“Stress is not only an emotional problem but is an actual signal in our nervous system,” Denise Zhu, product innovation lead at BYHEALTH, told NutraIngredients at last month’s Growth Asia Summit 2026 held in Singapore.
For example, stress can manifest as nervous eating, hair loss, a receding hairline, insomnia, and a disrupted metabolism, she said.
Using stress as a starting point, the company has identified new research and areas for product innovation, which Zhu had highlighted during her presentation titled “Breaking the deadlock of urban metabolic imbalance through circadian rhythm regulation” at the summit.
Citing research findings published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology in 2022, Zhu pointed out that stress could affect different aspects of health, including the liver, heart, cardiovascular and metabolism.
“When we are stressed, we could have difficulties falling asleep or experience shallow sleep or stress eating and we may accumulate more lipids in our body,” she said.
According to the findings, stressors are associated with accelerated aging and metabolic and immune alterations, including the increased risk of developing diabetes and hepatic steatosis. Modifications in stressors, on the other hand, are associated with a lower risk of metabolic disorders.
NDP: Identifying stress as the core issue
Zhu said the journey of understanding stress and its health implications started when BYHEALTH was developing liver health products for individuals who tend to stay up late.
Liver health is a major category in China, with the trend beginning around 2021 and BYHEALTH has since launched a milk thistle product known as Liver Cleanse and Detox.
Subsequently, the company paid attention to how liver health and metabolic health are intertwined when non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) was renamed as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) in 2023. This led to the creation of Liver Cleanse and Metabolism, which similarly contains milk thistle, as well as Laminaria japonica kelp extract and Zingiber officinale ginger extract.
“We noticed that the same group of consumers is demanding more and are talking about issues such as disrupted circadian clock, insomnia and poor sleep quality,” said Zhu. “When we start to think deeper about all the health concerns that these consumers had, we can see that stress is somehow one of the major issues that they are trying to deal with, but it’s not addressed.”
This later led to the development of Stress Ease & Sleep Restore, a tablet supplement containing ashwagandha and L-ergothioneine for reducing cortisol levels, relieving stress and supporting deeper sleep. The product was launched this year and builds on the foundation of its melatonin and GABA sleep support offerings.
“When you are affected by stress, you could have higher levels of cortisol and we are using ashwagandha and magnesium to help with this problem to promote better deep sleep quality,” she said. “Stress can affect many parts of the body, for example, the nervous system, causing nervous eating and hair loss. A lot of those areas could be affected, but we do have many solutions to those issues,” she said.
Watch the video to find out more.
