When shopping at a grocery store in the future, don't be surprised if you see a "DHA" insignia affixed to the pomegranate juice, soy milk and yogurt you buy.

More and more food companies are fortifying their products with DHA oil -- or docosahexaenoic acid -- which studies show helps maintain healthy mental function and sustains the structure and function of nerve cells in the brain and eyes.

But what might surprise some is that the company producing the DHA oil, Martek Biosciences Corp., is headquartered in a small office park on Dobbin Road in Columbia.

In the past two years, Martek, which also adds the DHA to most of the infant formula made in the United States and in 70 countries, has added DHA to Silk soymilk, Horizon nonfat milk, Minute Maid pomegranate juice and various other products including yogurt, granola bars, eggs and whole wheat bread.

And scientists at the company are working on several hundred additional projects, said Jeffrey Bernfield, a director of marketing and commercial strategy at Martek.

"It has taken several years of effort to get where we are now and the floodgates are opening," he said.

Traditionally, DHA has been consumed by eating fish and products with fish oil. But fish are prone to catch ocean-borne contaminants and some consumers are wary about the process of harvesting fish in order to produce the oil, said officials at Martek.

Martek has found a way to bypass the fish and take the DHA directly from microalgae the fish eat.

More Omega-3 needed

Awareness about DHA, which is an Omega-3 fatty acid, has grown in the past 20 to 30 years, said Mark Kantor, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Maryland.

Omega-3 fatty acid in the body forms cell membranes and provides a healthy coating of the cell, he said. The healthier cells help prevent blood clots from forming and reduce the amount of inflammation in the body, he said.

In comparison, Omega-6 fatty acid, found in meat, poultry, corn oil, eggs and sunflower oil, create compounds that produce blood clots and work to suppress the healthy Omega-3 fatty acid, especially when it outnumbers the Omega-3 in the body, Kantor said.

Omega-6 also encourages inflammation in the body, he said.

Therefore, it is important to either eat many foods with Omega-3 fatty acid or reduce the intake of Omega-6 fatty acid, he said.

People used to receive an adequate source of Omega-3 fatty acid from the fruits, vegetables and meats they ate on a regular basis, Kantor said. However, more recently, poultry and other animals eat grains and not grass, which provided them with DHA, he said. Plus, people also eat fewer fruits and vegetables and instead consume more snack foods and cakes, he said.

DHA fuels record revenue

Martek opened in 1985 in the Columbia Business Center after Martin Marietta Corp., a defense and aerospace contractor, hired a group of scientists to study the beneficial uses of algae in long-term space travel for NASA, said Cassie France-Kelly, a spokeswoman at Martek.

The scientists determined that the microalgae was the source of DHA fish ate and passed onto humans, she said.

The scientists would later use a potent strain of microalgae found in the Pacific Ocean near southern California, to produce vegetarian DHA.

They developed a way to grow large quantities of the microalgae at their labs in South Carolina and Kentucky by simulating oceanic conditions. They then extracted the DHA from the microalgae to place it in infant formula, foods and beverages.

Martek is the only company that produces DHA from microalgae and has patented two strains of the algae as well as the manufacturing process it uses to extract the DHA, France-Kelly said.

"We keep it growing at all times because if it dries, we lose it," she said, adding that the company has the largest algae library in the world.

Martek first added its DHA to infant formula in Belgium in 1994 and by 2002, it had added DHA to its first baby formula in the United States. Martek's DHA is now found in 90 percent of the infant formulas in the country.

The decision to branch into foods and beverages helped Martek earn a record $82.9 million in revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, which ended Jan. 31, according to a company financial report.

Karma Rabon-Stith, Martek's manager of scientific affairs, attributes Martek's growth to a demand in the market for DHA as consumers, who purchase infant formula want to accessing the product's health benefits.

Rabon-Stith, who has a 2-year-old daughter, uses DHA in her own diet.

"The fundamental principal (behind DHA) is something I believe in," she said. "It is not fly-by-night science."

E-mail Andrei Blakely at ablakely@patuxent.com.

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