Lutemax 2020 has won the NutraIngredients Asia Ingredient of the year in Sports Nutrition. The judges chose Lutemax 2020 as the winning ingredient but “[They] liked the fact that this ingredient could benefit the fast-growing community of gamers and esport athletes by supporting visual health and performance, cognition, stress support, and blue light protection.”
Lutemax 2020 is a unique combination of bioavailable lutein and zeaxanthin isomers in a 5:1 ratio. They are critical for protecting the eye on a daily basis—so much so that their concentrations in the retina are three times the number of carotenoids in normal human sera. Because the body cannot synthesize the macular carotenoids, dietary intake is the only way to ensure optimal levels in the retina to protect against daily blue light exposure.
Lutemax 2020 is backed by multiple clinical studies, which fill the multiple needs of gamers and esports enthusiasts including: Visual health and performance, cognition and stress support, and blue light protection and sleep.
Gaming is, perhaps, the epitome of a sport where competitive advantage is almost exclusively determined by cognitive performance. Games today are faster, more intense, and more sophisticated. They are mentally demanding, engage multiple cognitive processes and require split-second reaction time. In 2015, the world had roughly two billion gamers. By 2024, the number is expected to rise over 3.3 billion.
Gaming is like many other competitive activities, requiring endurance for campaigns that can last for hours and recovery from prolonged play. Lutemax 2020 has been shown to supports gamers by protecting their eyes from harmful blue light, reducing the impact of screen glare and helping to reduce eye fatigue. All of which are associated with digital device use.
Lutemax 2020 delivers a combination of clinically demonstrated benefits from a single ingredient which makes it uniquely positioned to address the multiple needs of gamers in four critical ways:
Visual health and performance
For gamers, visual performance, such as contrast detection, is imperative for optimal visual processing. In multiple studies, Lutemax 2020 was shown to consistently improve contrast sensitivity, photo-stress recovery, disability-glare thresholds as well as increased visual processing speed.
Supports cognition
In the same way traditional athletes depend on an optimal physique, gamers depend on keeping their minds sharp. Lutemax 2020 increased BDNF (a protein that supports growth and differentiation of neurons) and improved several parameters of cognitive performance, including composite and verbal memory, sustained attention, and processing and psychomotor speed (closely related to reaction time).
Stress support
Gamers have been shown to experience spikes in cortisol, a stress hormone, which has been linked to negative effects such as weight gain, anxiety, depression, cognition, and overall health. Lutemax 2020 has been shown to significantly reduce stress, serum cortisol, and symptoms of suboptimal emotional and physical health.
Blue light protection and sleep
A study showed that gaming for more than one hour a day was linked to a 30% higher risk of poor sleep quality. Unlike other sleep aids, Lutemax 2020 is not a sedative or a hormone. It instead helps with what may be causing sleep issues for gamers: prolonged blue light exposure. Digital device use extends well beyond the length of the natural day and adds to the duration of blue light exposure.
Blue light has been shown to suppress melatonin, a hormone which has long been associated with the circadian rhythm (i.e., the sleep/wake cycle). Lutemax 2020 was clinically shown to significantly improve sleep quality in subjects exposed to prolong blue light from sources such as digital devices.
Origin and delivery forms
Naturally derived from marigold flowers, Lutemax 2020 is a patented extract containing all three nutritionally relevant macular carotenoids—lutein, RR-zeaxanthin, and RS (meso)-zeaxanthin— in the same 5:1 ratio as found in the diet. Lutemax 2020 is available in a variety of oil suspensions and 100% vegetarian beadlets using Versabead technology, which provides enhanced stability and dispersibility to deliver gamers the benefits they demand in applications they prefer such as beverages and gummies.
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