an exclusive, patent license agreement.”

He added that the idea to create GENR8 spun out of research that was conducted by Professor Paul Greenhaff, PhD, of the University of Nottingham in the U.K. Prof. Greenhaff had been working with Paul Winsper, former head strength and conditioning (S&C) coach for Newcastle United, a professional soccer team in the English Premier League (the U.S. equivalent of the NFL), and current S&C coach for the Toronto Football Club, the newest team in Major League Soccer (MLS), in professional sports nutrition applications of Vitargo.

One of the factors that compelled Mr. Almada to devote his business acumen to the fledgling company was that Vitargo’s patent related not only to how it was to be used, but also to the ingredient molecule itself, akin to a drug patent. “Historically in the nutrition industry, there’ve only been a few ingredients where the actual molecule is patented, like Viagra, Lipitor, Celebrex, etc. on the drug side. The last one of any prominence was Chromium Picolinate,” said Mr. Almada. “It’s the equivalent of a pharma-molecule patent. Lonza’s CarniPure carnitine is another example of a molecule that’s patented.”

Vitargo, he said, is a unique starch molecule with a unique handprint. “When ingested, it will leave the stomach, get into the small intestine and into the blood at least twice as fast as maltodextrin and sugar combos used in typical sports nutrition products.”

Digested carbohydrates in the form of glucose are the preferred food of the brain and muscles, he explained. “When they get into the blood that quickly, it gets to the brain and muscles quickly, facilitating faster results. It may stimulate the brain with a feeling of alertness without the stimulating effect of caffeine.”

Because the Vitargo molecule can achieve this objective twice as fast, the glucose in the blood quickly stimulates the pancreas to release more insulin, which is key for an athlete. “If you can raise insulin in the blood, which is what happens when you consume primarily carbohydrates (and to a lesser extent, protein), that is the signal that opens the proverbial door to let things in. If you can increase the size of the door and the speed that it opens you can get more things inside the house. Increases in insulin also initiate the shutdown of muscle protein breakdown—an inevitable consequence of resistance/weight training. Vitargo opens more doors faster than the carbs widely used in sports nutrition products.”

He added that another benefit of Vitargo’s quick action is that it may eliminate the potential for bloating—a common hindrance for athletes. “If you feel full, that thing you put in your stomach is still in your stomach and not doing your muscles any good because it’s not been absorbed into the blood,” he said. “Vitargo delivers the same amount of carbs with a fire hose, as compared to a garden hose. There’s no food you can consume that will deliver that fast.”

Improving Carnitine’s Effectiveness

One nutrient of prominence in athletic circles is carnitine. Several years ago Mr. Almada introduced Lonza to Prof. Greenhaff, who had said he had an “idea” for carnitine, and they set to work researching how to make carnitine “work better.”

“After three years, Dr. Greenhaff achieved a significant breakthrough that resulted in patent applications,” commented Mr. Almada. “Previous research showed that giving a person multi-gram doses of carnitine orally, or even intravenously, did not lead to increased carnitine in the muscle, which is where almost all of the body’s carnitine is stored. So it would have minimal effect related to what people have long assumed carnitine would do. Prof. Greenhaff’s research showed a way to increase carnitine in muscle and that was a dramatic, dogma-shifting finding. It’s not dogma shifting in that we can get carnitine to the muscle; it’s what happens to muscle metabolism after this is achieved.

“If you wanted to have your house cleaned and hired a bunch of housekeepers to do the work, what good would it do if you didn’t open your door to let them in? They can’t do the work of cleaning the house and it would be a wasted resource. The same is true with carnitine,” he said. “You’ve delivered carnitine to the body, but the door doesn’t open so it can’t get inside to do the fat and carbohydrate metabolism “work” it’s meant to do.”

A Promise of Proof

Mr. Almada is enthusiastic about GENR8’s potential with Vitargo and has structured the company on a platform of “Proof Before Promises.” “Not unlike a pharma company, we don’t bring a product out until the product offered for sale has multiple human studies of university origin done on the actual product,” he said. “If we can’t show that the product is better than what people are already using, it’s pointless for us to bring it out. The underlying message for us is one of consumer confidence. Before you think of buying another generic product, you know that a GENr8-branded product has been proven to work and be superior, just as you’d know a prescription medication would work.

“Putting that into context, only about one in a thousand finished products the consumer buys has any studies showing that it works in humans” he said, adding that the product has been tested for professional athlete consumption by the same laboratory that was the U.S. Olympic Drug Testing laboratory at UCLA. “They are the pre-eminent world anti-doping association experienced lab in NA for testing for drugs used in sports and we have each batch of each product tested to certify undetectable levels of banned substances for sport, giving athletes the confidence that they will not fail a drug test, as well as the confidence that the actual product they are buying (not just a singular ingredient in the product) has been proven to be superior in university testing.”

Mr. Almada emphasized the use of university testing asserting that it is another factor that sets Vitargo apart from competing products. “More and more companies are using privately owned research centers because they’re cheaper, quicker, and strategically or defensively, when you use a private research center, the company that owns the products sponsors the research and subsequently owns it. If studies show the product doesn’t work, it is very likely to never hit the public domain,” he said. “University studies, almost all without exception, go public, regardless of the findings because they are driven to further science. It’s a very big distinction that’s dramatically overlooked.”

The company’s confidence in Vitargo’s ability to deliver biological results is also visible on the shelf, where the product is marketed to both the physique/strength consumer and the endurance consumer. “Universally and without exception, a company goes after one or the other,” commented Mr. Almada. “No one has gone after endurance and physique/strength segments from day one. Numerous companies go after the other community after they establish themselves in one community, but that’s hard to do because there are no overlapping circles there. Our package branding doesn’t feature a photo of a body builder or a runner; it focuses on the biology of the product rather than the presumed consumer.”

While the Vitargo-only product debuted on roughly 1500 GNC store shelves earlier this year, MyoSwitch, the trade name for GENR8’s carnitine-insulin product, is slated to launch sometime next year. Vitargo is currently sold in a powder mix format bearing a premium product price point of $36.99 for 10 servings. Mr. Almada pointed out that a ready-to-drink variety will be launched in the first or second quarter of 2009. The company is also in the process of developing a high Vitargo percentage bar to round out the line.