IFF Health: Tackling women-specific health needs with innovative ingredients
05 Mar 2024 | IFF Health
On the occasion of Women’s History Month, we sit down with Vanessa Azevedo, the global product innovation marketing manager at IFF Health, and Lori Lathrop Stern, the company’s science liaison and director of medical affairs, to discuss its latest innovations in women-specific health solutions. During this in-depth interview, we learn about the ingredients and science-backed benefits of the company’s perimenopausal and lifespan offerings.
Hello, everybody.
This is William Bradford Nichols, the editor for Nutrition Insight, and I am here today talking with our friends from IFF Health.
We have Vanessa Acevedo, the Global Product innovation marketing manager.
Hello, Vanessa, how are you?
Hello, I'm good.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for inviting us.
We're excited to talk to you.
And we also have Doctor Laurie Lathrop Stern, IFF Health's Science liaison and director of Medical affairs and a registered dietitian.
Hello, Doctor Lathrop Stern.
How are you today?
Hi, I'm great.
Thank you for having us.
All right.
We're excited to talk to you, about women's health coming up here in, in Women's Health Month.
And if I have some questions all prepared, if it's OK, I'd like to just dive right in.
Of course, yeah.
Let's get started.
Perfect.
All right, Vanessa, my first question is for you.
What are some of the main trends you're seeing in the women's health space and how do your products, IFF health products, speak to those trends?
So women are actively looking for ways to enhance their general health and -being, especially mental health, mood and stress took an important, important space, since the COVID pandemic.
They are also interested in weight management and beauty from within, which are key drivers of women's supplement purchasers today.
Other areas that are gaining more consumer attention are vaginal health, prenatal support, and menopause, as women become more aware of the benefits that supplements can provide for these indications.
In IFF specifically, we offer a wide range of products such as probiotics, botanical extracts, and bioscience ingredients that address all these areas with effective solutions, and we also have comprehensive capabilities that can help us meet the key supplement trends of holistic and effective products, personalized solutions, and convenient formats.
That's exciting stuff.
Can you tell me about the innovative ingredients IFF Health offers to manage, as you mentioned, menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings and sleep disturbances?
Sure, so, as mentioned, we have a broad portfolio of ingredients and we are aware of this growing trend of combination products in supplements.
Therefore, we designed our menopause offering, combining our key ingredients that we know will enhance the consumer benefits for our target audience.
So our consumer research showed that menopausal women are excited about probiotics, but they also want reassurance coming from -known and traditional products.
So based on all of that, we have created solutions instead of offering single ingredients.
So the uniqueness of the IFF solutions for menopause is based on effective formulations that were developed through this extensive consumer research, and the result is actually a range of menopause formulations that help support the most prevalent symptoms that you have just mentioned, and I can now let Laurie talk a bit more about the specific ingredients that we have used in these formulations.
All right, perfect.
Laurie, we definitely have some questions for you as.
My partner is a natural skeptic, so I'm sure she and others out there would love to hear more about the science behind these ingredients.
So, can you explain some of the science behind them and how they work to alleviate menopause-related symptoms?
Yeah, of course.
So one thing to mention first is that there can be over 40 different symptoms.
Every woman experiences menopause differently, and women can experience menopause over decades.
You can have symptoms as early as in your late 30s to 40s.
And then they continue, once you reach menopause into that postmenopausal, time.
So there are decades that women are needing to address symptoms and consequences of menopause to their health.
So this is what we're trying to address through our portfolio of ingredients and as as the many combinations that Vanessa just mentioned.
So, To mention a few of the key ingredients, some have been around for decades, and even longer actually.
So, soy, soy isoflavones, these are an extract of the soy germs.
So we actually upcycle soy germ that's left, from soy milk production.
They, the soy germs have compounds called isoflavones.
They work very similar to estrogen, but they're plant-based, and they're not as strong as, say, a hormone replacement, but they work in a very similar way so that they can address many symptoms of menopause, including , some of the most common like hot flashes and night sweats.
There's also data on soy for supporting cardiovascular health, because we know there's a lot of consequences of estrogen loss with menopause.
Soy has a large body of data addressing many of the symptoms, but hot flashes, it's really a key one that women want to address, and that we have clinical data to support.
And then there's also, the mood, and the cognitive changes that are really important to women that are happening during this period.
You don't know if you're getting very old, you know, you're not old yet, but you really are starting to see these changes in, in your brain function, and we have some great ingredients to address that.
Again, some that have been along for a very long time.
One, including phosphatidylserine, is very important.
Phosphatylserine is a component of the, of the membranes, in your cells in the brain.
So it helps, again, it's a fundamental nutrient-like for your brain that helps with cognitive function.
And even though there's, A lot of data in supporting cognitive health in elderly.
We see in our clinical trials that there are benefits in cognitive health even, in children and teenagers.
So it's, very important, for brain health in general.
And one more nutrient, that I'd like to, or one more ingredient that I'd like to discuss is, Nurravena.
This is an oat extract.
And this one really works in the short term to boost your cognitive function, your focus, your attention.
In the short term, it's caffeine-free, and it really helps, when you need, help during that lull, say, in the afternoon, to boost your cognitive function.
But we, again, have a variety of ingredients.
We have probiotics that address a number of, of conditions and symptoms that you have through, menopause as.
That all sounds like very exciting stuff, especially when you're addressing cardiovascular issues, for one, which is a huge problem, not a huge problem, but a huge issue in women's health.
And, Addressing cognition without caffeine because you're already, a lot of the problems around perimenopause already interfere with sleep.
So, if you can address cognition without putting in an extra, stimulant with there, that's, that's, that's all very exciting stuff.
So, thank you.
My next question, Laurie, is, are there any clinical studies or research that support the efficacy of these ingredients in improving menopausal health?
Absolutely.
So, all of the ingredients that we really feature in our combinations are clinically studied.
We are bioscience, rich historical, science-based company.
We have a clinical science team.
We have several PhD scientists working on our ingredients, and so we take a lot of pride in having clinical data to support.
What we are claiming, the benefits are behind our ingredients, so yes, the ingredients I just mentioned.
The phosphatylserine, the soy isoflavones, the oat extract, Neravena, we have, multiple clinical trials on all of those ingredients.
We have probiotics, with clinical data to support mood, and feelings of stress.
We also have a whole array of ingredients to support metabolic health, which you just mentioned, It is related to cardiovascular health.
So we have both botanical extracts as as probiotics and fibers that can address a multiple, or multi multitude of, Metabolic health related issues.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Laurie.
Vanessa, it sounds like IFF's health ingredients are designed to cater specifically to these stages of menopause, perimenopause to post-menopause.
Is that true?
Can you tell us more about that?
Sure, yeah, this is correct, as Laurie just listed some of the, the ingredients and symptoms, solutions and symptoms that we have.
So indeed, we developed these concepts to address the most common symptoms of perimenopause and post-menopause stages.
And we have a long list of symptoms, and there are more than 48 symptoms, so of course we have prioritized to the most prevalent ones, and we aimed to develop the most effective formulations that meet the consumer needs for the symptom relief.
That's our target with the concepts and our consumer.
Research also revealed that the menopause support should not be a one size fits all pathway, as women have different experiences and the needs during their menopause transition also change, and that's why we focused on the personalized approach with solutions that are tailored to the specific symptoms.
Can you also tell me then, how do these solutions sort of play into the, the broader health, the broader women's health market, like, as far as looking at like lifespan health, what offerings do you have for other women's health issues?
So, our menopause solutions were developed to meet this rising demand of underserved consumers, but at the same time this allowed IFF to have a complete offering for women's health.
So we have a broad product range to improve women's health across life stages that includes PMS, vaginal, urinary health, prenatal support, and now menopause and post-menopause support.
So we adopt a pretty flexible approach, delivering customized offering.
It goes from ingredients, formulations up to finished formats through an experienced teams of experts who can support every type of customers willing to partner with us in women's health.
Perfect.
Is there anything else that either of you would like to say on this topic?
I do have, maybe I can start.
Laurie, feel free to to compliment.
So I just want to share that IFF has invested heavily in partnerships that enhances our expertise and offering to our customers and in women's health, we have made significant progress in understanding the menopause market and the menopause consumers by being the first supplement ingredient supplier that joined Gen M.
Which is a UK organization that leads a group of companies committed to improve the menopause experience, and this partnership was a game changer in our approach to the menopause market and influenced a lot how we developed our solutions.
So with this learning from GM, from our researchers, we realized that these consumers, they need more than just a better menopause product.
They also need to be seen, to be heard, to get access to solutions that really address their evolving symptoms, and more important, to receive authentic and positive messages and marketing about menopause support.
So just to close, I would say that women's health is one of the core innovation areas for IFF and it's not just our business, it's also our mission, and we are proud to help drive a meaningful and purposeful transformation that will impact the lives of millions of women today and hopefully will also impact the generations to come.
Oh, wonderful stuff.
Thank you.
And Laurie, did you have anything to add?
I think what Vanessa summed up was amazing.
I just want to say I'm, I'm so happy to be a part, that our company is really taking menopause seriously, from a scientific point of view as , and so happy to be part of the team that's, that's engaged in addressing this really big, need for women to address.
Absolutely.
Thank you both so much for talking to us today.
I'm very excited for what you guys are doing.
I have, I have 3 daughters, and, so I know that women make up 51% of the population and in my house, they make up about 70% of the population.
So knowing that they are, that the science is finally.
Working towards that majority of population and, and going to be providing them solutions for their health issues later on in life is, is and even earlier on in life is exciting.
So, thank you guys so much for the work you're doing and for speaking with us today, and I hope you have a great Women's Month and have a great rest of your day.
