The science of better fat absorption.
Encala® helps patients absorb more calories, essential fatty acids, and fat-soluble vitamins.
About Encala
Why Clinicians Choose It
Encala isn’t a generic fat supplement. It’s a structured lipid technology, engineered to help people with cystic fibrosis and many other GI and liver malabsorption conditions absorb calories and nutrients more completely.
Encala is flavor-neutral and mixes into meals, snacks, and beverages. Based entirely on personal food choices and variety, it is well-suited for long-term nutritional support.
Who It’s For
Encala is a medical food for the dietary management of fat malabsorption. Our lipid technology was developed for and clinically studied in people with cystic fibrosis, and is used today across a range of conditions where fat absorption is compromised, including:
Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI):
Non-pancreatic fat malabsorption:
Disease-related weight loss and growth faltering:
The Science Behind It
Most fat malabsorption treatments still rely on the body’s own lipase and bile acids to break down and absorb fat, which is exactly what’s missing or reduced in many of the patients who need Encala most.
Encala works differently. Its structured lipid technology combines three components (lysophosphatidylcholine, or LPC; long-chain essential fatty acids; and monoglycerides) into a micelle-like structure that the gut can absorb directly, without needing lipase digestion or bile acids.
Encala Structured Lipid Micelle Mechanism
Micelle-like structure enables efficient absorption without lipase digestion or bile acids for micelles and absorption
That absorption doesn’t stop with Encala’s own calories. Once absorbed, the LPC is recycled back into the gut via a membrane transporter, where it also helps the body absorb fat from the rest of the meal.
In a 12-month, NIH-funded, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, this translated into measurably improved fat absorption, weight, height, and essential fatty acid status, not just from the structured lipid’s contribution but from the diet as a whole.
What’s in a Serving
One serving is 2 Encala scoops (18.4 g). Most people begin with one or two scoops per day, mixed into a favorite food or beverage for a meal or snack, and increase gradually under their care team’s guidance.
100
220mg
6g
15
Ingredients: tapioca maltodextrin, monoglycerides, soybean lecithin, oleic acid and linolenic acid, calcium chloride, water. Made without milk, egg, fish, crustacean, tree nuts, peanut, wheat, and sesame.
Guidelines for Use
– Encala powder is mixed into food and drinks or delivered through a feeding tube, making it adaptable to the patient’s nutritional needs.
– Getting started is simple: start low and grow!
Backed by Clinical Research
Outcomes
A 12-month, NIH-funded, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 110 children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency demonstrated that:
Our structured lipid significantly improves fat absorption. In patients with the greatest need, the coefficient of fat absorption (CFA) improved significantly.
Patients with Greatest Need
Supports real catch-up growth. In just three months, treated patients showed meaningful gains in BMI-for-age, weight-for-age, and height-for-age Z-scores, a change researchers describe as clinically significant for a population that often struggles to grow.
Change in Height, Weight, and BMI at 3 months
Essential fatty acid levels increased. Plasma linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid both increased from baseline to three months.
Improved Essential Fatty Acid Status
Plasma EFA improved from baseline to three months
Rich in easily absorbable EFA
How Encala Was Developed
In 1996, Virginia A. (Ginanne) Stallings, MD, began collaborating with the inspired biochemist David Yesair, PhD, inventor of the structured lipid approach behind Encala, and lipid researcher and manufacturer Walter Shaw, PhD. Backed by over $7 million in NIH funding, they designed and ran the seminal clinical trial in 110 participants with cystic fibrosis, which showed participants absorbed more food, gained weight, grew taller, and improved their essential fatty acid and fat-soluble vitamin levels.
Encala, originally from Envara Health Inc., is now provided by Structured Lipid Nutrition (SLN) in partnership with Solace Nutrition (www.solacenutrition.com). Encala is available for patient care in the US and Argentina. Additional medical nutrition products are in development. The methods behind Encala are the subject of Structured Lipid Nutrition pending patent applications in the US and Canada. Two studies using Encala as the nutrition intervention are underway: one in adults with pancreatic cancer, funded by the Department of Defense, and one in children with severe cerebral palsy and malnutrition who require gastrostomy tube feeding.
Dr. Stallings is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Director of the Nutrition Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she holds the Jean A. Cortner Endowed Chair in Gastroenterology and Nutrition. She is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and has chaired its committees on dietary reference intakes, school nutrition, and food allergy. She has authored more than 300 scientific papers.
Publications
Peer-reviewed research on Encala and structured lipid technology: