Fortifying the Inevitable

Aging is unavoidable, but your customers don’t want to get “old” in the traditional sense.

Some terms may serve as a placeholder until a new phrase that is more clearly definitive replaces it. Take “Anti-aging” as an example. The dietary supplement/natural products industry used this term about 20 years ago to tout the abilities of ingredients and products that help waylay physiological deterioration that occurs when the organism subsists for years.

Research institutions, such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Research, devote resources to investigating and identifying biological pathways that cause the physiological degradation. Theories and research include autophagy, telomeres, stem cell treatments, cell senescence (and senolytics), oxygen therapy and more.

As a result of incredible technological and scientific advances, human life expectancy has now doubled. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the proportion of the world’s population over the age of 60 is expected to double from 11 percent to around 22 percent by the year 2050. With an increasing aging population at hand, it is important for health care professionals to combat the many medical myths surrounding the biological aging process that may detrimentally affect patient longevity and well-being.

Myth: Physical Deterioration is Inevitable

One of these perpetuated myths is that physical deterioration with age is inevitable. Although as humans age, the body naturally experiences a degree of physical deterioration, it does not have to lead to complete impairment while the process itself can be slowed down.

As the WHO explained, “Increased physical activity and improving diet can effectively tackle many of the problems frequently associated with old age.” Including reduced strength, increased body fat, hypertension and reduced bone density, these aging complications are not pre-determined and can be mitigated to encourage healthy aging.

While anti-aging medical research is a legitimate arm of health science, “anti-aging” in the commercial sense (ie., developing and selling dietary supplements) tacitly conveyed that the ingredient/product prevents physiological aging, a promise completely undeliverable.

“Anti-aging focuses solely on the number of birthdays a person celebrates. It does not focus on how many of those years are spent being vibrant and healthy,” commented Jay Levy, sales director, Wakunaga of America, California.

Yet, quality and quantity of research continued to show that many natural ingredients have specific roles in preserving, supporting and protecting healthy structure and function of myriad cells, organs and systems in the body to provide “healthy aging” benefits.

Nutrition Business Journal’s 2021 Condition Specific Report shows how diverse this concept is when corralling the supplements that are healthy aging: The pie chart of the top healthy aging supplement ingredients contains four specific ingredients (CoQ10, DHEA, resveratrol and vitamin A/beta-carotene), with the remaining three top healthy aging supplements being “others,” “combination herbs” and “homeopathics.”

In this category, observed Cheryl Myers, chief of scientific affairs and education at EuroPharma, Inc., Wisconsin, ingredients and products that support energy, metabolic syndrome, heart conditions, cognitive health, pain reduction and DNA protection are always in demand. “We see a real interest in those categories and ingredients, especially from health food stores whose customer base tends toward the 40 and up range,” she noted.

Consumer Perceptions

Levy added that more consumers today have a holistic view about their health and wellness, such as focusing on maintaining balance in their physical health, mental well-being and lifestyle. Older adults are more likely to think of health and wellness more broadly and more frequently than younger adults, as health (or health issues) has a more prominent presence and larger role in their daily lives. Older adults also are taking a more active role in their wellness journey instead of simply doing whatever the doctor says as their parents’ generation did, he pointed out. “Because of this, middle-aged and older consumers place more focus on supplements that address things like brain, heart, joint and metabolic health.”

Increasingly, people are more seriously considering how their bodies will look and function as they age, according to Jerry Angelini, MS, head of education, Host Defense Mushrooms. He observed, “although ‘eternal youth’ has captured the imagination of humans throughout history, we are currently seeing an explosion of medical spas, the mainstreaming of plastic surgery and development of medical devices, all hoping to turn back the hands of time.”

Master Herbalist Tracy Sweder, health coach for Mountain Meadow Herbs, Montana, said she believes that more consumers are gearing their attitudes and practices toward “aging gracefully instead of trying desperately to hide their age. Rather than trying to look 20 years old, they are wanting to rock a healthy glow, excellent mobility and quality of life along with their gray hair. People are looking for supplements that support their mobility, give them that smooth skin and healthy glow, and keep their immune system strong.”

Market analyst Lisa Bower of ClearCut Analytics wrote in her Sept. 8, 2021 blog, “Today’s aging population is taking preventative measures to maintain a youthful existence, with a large focus on brain and mental health. This trend is particularly underscored by the rising popularity of mental complex supplements, or multi-ingredient products that target brain health and emphasize the benefits of improving brain function, focus, concentration, memory and more.”

Social media has a huge influence not only in younger adults but older ones, too. According to Angelini, there has been an uptick in social media accounts that focus on how various celebrities are optimizing their health and vitality and tied to this is a network influx of information associated with healthy, vibrant aging within and without. This continuing flow of information available on social and news media that encourages healthy aging “helps shift the focus of healthy aging from a purely superficial level to one that includes optimal function of our whole body allowing us to consider lifestyle, diet and supplementation interventions to achieve our goals. Learning about and sharing personal practices like healthy food choices, physical activities like yoga and tai chi and nutritional supplementation including herbs, mushrooms, vitamins and minerals reinforces the paradigm shift to healthy living.”

One of most significant advancements that retailers can capitalize on is, explained Myers, the perception of aging and what people can do to support a vibrant, healthy version of themselves as they grow older. “I think the idea of ‘anti-aging’ in the past was a pushing back against the idea of getting older, while ‘healthy aging’ is a more forward-looking, hopeful and confident view,” she commented. “It encompasses the concept of being in good health, mentally and physically, and appreciating the passage of time rather than denying it.”

Healthy Aging Advancements

According to the aforementioned American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the topics in 2021 that its member physicians found most interesting included targeting a modified form of the beta-amyloid N3pG in cognitive health, exploring “hormonal production or interferences in signaling pathways contribute to the development of hormonal imbalances, which can lead to diabetes, weight gain, infertility and other health concerns,” and the role of hormones in immunocompetence.

Angelini pointed to the role of genetics in aging, about which “there is some great recent data.” Although industry formulators have been familiar with many of the environmental and lifestyle factors associated with aging, the newer understanding of genetic and cellular components creates compelling conjecture about how various lifestyles, foods and supplements may beneficially contribute to graceful aging for healthy individuals. “Some of the newer research about healthy aging includes areas such as antioxidant activity, mitochondrial optimization, probiotic microbiome and SIRT1 gene expression.

He said, “Many are familiar with the importance of antioxidants in their role of protecting our DNA against oxidative damage. Mitochondrial optimization refers to how our bodies make ATP, the fuel of intracellular molecular functioning and enzymatic equations. The gut microbiome is a field of tremendous current research identifying the critical role that our diverse probiotic microflora has for long term health and wellness. And then there is the SIRT1 gene. This is a gene that every human has in every cell of the body, which helps our cells function in an optimized manner. SIRT1 helps our bodies be the best genetic manifestation of ‘us’ possible.”

Targeting the “Invincibles”

Young adults are undeniably notorious for careless lifestyle habits that may negatively impact the quality of their health as they age. Appearing somewhat clueless, young adults (late teens, early 20s) are not quite capable yet of clearly understanding the link between lifestyle habits and health status when they are older. Age-related decline symptoms are considered to be “old people issues,” and “old people” to 20-somethings means those in their 40s and older.

However, this is slowly changing, little by little, and the young adults in your store (even teens) may be more interested in staying healthy than their parents (and certainly grandparents) did at their age.

More than previous generations were at their age, 20-somethings (and younger) are primed to care for themselves in a holistic manner to build and maintain optimal health and well-being. For them, it is not enough to just feel “ok,” they would rather feel “great.”

Myers quipped, “I sometimes say that to drink from the fountain of youth, you need decades to build your cup!”

She also believes young adults in their 20s find it easy to think they have a long time to go before they need to worry about healthy living, but it really needs to start as soon as possible. Educational materials, reaching out through social media (which more stores are becoming experts at), and product promotions and events (when practical) are all ways to reach younger people and instill a health-driven mindset.

Angelini suggested that providing education using social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, are excellent methods for reaching out to the younger generations. It’s critical to provide the young adults in your community with factually and scientifically accurate research data as well as help them recognize the importance of long-term planning especially because young adults do feel invincible. “Helping people of all ages think from the perspective of maintaining or even improving their current vitality, cognitive functioning, physical fitness etc. is a positive method of supporting healthy lifestyle choices and activities,” he stated.

Sweder said he believes that emphasizing and explaining cellular cycle health to young adults will help persuade them to look at their health in a more protective manner. He explained that cells are in a constant state of duplication and die-off; cells are busy making copies of themselves before they die and are excreted. A first copy of an original photo likely looks clear and practically perfect, indistinguishable from the original. However, if the process of copying a copy continues, the original image is blurred, and is nowhere near as clean as the original or first copy—the image breaks down through time and repeated replications.

A cell will duplicate itself to the best of its ability, but if it is damaged and hasn’t had the nutrition it needed, then its duplicates will start with that damage, and will continue through the duplication process, becoming even more degraded. “So, the more we can do while we are younger to keep those cells as healthy and nourished as possible, the longer it will take them to degrade, hence the longer before they even notice they are aging!” he emphasized.

Integrating The Healthy Aging Experience

Unlike a condition-specific category, such as heart health or vision health, “healthy aging” is at the core of what you do as a business and service to your community. It is by nature expansive and yet it can also be broken into distinctive parts that work together—exactly like the human body.

Seemingly a “moving target,” the healthy aging “category” can thus be challenging to market and merchandise.

Your entire operation is the nucleus of the cell that is healthy aging, and if this means a brand refresh, go for it. As Angelini described, “healthy aging incorporates all of the steps we can individually take to more gracefully interact with our genetics, our environment and our lifestyle choices.” As retailers, you can help your customers adapt their diets to include a bounty of healthy food choices, including adding more phytonutrients through organic produce. Supplemental needs start with the appropriate multivitamin and build from there, depending on the areas of health each customer identifies as the priorities to support.

Within your store, suggested Levy, creating displays that feature healthy, active individuals will appeal to customers looking for help in their healthy aging journey. Ensuring retail staff is well-versed regarding the needs and concerns of young, middle-aged and older customers can help them answer most questions. In addition, he stated, “becoming familiar with manufacturer-provided educational material can help your staff familiarize themselves with specific products. Wakunaga continually provides educational handouts, brochures, booklets, shelf-talkers and sampling programs designed for retailers. We also take part in consumer-oriented health fairs put on by various retailers.”

The health fair can be a fertile opportunity to seed and cultivate new, loyal customers as well as fortify existing ones. Many of your brand manufacturers will happily be on board to help, even some ingredient suppliers.

EuroPharma, said Myers, is “always able to help retailers in any way we can to promote products. That means we can develop educational presentations for a store’s staff, we can provide sales material, product literature and scientific pieces related to products, and of course, we can always help answer any questions that retailers may have about any of our products.”

In a health fair or regularly in-store, Myers added that promotions that focus on healthy aging are an excellent way to start—and highlighting the various health concerns that comprise that category, such as metabolism, joint stiffness and inflammation, cellular health, cognitive function, daily energy, and cardio strength—can definitely drive interest. “After all, every one of us is going to go through some level of aging. We’d might as well make it as enjoyable and healthy as possible!”

When focusing on renovating the healthy aging core and activities, Angelini asserted that the important take-home messaging to ensure customers have is this: “the sooner we take positive steps for health and wellness, the better the long-term outcomes appear to be.”

He added, “We are all going to age, there really is no stopping the space time continuum. However, what we can hopefully do is age gracefully. What makes aging a graceful experience is optimizing our genetic components while fine tuning our environmental and lifestyle influences. Anti-aging is trying to stop the inevitable impact of time, often with surgical interventions. This paradigm shift is not about ‘anti’ anything. The paradigm shift is ‘inclusive’ of things and actions that increase health and wellness.”

Inclusivity is a word that most people are not only aware of, but aspire to be, and the healthy aging products retailer is the one that sets up as the perfect partner for a lifetime of vibrant, whole well-being.

Sweder emphasized that the idea isn’t whether we will age, but what will our quality of life be as we age? Quality of life is really where it’s all at.” And, he summarized, “Anti-aging is more about doing all you can to not look your age. Our current healthy aging trend is proclaiming proudly, ‘Hey, it’s ok to be older!’” VR