Muscle health is emerging as a key focus in the health and wellness landscape, gaining recognition for its multifaceted benefits.
The importance of maintaining healthy muscles cannot be overstated – from supporting ageing populations to enhancing athletic performance, managing chronic diseases and improving overall wellbeing.
In 2024, 31% of adults and 80% of adolescents failed to meet the recommended levels of physical activity.1 This is significant as physical activity and muscle strengthening can have a positive impact on both physical and mental health. Exercise-induced endorphins which can help reduce stress levels, and better sleep are among the psychological benefits associated with healthy muscles.
Evidence shows that muscle health is effective in preventing chronic diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.2 Muscle health also plays a key role in whole-body metabolism, acting as the main reservoir for amino acids to maintain protein synthesis.
Muscle health is crucial for preserving mobility, independence and quality of life – a key focus worldwide as the global population ages. Healthy muscles also contribute to better posture, reduced back pain and improved daily functioning, all of which are essential for maintaining a high quality of life.
For athletes and fitness enthusiasts of all ages, optimal muscle health is essential for performance, endurance and strength. Enhanced muscle health supports better training outcomes, quicker recovery and reduced injury risk, and helps maintain an active lifestyle.
Consumers are learning that preventative care is key. By focusing on maintaining and improving muscle health, individuals can increase long-term health outcomes and quality of life.
Evolving probiotic and postbiotic landscape
As advances in nutrition, supplements and fitness technology have made it easier for people to monitor and enhance their muscle health effectively, innovations in the health and wellness space continue to drive interest and investment in muscle health.
One such area of innovation is the field of probiotics. As consumers become more savvy with the science that underpins their microbiome health, they increasingly seek probiotics with targeted health benefits and science-backed claims. In recent years there has been a growing interest in multifunctional probiotics products that support a range of benefits. Customised probiotic blends tailored to individual needs, for example probiotics targeting specific life stages, are also gaining popularity.
Alongside this, convenience is a key purchase driver, with consumers seeking shelf-stable, ambient products in a range of delivery formats beyond pills and capsules, such as gummies and functional foods. The clean-label trend has also seen consumers turn to products containing simple, recognisable ingredients.
Dual-purpose strains
As probiotics are live microorganisms, they must remain viable in sufficient amounts from production until the end of shelf life. Environmental factors, such as temperature, pH and moisture can impact their viability and must be strictly controlled. Once introduced to the body, probiotics need to survive harsh acidic conditions to reach the intestines alive. All these factors are crucial to the efficacy of probiotics and can pose challenges for manufacturers.
In recent years, postbiotics have gained popularity due to their stability advantages in production, easier manufacturing, longer shelf life and wider range of product applications, making them attractive for product development. Furthermore, emerging research shows that certain probiotic strains maintain or even enhance their beneficial effects when heat-killed or processed into postbiotic forms. As a result, there is a growing focus on probiotic strains demonstrating efficacy in postbiotic or heat-killed states and being used as postbiotic ingredients.
“Scientists are discovering that many health benefits attributed to probiotics are due to their metabolites or cellular components which remain present in postbiotic forms,” says Lisa Chen, Marketing Director, Synbio Tech Inc, whose flagship strain Lactiplantibacillus plantarum TWK10® offers benefits in both its live probiotic and postbiotic forms.
“The trend towards dual-purpose strains – those that are effective both as probiotics and postbiotics – represents an exciting development in the field of microbiome science and nutraceuticals, opening up market expansion opportunities for postbiotics with distinctive, effective products that offer both probiotic and postbiotic functionality and meet evolving consumer demands.”
L. plantarum TWK10 as a probiotic and postbiotic
TWK10 offers a novel approach to support muscle health beyond traditional methods like exercise and protein supplementation. A key factor contributing to the selection of L. plantarum for TWK10 is its origin. Isolated from Taiwanese pickled cabbage, the strain’s long-standing culinary tradition in Taiwanese cuisine suggests the rich biodiversity of microorganisms involved in its fermentation has co-evolved with human consumption over many generations.
Addressing today’s health needs, TWK10 has shown particular efficacy in areas related to muscle health and exercise performance, as well as regulating body composition and ameliorating age-related declines, and this sets it apart from many other probiotic strains.
A randomised placebo-controlled trial, involving healthy adults aged 20-30 years without professional athletic training, set out to elucidate the benefits of TWK10 for sport science and health promotion.3 Subjects were randomly allocated to the placebo, low (3 x 1010 colony forming units (CFU)), and high dose (9 x 1010 CFU) TWK10 administration groups. Fatigue-associated indices were continuously monitored during 30 minutes of exercise and a 90-minute rest period using fixed intensity exercise challenges to understand the physiological adaptation.
Results showed that TWK10 significantly elevated the exercise performance in a dose-dependent manner and improved the fatigue-associated features correlated with better physiological adaptation. The change in body composition shifted in the healthy direction for TWK10 administration groups, especially for the high TWK10 dose group.
In another clinical study involving mildly fragile subjects aged 55–85 years old, supplementation of TWK10 for 18 weeks was shown to enhance grip strength by 1.13x, with subjects gaining 0.5-1 kg of muscle mass.4 Furthermore, improvements of gait and balance ability increased by 10% within 12 weeks, and elderly lower limb strength and endurance increased by 1.27x. The study concluded that TWK10 could effectively maintain and improve muscle mass, muscle strength and physical activity performance.
Considering TWK10’s efficacy in heat-killed state, a randomised study of healthy adults compared the impacts of viable and heat-killed L. plantarum TWK10 on exercise performance, fatigue, body composition and gut microbiota.5 After six weeks’ administration, both the TWK10 and heat-killed TWK10 groups had significantly improved exercise performance, fatigue-associated features and reduced exercise-induced inflammation compared with controls, concluding that viable and heat-killed TWK10 had similar beneficial effects as probiotics and postbiotics respectively.
SYNTEK® technology
SYNTEK is an integrated manufacturing technology exclusively developed by Synbio Tech Inc. for the functional enhancement of probiotics specialised in manufacturing all commercialised probiotic strains. Crucially, the strain's ability to enhance its beneficial properties when processed using SYNTEK technology, including its effectiveness both as a live probiotic and in heat-killed or postbiotic form, makes it especially valuable.
“For formulators, L. plantarum has a long history of safe use in food fermentation, which is advantageous for regulatory approval and consumer acceptance,” says Chen. “The combination of its origin, demonstrated benefits and compatibility with SYNTEK technology – an advanced process which likely improves the strain's safety, stability, and overall efficacy – contribute to some of TWK10's unique properties that made it stand out for selection and development.”
“As a result, TWK10 may offer more reliable and robust health benefits compared to conventional probiotic strains.”
Since its launch in Taiwan in 2017, TWK10 has expanded to North America, Europe, Brazil, South Korea, Canada, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. In South Korea and Canada, it is allowed to make health claims supporting endurance capacity and exercise performance, while in Taiwan, it is approved for anti-fatigue claims. It also has self-affirmed GRAS status for both its probiotic and postbiotic forms, thereby offering potential for novel applications beyond traditional probiotic applications.
Furthermore, recognising a growing interest in products combining probiotics with prebiotics, Synbio Tech Inc. can provide a customised service for formulators to support in exploring opportunities in pairing TWK10 with appropriate prebiotics for personalised probiotic/postbiotic blends with enhanced benefits.Scientific advances in dual-purpose probiotic strains, such as TWK10, which demonstrate benefits for muscle health, are well-positioned to meet a growing global health need.
By combining TWK10 with other functional ingredients, formulators can deliver multifunctional, versatile products with science-backed benefits, helping them stay ahead in a competitive market.
With its proven efficacy, compatibility with advanced technologies, and consumer-friendly applications, TWK10 is ready to redefine muscle health solutions.
References
1. World Health Organization. Physical activity.
2. Warburton, D. E.; Nicol, C. W.; & Bredin, S. S. (2006). Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 174(6), 801–809.
3. Huang, W-C.; Lee, M-C.; Lee, C-C.; et al. (2019). Effect of Lactobacillus plantarum TWK10 on Exercise Physiological Adaptation, Performance, and Body Composition in Healthy Humans. Nutrients. 11(11):2836.
4. Lee, M-C.; Tu, Y-T.; Lee, C-C.; et al. (2021). Lactobacillus plantarum TWK10 Improves Muscle Mass and Functional Performance in Frail Older Adults: A Randomized, Double-Blind Clinical Trial. Microorganisms. 9(7):1466.
5. Lee, C. C.; Liao, Y. C.; Lee, M. C.; et al. (2022). Different Impacts of Heat-Killed and Viable Lactiplantibacillus plantarum TWK10 on Exercise Performance, Fatigue, Body Composition, and Gut Microbiota in Humans. Microorganisms, 10(11), 2181.
