PureCircle Stevia InstituteSM (PCSI) recently presented new stevia research in the areas of nutrition & health, ingredient & taste and agriculture at the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) 21st International Congress of Nutrition (ICN) conference which took place from October 15 – 20, 2017 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Held every four years, ICN is one of the largest international nutrition conferences, with an attendance of 4,000 nutrition and health professionals representing more than 100 countries.

Ingredient & Taste Research

Marcia Petit, Senior Global Innovation Manager at PureCircle, presented on the advantages of blending steviol glycosides (SGs) versus using individual SGs to replicate the taste of sugar and help achieve deeper reductions. Read the abstract (here)

Marcia Presenting
Nutrition & Health

Dr. Priscilla Samuel, Director of the PureCircle Stevia Institute and PureCircle Scientific & Regulatory Affairs highlighted recent consumer survey data collected across multiple countries about awareness of various sweeteners and sentiment about stevia, which was generally viewed more positively than artificial sweeteners. Read the abstract (here)

Priscilla Presenting
Agriculture

Scientists from PureCircle Stevia Institute and KeyGene presented research that showed for the first time the annotated, high-quality genome sequences of three stevia cultivars. This breakthrough provides a better understanding of key enzyme groups used by the stevia plant to produce steviol glycosides, and will enable acceleration of the traditional breeding of the stevia plant. Read the abstract (here) and press release (here)

Genome Poster
Stevia Tasting and Education

In addition to the posters and oral presentation, PCSI also had an exhibit booth at the conference, where attendees learned about the latest in stevia science, including a recent study on the naturality of high-purity stevia leaf extracts. In addition, they were able to taste stevia in food and beverage applications including no sugar added green iced tea and reduced sugar grapefruit-flavored water, no sugar added dark chocolate and no sugar added vanilla biscuits.

Stevia Education
Booth Back drop

Given the current global obesity and diabetes epidemic, and public health recommendations to limit added sugar to less than 10% of total daily calories, there was a great deal of interest by attendees around stevia research and advances in the sensory science, since it is a natural-origin, zero-calorie sweetener that is safe to consume for the whole family.