Choline supports cognitive health and physical performance

What do a racing driver, an esports champion and a weekend gym warrior all have in common?

They’re discovering that the gap between good and great isn’t just measured in the amount of weight that you can lift – it’s also measured in brain power and effective communication between mind and muscle. But how can these everyday athletes fuel focus and support the body-mind connection? With the right supplement ingredient.

In this article Tom Druke, Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager at Balchem Human Health & Nutrition, explores how one essential nutrient – choline – builds the brain-body connection for a competitive cognitive edge, and why smart formulators are making it the cornerstone of next-generation active nutrition.

Neurons need training too

While traditional active nutrition focused largely on building bigger muscles and powering through workouts, today’s consumers are taking a more sophisticated, holistic approach. With a greater understanding of the plethora of factors – both physical and mental – it takes to power peak performance, more people are realizing that the key to winning is not just training harder, but training smarter.

This shift is demonstrated in the emerging sports which are capturing public imagination. Take the 2024 Olympics for example. For the first time, the games featured exciting new events like speed climbing, skateboarding and breakdancing – all of which demand as much mental agility as physical prowess. And future games promise even more fast-paced, cognitively demanding sports including squash, lacrosse and cricket, which will hit the global stage in Los Angeles, 2028.

Meanwhile, esports continues its explosive growth, creating a generation of ‘cyberathletes’ whose success depends entirely on cognitive performance, reaction times and sustained mental focus. Even traditional gym-goers recognize that the biggest performance gains come when the mind and body work in perfect coordination – making cognitive support an essential element of smarter pre-workout solutions.

Enter choline – the essential nutrient that bridges the gap between mind and muscle, supporting the connections that make peak performance possible.

Meet the brain’s best friend

Choline operates at the intersection of brain health and physical performance through its role in the production of acetylcholine. This fundamental neurotransmitter helps to coordinate the response of neuronal networks and transmit messages from the brain to the muscles – facilitating essential cognitive functions like memory, mood and muscle control.¹⁻²

And this neurological support translates to real-world, measurable and clinically-backed performance gains. For example, in a placebo-controlled study, choline supplementation was seen to improve visuomotor performance, hand eye coordination and accuracy in a computer testing format in as little as 70 minutes.³

For athletes and active consumers chasing fitness goals, these cognitive gains equal competitive advantages. Whether for the precise muscle control needed for a perfect deadlift, rapid route planning on a climbing wall or nailing that tricky yoga sequence after a long workday, adequate choline levels become the foundation for winning.

But here’s the kicker: nearly 90% of American adults aren’t getting enough choline from their diet.⁴ For anyone serious about their performance – regardless of skill level – that gap could be the difference between nailing a personal best or wondering what went wrong. So smart sports nutrition should treat choline supplementation like athletes treat a warm-up – non-negotiable.

Brain boost without the formulation headache

Previously, incorporating choline’s cognitive support into appealing, all-rounder pre-workout solutions has presented formulators with brain-teasing challenges. The ingredient’s hygroscopicity can create processing challenges when smooth flow and efficient compression are needed.

Additionally, this tendency to attract moisture can lead to unwanted reactions with other ingredients in multivitamin formulations. While these reactions don’t impact the quality or efficacy of formulations, they can take away from the visual and sensory appeal of finished products thanks to side effects like spotting, cracking or odor.

The answer to these formulation troubles comes in VitaCholine® Pro-Flo, the first-of-its-kind microencapsulated choline ingredient. Thanks to cutting-edge, patented particle science from its partners IPS, Balchem has coated the industry-leading VitaCholine in a membrane for maximum protection from moisture absorption and ingredient interactions.

This ingredient innovation allows formulators to seamlessly incorporate choline into a range of existing multivitamin formulations and appealing formats that align with today’s cognition-conscious consumers.

Connecting science and sports to social success

Creating next-generation active nutrition solutions requires more than just making it formulator-friendly. Today’s savvy consumers want to hear from trusted sources about why choline matters for performance. This is what drives Balchem’s pioneering strategy to bridge the gap from B2B2C with VitaCholine entering the consumer’s world.

This approach kicked off with a first-of-its-kind, multi-year partnership with the New York Jets. The unique collaboration provides prominent visibility for VitaCholine in the context of elite athletic performance, as the players bring the benefits of a supercharged body-mind connection to life.

But it’s not just premier athletes that can showcase choline’s potential. Balchem also collaborates with a diverse range of influencers spanning fitness, health and lifestyle – adding the authenticity factor, building trust and connection that resonates with consumers. Altogether, this strategy is helping to educate consumers on how VitaCholine can help to reach performance potential, whatever the goals.

Ready to give formulations the cognitive edge?

Today’s consumers don’t want to choose between muscle and mind. They want both – connected and optimized. With VitaCholine as the gold standard choline source, formulators can deliver exactly that – supercharged body-mind support in convenient, safe and effective formulations like supplements and beverages.

Ready to bridge the gap? Explore how VitaCholine can transform the next active nutrition launch with Balchem’s awareness campaigns and innovative formulation concepts.

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