From lifespan to healthspan: Translating science into policy for preventive care

02 Sep 2020 --- In two newly published reports, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) has called for better nutrition messaging to ensure adequate access to proper nutrition and healthcare-related services. The organization argues that heightened awareness for preventive healthcare is crucial, but this demands interdependent action from industry, consumers and governmental policies. However, weighing the long-term and short-term cost benefits of investing in such policies and health campaigns may be keeping progress in this field at a stillstand.

“We need to take personal control and responsibility in managing our health – just like we do for our household budgets – and not assume that some late-in-life, governmental program will ride to the rescue and undo a lifetime of always putting off until tomorrow when it comes to personal health management,” Dr. Jim Griffiths, Senior Vice President of International and Scientific Affairs at CRN, tells NutritionInsight.

“Like so many habits, the earlier [healthy aging practices] start and are reinforced in a home setting, the more likely they will become ingrained and result in a true healthspan trajectory that mirrors the years of lifespan,” he affirms. 

“A good healthspan is not just freedom from morbidity and mortality; it is that joie de vivre that should accompany every day of our lifespan,” the first report reads.Weighing the costs of preventive care investments
While the CRN’s reports advocate for consumers to take a preventive approach to their health and well-being, the financial costs of doing so may be more of a burden to certain consumers depending on their household incomes and economic situations. 

“This is a tough question and one that obviously is very much person- or situation-specific. Toothpaste and a toothbrush cost money, some smidgen every day if calculating the number of days brushing versus the cost of the paste and brush. Nonetheless, I would venture that you, me and virtually everyone with access to these would gladly assume that daily cost to avoid the guaranteed future of pain, tooth loss, dentures and cosmetic damage,” Dr. Griffiths responds.

He highlights that a preventive regimen of nutritional and dietary supplement products will inevitably cost money, but surmises that everyone with a healthspan that has crashed before they have reached the end of their lifespan would “gladly turn back the clock.”

The CRN has conducted and published a number of health care cost-savings models. They demonstrate the benefits to public health by having vulnerable populations adopt a daily preventative supplementation regimen to decrease the incidence of major public health burdens of heart disease, osteoporosis and macular degeneration, for example. 

“The potential health care savings always and dramatically pay for the preventative regimens by multi-billions of dollars,” he maintains. 

Governmental support 
Simultaneously, Dr. Griffiths underscores the importance of governmental assistance in this endeavor. What’s missing is policymakers’ willingness to see the big picture, he says, short-sighted by a small set of stakeholders that “are not interested in progressing ‘true’ public health.” 

The reports advocate for a person-centered approach to healthy aging, emphasizing the individual’s intrinsic capacity and their functional abilities.“Policymakers have trouble seeing the pot of gold at the back-end when there are costs to be paid at the front-end. So often, those who could make the right decisions are thinking personally and locally. Consistently there is the decision to not make a decision – not recognizing that that is a decision. Asking for perfection as the only option causes stagnation in policy,” he flags.

Academia ahead
The Council for Responsible Nutrition-International (CRN-I) published two conference reports on the topics of healthy aging and preventive care. Dr. Griffiths is the lead author of “Measuring Health Promotion: Translating Science into Policy” published in the European Journal of Nutrition. He also co-authored “From Lifespan to Healthspan: The Role of Nutrition in Healthy Ageing” published in the Journal of Nutritional Science.

The reports comprise expert perspectives from the CRN-I session held at the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) 2019 meeting and CRN-I’s own 2019 symposium, held in conjunction with the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) meeting.

This is the tenth scientific symposia proceedings that CRN-I has published, Dr. Griffiths details. Each has contributed to further discussion on bioactive nutrients, optimal nutrition, healthy aging, and most recently, health promotion. 

“With relationships developed with academia, the World Health Organization, Codex Alimentarius and the international delegations who attend, there is hope that the tide will turn when a sufficient groundswell of published scientific data and independent recommendations are available to policymakers who do what is best for the constituents to whom they are responsible,” he concludes.

By Anni Schleicher