Amid the pursuit to uncover the recipe for extending high quality of life with age, “there are likely many well-conceived possible lifestyle options that can be modified to achieve improved health and optimize the lifespan,” according to a new report titled “Healthy ageing: the natural consequences of good nutrition—a conference report,” published online May 24 in the European Journal of Nutrition.
 
Co-authored by 10 scientific experts, the report details presentations made at the annual CRN-International (CRN-I) Scientific Symposium, held Dec. 2, 2017 in Berlin, Germany. With over 70 delegates, academic experts, and dietary supplement industry professionals from 27 countries in attendance, the 2017 Symposium’s agenda featured sessions and presentations exploring cross-cultural mental, physical, and environmental effects on healthy aging, as well as the public health impact of nutrition on quality of life.
 
“Though definitions of healthy aging continue to evolve, the surface has barely been scratched,” said James C. Griffiths, PhD, vice president, scientific & international affairs, CRN-I, and report co-author. “Understanding aging is critical to ameliorating its impact on both individuals and society. This report seeks to expand on the new field of research, public health initiatives, and health and wellness consumer products collectively categorized with this phenomenon.”       
 
Drawing attention to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2015 World Report on Ageing and Health and 2016 Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health (GSAP), the co-authors note healthy aging is a person-centered concept that focuses less on morbidity and disease, and more on “the intrinsic capacity of the individual, the environments they inhabit, and the interaction between them.” According to the CRN-I conference report, adequate nutrition is fundamental for good health, but “it remains unclear what impact various dietary interventions may have on prolonging good quality of life.” Thus, the co-authors said the public health framework must develop a standardized approach to describing, measuring, analyzing, and monitoring the functional and intrinsic elements of health and aging.
 
“Aging is inevitable, and, according to accumulating evidence, so is poor health later in life,” continued Dr. Griffiths. “It’s crucial that we identify all controllable and uncontrollable factors that play a role in shaping quality of life in older populations. Limited availability or access to data, lack of specific information, and out of date statistics present challenges to better understanding this life stage, and the scientific and medical communities must commit to expanding the existing literature in order to develop strategies to enhance healthy aging for older adults around the globe.”
 
In addition to Dr. Griffiths, the co-authors of the conference report are: Daniel Marsman, PhD, Procter & Gamble; Daniel W. Belsky, PhD, Duke University; Dario Gregori, PhD, University of Padua; Mary Ann Johnson, University of Georgia; Tieraona Low Dog, MD, Integrative Medicine Concepts; Simin Meydani, PhD, Tufts University; Sadrine Pigat, Creme Global; Ritu Sadana, World Health Organization; and Andrew Shao, PhD, Amway/Nutrilite.
 
This is the eighth publication of CRN-I conference proceedings. Previous reports were published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology and, for the last six years, in the European Journal of Nutrition. Abstracts of published proceedings are available on the CRN-I website in multiple languages.