Approaching Wellness

Responsible nutrition companies often preach that there’s no magic bullet to better health. For a good, elementary wellness recipe, science supports a combination of balanced nutrition, exercise and supplements to fill in nutrient gaps/deficiencies.

Similarly, there is no fountain of youth. However, the science of aging and disease continues to evolve and advance. In their article, “Inclusive Health: Methods of Tissue Preservation,” Howard Murad, MD, FAAD, one of today’s foremost authorities on health and skin care, along with Jeff Murad, director of program development at the University of Inclusive Health and vice president of product development at Murad, Inc., discuss how a combination of internal, external and emotional care can lead to whole body wellness.

“The human body is a vast network of cells and connective tissue. At the root of all disease, water loss, oxidation and inflammation cause damage and destroy the components that literally hold the body together. Scientific research on connective tissue-rejuvenating therapies is ongoing. We believe that a combination of therapies may improve overall health, offering patients higher resistance to connective tissue damage.”

This concept drives to the root of Beauty Inside and Out. The notion that nutrition is intimately tied to outward appearance and the health of skin, hair and nails may still need time to seep into the skeptical American psyche, especially among younger people. However, as Baby Boomers deal with obvious symptoms of aging, the market for integrative health solutions should continue to grow.

Meanwhile, on the scientific front, a collection of articles recently published in The Journals of Gerontology focused on how the basic biology of aging drives chronic disease. Together, they highlighted the value of the emerging field of geroscience, which uses an integrated approach to the study of diseases and disability associated with growing older. Geroscience seeks to bridge the divide between studies of aging and studies of chronic disease, with the hope of understanding their complex relationship and revealing novel interventions for disease, frailty and disability.

“Although we can reasonably expect to live longer today than past generations did, the age-related disease burden we will have to confront has not changed,” the authors state in the lead article. “With the proportion of older people among the global population being now higher than at any time in history and still expanding, maintaining health into old age has become a new and urgent frontier for modern medicine.”

Research-based natural products applied strategically as part of an inclusive, integrated healthcare model could play a valuable role in the future, increasingly important, anti-aging market.