“The Hallmarks of Aging provide some guidance on how to design interventions and how to discover novel ingredients to target the aging process,” Dr. Gabriele Civiletto, associate principal scientist at dsm-firmenich, told us during the recent Nutra Healthspan Summit.
“However, there are some limitations for application humans, and these limitations are that they are not always measurable, and some of them cannot be actionable by dietary interventions. Therefore, our selection has been based on the fact that they can be targeted, they can be measured in a clinical trial.”
This led dsm-firmenich to focus on four specific hallmarks of aging: senescence, chronic inflammation, dysbiosis and mitochondrial function.
“There are already ingredients and dietary interventions that have been strongly proved to activate and to target these hallmarks of aging,” Dr. Civiletto said.
“It doesn’t mean if you activate one hallmark of aging that you are activating it in isolation. Basically, they are all connected. But still, science is exploring how they are connected in order to design better interventions that basically can also allow us to synergize ingredients for healthy aging.”
Dr. Civiletto presented findings from the DO-HEALTH study during the two-day Nutra Healthspan Summit in London. The study, the largest human trial in Europe for healthy aging, involved 2,157 healthy people aged 70 or over. The trial investigated the impact of vitamin D3 (2000 IU/d); algal omega-3 (1 g/d), a strength-training exercise program for three years or various combinations of these.
Results showed that the algal omega-3 alone slowed three well-established biological clocks—PhenoAge, GrimAge2 and DunedinPACE. Vitamin D3 plus omega-3, and all three combined had additive benefits on PhenoAge.
“The DO-HEALTH trial is a very good example of a study that monitored all from biomarkers level up to functional outcomes,” said Dr. Civiletto. “The study was very well powered for all this level of evidence.”
The new red thread
The science of aging is complex, and communicating such benefits to consumers can be challenging.
“What we try to do is really tell a story that is founded in science, but it’s simple enough for the consumer to understand and really take the consumer all the way with us,” explained François Scheffler, EVP of global marketing and business development at dsm-firmenich.
An example of this was the Longevity Shift experience at SupplySide Global where representatives from dsm-firmenich took visitors on a 10-minute journey through longevity and the company’s solutions in this area.
“Healthspan is the new red thread that will guide from pre-birth all the way to death,” Scheffler explained.
“I don’t see longevity as a new segment like women’s health or brain health or eye health. I see it as a resetting of the overall interventions around supplements during the course of one’s life and of organizing these different interventions at different moments of one’s life.”
Watch the video for the full interview.
