A new plant-based sweetener from Israeli food-tech startup cuts sugar loads in popular treats like hazelnut and chocolate spreads, B.T. Sweet announced this week as it introduced its CAMBYA product.

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According to B.T. Sweet, its proprietary formula, based on soluble fibers, monk fruit, and select botanicals, is a 1:1 equivalent to sugar both in function and flavor, and also provides fiber.

The company says CAMBYA delivers optimal sweetening capacity, without the need for masking agents, and can be used to lower sugar levels in confectionary, cereals and ice cream.

Sweet spreads typically contain up to 50% sucrose. B.T. Sweet's food technology team and chief confectioner have tested their product in several spread recipes, aiming to mimic the flavor, color, and texture of a traditional category leading sweet spread, without any change to the feel or texture of the product. The company tested the result with parents and children.

"For many, a breakfast or school sandwich is incomplete without chocolate hazelnut spread," noted Yoav Gaon, CEO of B.T. Sweet.

"Parents struggle with their kids' demands for it and have a hard time resisting it themselves. We succeeded in developing a tasty solution that kids of all ages love simply by switching white sugar with CAMBYA," Gaon added.

"Children are the primary market for chocolate spreads, birthday cakes, cookies filled with cream and similar products," explained Dagi Pekatch, founder and chairman of B.T Sweet.

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Rehovot-based foodtech start-up Better Juice, which has made it a mission to reduce the sugar content of natural fruit juice while preserving flavor and nutritional content, has sealed a deal to bring its reduced-sugar juices to supermarket aisles.

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Better Juice has inked an agreement with a major US fruit juice manufacturer for commercial installment of its sugar-reduction technology – the first official commercial venture in the company's collaboration with Germany's GEA Group.

Better Juice's patented enzymatic technology uses all-natural ingredients to convert fructose, glucose, and sucrose sugars into prebiotic and other non-digestible fibers. The juice passes through a continuous flow bio-reactor housing non-GMO microorganism that transform the unwanted sugars into beneficial, non-digestible molecules.

The company says its system can reduce sugar loads by up to 80%, while preserving the fruits' vitamins and nutrients.

Is the taste affected? According to Better Juice, the process mitigates sweetness while boosting the fruit flavor.

Better Juice has been granted a patent for its sugar-reduction enzymatic process in Europe. Armed with recent self-affirmed GRAS status from the US Food and Drug Administration, the company is out to market its system.

"These achievements, together with GEA's knowhow and cutting-edge technology, will open doors to work more closely with food and beverage companies," explains Eran Blachinsky, PhD, co-founder and co-CEO of Better Juice.

Under the terms of the collaboration with GEA, the German group will design, manufacture, and install the bioreactor that reduces sugars and offer follow-up technical support. Better Juice will produce the microorganisms for the enzymatic process. The US commercial order stipulates that Better Juice will produce natural juices with a minimum sugar reduction of 30%, and the product is expected to arrive in US supermarkets by the spring of 2022.

"This new agreement marks an exciting milestone in our mission to get our sugar-reduction technology off the ground, to penetrate the US market, and to expand our global footprint," enthuses Blachinsky. "We've officially launched our drive to help consumers enjoy reduce sugar in their favorite fruit juice."

"Scaling up is always a challenge," confesses Gali Yarom, co-founder and co-CEO of Better Juice. "But when your partner is GEA, with its vast industrial food processing capabilities and global presence, the acceleration of the Better Juice commercialization is much faster and brings added value to the supply chain. Imagine – in just a few months, affordable, reduced-sugar fruit juice will be a ready option for American consumers."

"Better Juice has incredible potential to transform the global juice industry," notes Colm O'Gorman, Head of Sales Management for GEA's Global Technology Center for Non-Alcoholic Beverages. "As consumer demand for lowered-sugar beverages continues to surge, we are eager to join Better Juice on this momentous journey. We look forward to delivering products that address one of the top consumer needs of reducing their sugar intake, especially in daily beverages."

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A novel approach to treating Type 2 diabetes is being developed at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

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The disease, caused by insulin resistance and reduction of cells' ability to absorb sugar, is characterized by increased blood-sugar levels. Its long-term complications include heart disease, strokes, damage to the retina that can result in blindness, kidney failure and poor blood flow in the limbs that may lead to amputations.

It is currently treated by a combination of lifestyle changes, medication and insulin injections, but ultimately is associated with a 10-year reduction in life expectancy.

Led by Professor Shulamit Levenberg and Ph.D. student Rita Beckerman from the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory in the Technion's Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, they present a novel treatment approach using an autograft of muscle cells engineered to take in sugar at increased rates. Mice treated in this manner displayed normal blood sugar levels for months after a single procedure.

The group's findings were recently published in Science Advances.

Muscle cells are among the main targets of insulin, and they are supposed to absorb sugar from the blood. In their study, Levenberg's group isolated muscle cells from mice and engineered these cells to present more insulin-activated sugar transporters (GLUT4). These cells were then grown to form engineered muscle tissue and finally transported back into the abdomen of diabetic mice.

The engineered cells not only proceeded to absorb sugar correctly, improving blood-sugar levels; they also induced improved absorption in the mice's other muscle cells by means of signals sent between them. After this one treatment, the mice remained cured of diabetes for four months – the entire period they remained under observation. Their blood-sugar levels remained lower, and they had reduced levels of fatty liver normally displayed in Type 2 diabetes.

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"By taking cells from the patient and treating them, we eliminate the risk of rejection," explained Levenberg. "These cells can easily integrate back into being part of the body and respond to the body's signaling activity."

Currently, some 34 million Americans – a little more than one in 10 – suffer from diabetes, 90% of them from Type 2 diabetes. An effective treatment, and one that is a one-time treatment rather than daily medication, could significantly improve both the quality of life and life expectancy of those who have diabetes. The same method could also be used to treat various enzyme deficiency disorders.

This work was funded by the Rina and Avner Schneur Center for Diabetes Research.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Incredo Sugar, an innovative sweetener from Israeli foodtech startup DouxMatok, will be featured in the opening episode of Season 3 of Vox's "Explained" on Netflix, due to air on Friday, July 16, the company announced this week.

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The third season of "Explained" debuts on a sweet note – with researchers delving into sugar, one of the most common raw ingredients in the world.

DouxMatok has developed a patented method of reducing the sugar content of natural cane sugar, rather than inventing sugar substitutes, that funnels more sweetness to the consumer's taste buds, allowing a reduction of 30%-50% in the amount of sugar needed to produce the same level of sweetness.

Eran Baniel, founding partner of DouxMatok, explains: "More than ever, overconsumption of sugar is a huge problem, in Israel and the world. Adults and children consume too many sugar-rich products for one simple reason – they're tasty and comforting.

"To reduce sugar consumption, we need to offer consumers the comfort they get from products that are tasty but not healthy, and wrap the sweetness in improved nutrition," Baniel said.

"Only if we base the reduction of sugar on sugar can we preserve this beloved flavor. That is what makes our Incredo Sugar unique. We aren't a drug and don't represent austerity. We want people to be happy, and at the same time replace the sugar we have reduced with dietary fiber and plant-based proteins," Baniel continued.

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Israeli medical software company DreaMed Diabetes is partnering with Yale New Haven Health System to use artificial intelligence (AI) in monitoring insulin and glucose levels in children with Type 1 diabetes, the company announced Monday.

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Underaged diabetics often find it hard to inject the right doses of insulin to rein in their blood glucose. AI could provide a speedy and simple means of tabulating glucose changes and calculating the necessary dosage.

While Type 2 diabetes patients account for the vast majority of cases, Type 1, or juvenile diabetes, is thought to affect around 600,000 children worldwide.

It is a condition in which the body cannot produce insulin, requiring people with the condition to take artificial insulin to stay alive.

DreaMed's dose-optimization software will be tested on 100 diabetic children at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, said Jennifer Sherr, a pediatric endocrinologist there.

The subjects will use the system at least every three weeks, "and then we'll see them in clinical follow-up at three months, and again at six months" to assess whether their overall control had improved, she said, noting the follow-ups could be virtual.

The software uses patient data to create recommendations for insulin dose changes, if required.

"Instead of (guidance becoming available in) 20, 30 minutes, it will all end up being five minutes," said DreaMed co-founder and CEO Eran Atlas.

DreaMed, established in 2014, said that while remote medical solutions have grown in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made them a necessity. The company in 2019 received US Food and Drug Administration clearance for its diabetes technology.

"While we have a wealth of data created from devices that our patients use, people often aren't looking at it and making adjustments - especially adolescents and young adults," Sherr said. "This is going to allow us to achieve the goals that we set with our patients ... and also empower them."

Atlas said collaborating with Yale could encourage the complex US health system to adopt AI-based technologies.

The study, he said, would also help in determining a financial return on investment from a health provider's decision to adopt such a platform.

"All of knows this is the future," he said. "But nobody has tackled the way of how the system is going to fund and implement it."

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Even all-natural fruit juice contains a hefty dose of sugar, a problem that Israeli foodtech startup Better Juice hopes to tackle through a new partnership with the German food processing company GEA TDS.

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Better Juice has developed an enzymatic technology that uses all-natural ingredients to convert fructose, glucose, and sucrose in orange juice into prebiotic dietary fibers and other non-digestible molecules. The company says its process can reduce the sugar content of orange juice by up to 80%, targeting the sugar composition of orange juice to create a low-calorie product with a delicate natural sweetness, with no need for any other sweeteners or additives.

Better Juice and GEA have agreed to collaboratively construct and install Better Juice's sugar reduction solution, which reduces all types of sugars in orange juice, and market the system globally.

Under this strategic partnership, GEA will engineer, design, manufacture, and install the bioreactor that reduces sugars via Better Juice's proprietary enzymatic process. Better Juice will produce the immobilized microorganisms for the enzymatic process.

The agreement contributes to Better Juice's goals of broadening its outreach and support to the global juice industry. The company's breakthrough technology effectively solves the sugar-reduction conundrum without negatively impacting the natural nutritional values and prebiotic benefits of fresh orange juice, one of the major hurdles.

"This exciting collaboration marks a major milestone in Better Juice's scale-up plans and advances the commercialization of our technology," explained Dr. Eran Blachinsky, founder and CEO of Better Juice.

"GEA possesses a sterling reputation in the field of process technology and will be a strong engineering partner. This collaboration will allow for smooth integration of our enzymatic technology into juice production companies seeking to meet the sugar-reduction trend. It will undoubtedly open doors for us and accelerate sales growth internationally," Blachinsky added.

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Colm O'Gorman, head of sales management for GEA's Global Technology Center for Non-Alcoholic Beverages, said that GEA was constantly on the lookout for companies developing innovative solutions and technologies that benefit consumers' nutrition and lifestyles.

"Better Juice is an excellent fit, and we are eager to help them develop the market for sugar-reduced juices," O'Gorman said.

As part of the joint venture, GEA will design three instruments with small, medium, large production capacities within several months to address various requirements of juice companies. The 200-liter device will launch within a few months. Each device will be customized to the manufacturer's needs and limitations, with Better Juice & GEA providing full-service support.

"This means that Better Juice can become a global player in the sugar-reduction market, with local support and service teams in each country," explained Better Juice co-founder and COO Gali Yarom.

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Chronic stress could be one of the most prevalent conditions of our time. In the short term, stress causes our jaws or stomachs may clench; in the long term, stress can lead to metabolic disease and speed up diseases of aging, as well as leading to more serious psychological disorders.

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The physical manifestations of stress originate in the brain, and they move along a so-called "stress axis" that ends in the adrenal glands. These glands then produce the hormone cortisol. When the stress axis is continually activated, changes occur in the cells and organs along the way, and the continual production of cortisol then substantially contribute the symptoms of chronic stress.

The stress response axis starts with the hypothalamus in the brain, moves through the pituitary right next to the brain and then on to the adrenal glands near the kidneys. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Germany used new technology to view the entire stress axis as it has never before been seen. Their findings, published in the journal Science Advances, may be relevant to a number of stress-related diseases from anxiety and depression to metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

The new study, led by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Juan Pablo Lopez in the joint neurobiology lab of Prof. Alon Chen at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, made use of a relatively new technique that allows researchers to identify differences across all cell types in a tissue.

This method could be compared to identifying the individual fruits in a bowl of fruit salad rather than turning that fruit salad into a smoothie and then trying to identify the average characteristics of all the fruits together. But in this case, the task was more complex than separating the apples from oranges: Lopez and the team mapped the entire length of the stress axis, checking the activities of numerous single cells all along the route.

The researchers conducted this analysis on two sets of mice – one unstressed and one exposed to chronic stress.
In total, the team mapped 21,723 cells along the three points in that axis, and they compared their findings from the two sets of mice. They noted that as the stress message moved from one organ to the next, the gene expression in the cells and the tissues themselves underwent greater changes. The team found 66 genes that were altered between normal and stressed mice in the hypothalamus, 692 in the pituitaries and a whopping 922 in the adrenals. The adrenals are glands that can change their size visibly under chronic stress exposure, and it was here that the researchers noted the most significant alterations among the various cells.

The unprecedented resolution of the technique enabled the researchers to identify, for the first time, a subpopulation of adrenal cells that may play a crucial role in the stress response and adaptation. These were endocrine cells sitting in the outer layer, or adrenal cortex. Among other things, the team identified a gene, known as Abcb1b, and found it to be overexpressed in these cells under stress situations. This gene encodes a pump in the cell membrane that expels substances from the cell, and the scientists think it plays a role in the release of cortisol. "If extra stress hormones are created, the cell needs extra release valves to let those hormones go," says Lopez.

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Are the findings in mice relevant to humans? In collaboration with researchers in university-based hospitals in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the US, the scientists obtained adrenal glands that had been removed from patients to relieve the symptoms of Cushing's disease. Though the disease is the result of a growth on the pituitary, the result can be identical to chronic stress – weight gain and metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure and depression or irritability – so in some cases it is treated by removing the adrenal glands, thereby reducing the patients' stress hormone load. Indeed, the cells in these patients' adrenals presented a similar picture to those of the mice in the chronic stress group.

The gene they had identified, Abcb1, was known to the researchers from previous studies into the genetics of depression. It had been found that this gene is polymorphic – it has several variants – and that at least one version is tied to a higher risk for depression. The group analyzed the expression of this variant in blood tests taken from a group of subjects who suffer from depression and who were subjected to temporary stress. They found that certain indeed affect the ways the adrenal glands deal with stress signals coming down the axis.

Chronic stress, of course, can ultimately affect every part of the body and open the door to numerous health issues. The new study, because it looks at the entire axis, on the one hand, and has mapped it down to the gene expression pattern of its individual cells, on the other, should provide a wealth of new information and insight into the mechanisms behind the stress axis.

"Most research in this field has focused on chronic stress patterns in the brain," says Chen. "In addition to presenting a possible new target for treating the diseases that arise from chronic stress, the findings of this study will open new directions for future research."

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Israeli food tech company DouxMatok has partnered with sugar manufacturer Lantic Inc. to make a natural sweetener based on cane sugar, but with lower actual sugar content, available to North American food manufacturers in 2021.

DouxMatok's solution is based on real cane sugar and, therefore, has the same sensorial profile, taste and other functionalities as sugar. The company's technology maximizes the efficiency of sugar delivery to sweet taste receptors, enhancing consumers' perception of sweetness.

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This provides the same sweet taste at a considerably reduced sugar content.

"This exciting collaboration with Lantic represents an important step towards commercialization of our solution," said DouxMatok CEO Eran Baniel.

"In working with Lantic and its passionate entrepreneurial team, we are confident we have the right partner to take on the largest sugar market in the world. We are particularly excited about our part in helping make the food we love healthier, especially amid growing concerns around rising obesity," Baniel added.

"We are extremely pleased to have secured an exclusive cane sugar manufacturing agreement with DouxMatok for this innovative technology that adds an important and much desired customer solution to our natural sweetener portfolio," said Lantic President and CEO John Holliday.

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The research, presented this week at the European and International Conference on Obesity, indicates that 68% of Israeli patients would like their doctors to initiate discussion about their weight during check-ups. However, 59% of patients who raised the issue of their weight with their primary caregivers in the past five years felt that the discussion did little or nothing to help them lose weight.

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The study included 750 obese Israelis and 169 general practitioners.

Another finding was that 51% of patients said they had "negative feelings" after speaking to their doctors about their weight, compared to 44% of patients who said in the same in international studies. Another 5% of Israeli patients said they felt "hurt" after speaking to their doctors about their weight, the study showed.

In addition to examining the attitudes of extremely overweight patients, the study also looked at doctors' attitudes toward their patients. Doctors were asked why they do not discuss their patients' weight problems. Most (71%)  said they felt that their patients were disinclined to discuss the issue or were unmotivated to lose weight (70%).

Interestingly, patients said otherwise, with 92% telling researchers that they had tried at least once to make a significant effort to lose weight. Still, only 28% of patient respondents said they had involved their doctor in these efforts in the past six months.

The study also found that in the last three years, 38% of the patients surveyed had managed to lose 5% or more of their body weight, but only one-quarter of those had managed to keep the weight off for at least a year.

While 89% of the doctors surveyed said they thought that patients' eating habits were the most significant obstacle to them losing weight, only 63% of patients surveyed pointed to eating habits as the main difficulty in weight loss. A total of 84% of the doctors noted lack of physical activity as an obstacle to weight loss, compared to 73% of patients.

However, 70% of patients surveyed and 95% of doctors surveyed agreed that obesity was a chronic health condition, and 88% of patients said they were responsible for making sure they lost weight, compared to 19% of doctors who said the main responsibility lay with the patients.

Dr. Raz Hagoel, director of the Dr. Raz Medical Weight Loss Clinic, said, "These findings underscore the need to change the way in which we treat obesity, starting with earlier intervention, including taking the initiative and encouraging conversation the patients, as well as respecting their dignity.

"Early intervention will not only avoid years of daily weight battles, but also significantly reduce the risk of conditions associated with obesity," Hagoel said.

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Below is our countdown for the top five Israeli innovations of the decade:

5. Electric-powered airplane

Eviation, an Israeli startup introduced its first electric airplane, capable of flying short distances of up to 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) at around 270 mph (440 kmp). The craft, named Alice, is not only cheaper to produce, it also produces zero emissions, as it relies mainly on electricity and uses very little fuel. As the world grows greener and numerous attempts are made to reduce the human carbon footprint on the planet, this innovation is a creative endeavor by far.

Alice can transport up to nine passengers, including two pilots. It is equipped with revolving seats and even portable chargers for mobile phones. Unveiled at the Paris Air Show this past June, Alice is capable of embarking on shorter flights, such as from Israel to Cyprus or from Paris to Toulouse. Eviation expects its main customers to be American aviation companies, which can service short-haul lines within the continental US like the New York-Boston route.

4. Clean drinking water

In order to provide clean water for underdeveloped communities, Israeli startup WaterGen unveiled its GEN-M, a medium-scale atmospheric generator (AWG) that makes water out of air. The device can produce over 200 gallons (800 gallons) of clean drinking water per day. GEN-M creates water by cooling air at its natural dew point, and then filtering it, and purifying it with carbon. By using ultraviolet rays, any remaining bacteria is subsequently eliminated, making it suitable for consumption.

While the product was first presented in 2010, it has been put into service in far-reaching countries like Puerto Rico during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, in a small village near Cúcuta, Colombia, and in various other disaster zones.

3. Mobileye, an AI device that helps drivers navigate roads safely

The company launched this invention in 2011, with the aim of assisting drivers to navigate roads and highways with more caution. The Mobileye device contains a small digital camera equipped with algorithms that are capable of predicting traffic accidents, thereby aiding drivers to travel more safely. The system can alert a driver when he or she attempts to switch lanes, by warning of a collision or sensing the presence of pedestrians in the street. The life-saving artificial intelligence device has already been installed by several known carmakers, including Volvo, BMW, GM, and others. After its worldwide success, Mobileye was later bought by Intel in 2017.

2. The first artificial pancreas – A potential cure for diabetes?

In a possible future cure for diabetes, researchers at Betalin Therapeutics have engineered the first artificial pancreas. It can be inserted underneath the skin, without anesthesia and "reprograms" the natural pancreas to function correctly, by teaching it how to properly administer insulin. The pancreas, which is located in the abdomen, is a vital organ crucial to the digestive process. In diabetic patients, it doesn't produce enough insulin, causing the amount of sugars to increase in the bloodstream, and leading to symptoms such as nausea and shortness of breath.

Betalin's ground-breaking bio-artificial pancreas was engineered using pig lung tissue and cells secreted by insulin. It can identify a patient's blood sugar level and accurately dispense the required amount of insulin as needed, rendering all future injections, drugs or blood glucose measures obsolete.

"We are mimicking what actually happens in the body," Dr. Nikolai Kunicher, CEO of Betalin Therapeutics previously told Israel Hayom.

1. The first Israeli spacecraft to the Moon, Beresheet

In February of this year, Israel Aerospace Industries and SpaceIL did the impossible – after years of a combination of hard work, Israeli ingenuity, and budgeted-funding – the first Israeli spacecraft, Beresheet blasted off to the Moon. Beresheet – in the beginning – as it was aptly named, was sent into space, and orbited the Earth for two months relying mainly on solar powered energy in order to save fuel costs, before it crash-landed on the lunar surface in April.

Although communication was ultimately lost with the craft, it made history as both the cheapest and lightest probe ever built. Beresheet generated a combined cost of $100,000, and was funded by SpaceIL President Morris Kahn, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, the Science and Technology Ministry, the Israel Space Agency, Israel Aerospace Industries, and numerous other private donors.

Although the Jewish state has only been in existence for 71 years, it is on a direct trajectory to technological innovation-success, from new developments in medicine to future space exploration projects.

So, who knows what the next decade may hold?

The Adelson family owns the company that is the primary ‎shareholder in Israel Hayom.‎

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