Trends in the Health & Wellness Industry

Pick a pomegranate for 2004
The New Year will see a resizing of products, increasing use of health claims designed to attract dieters and an explosion in use of pomegranate extracts, predicts Mintel.

Seniors Want Alternatives Too
A "wake-up call" to clinicians who think elderly men are less likely to use complementary medicine comes from a new Canadian study that counters the notion that complementary medicine is for the most part popular with younger people and women.

Herbal Medicine Gets Its Due
Researchers at Queen's University in Canada have been awarded USD 8 million to study the efficacy and safety of the plant extract, quercetin, saw palmetto, and the bark of African pygeum tree. Alternative herbal therapies, which people have been using for more than 4,000 years, complementary therapies, and radically novel treatments must be evaluated by traditional clinical scientists, to determine their true effectiveness and safety, said a researcher.

Medication: One Size Doesn't Fit All
A senior executive at Europe's largest drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline, has admitted most prescription medicines don't work for most people. At present, pharmaceutical companies adopt a "one-drug-fits-all" policy. But refinements in genetic technology should make it possible to identify those people who were likely to benefit from a drug.

Consumers 'Snub Unhealthy Brands'
Kit Kat and Walkers Crisps are losing customers to healthier brands as leading brands in so-called unhealthy foods suffered a dip in sales.

Cutting The Carbs
The low carb trend continues to make an impact on food and drink innovation, with functional food makers also choosing to reassess the carb count of their products.

FDA To Ban Ephedra
On December 30, 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a consumer alert of its forthcoming determination that dietary supplements containing ephedra present an unreasonable risk of illness or injury, and should not be consumed. The agency intends to issue a final rule prohibiting their sale, which will become effective 60 days after its publication. The FDA Center for Food Safety and Nutrition has comprehensive information about the ephedra problem.

FDA Strangling Consumer Health
The high cost of prescription drugs poses serious challenges for American families and city and state budgets. Increasing numbers of Americans are also choosing lower-priced supplements rather than expensive prescription drugs as their first line of defense against illness.

Soy Supplement Patent for Novogen
Novogen Limited has been granted the U.S. patent covering health supplements based on the use of soy isoflavones in tablet or capsule form.

Label Me Bad
The FDA's plans to introduce tougher regulations governing nutritional labels for packaged foods a FDA plans to introduce tough new rules on nutritional information for food products, are likely to be strongly resisted by the food industry. Meanwhile, a new report from the US National Academies’ Institute of Medicine recommends that government authorities in the United States and Canada should use the current Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) to label nutrients in food and dietary supplements.

Multivitamin Cuts HIV Mortality
A randomised trial suggests that multiple micronutrient supplementation could show a clinical benefit - a reduction in deaths - for the 40 million people infected with HIV worldwide.

FDA Wants Your Opinion on Health Claims
The FDA is requesting comments on alternatives for regulating qualified health claims, which are not supported by significant scientific agreement, and on the appropriateness and nature of dietary guidance statements in food labeling.

Benefit of Wine Minus The Alcohol
A dietary supplement that preserves a powerful antioxidant found in red wine in a capsule may be able to provide the healthy properties of wine without the alcohol or calories. The new supplement, called Longevinex, provides 15 milligrams of resveratrol in an airtight capsule, and is the first to provide stabilized resveratrol.

Stress-free with Indian Herb
Vermont-based NutraGenesis has introduced a patented bioactive extract of the Indian herb Withania somnifera, which it claims acts to reduce the body's response to stress.

Research Boosts Case for Probiotics
Mounting scientific evidence for the therapeutic use of probiotics suggests that these products should be incorporated into conventional medical practices.

Supplement Outperforms Arthritis Medication
Univestin, a natural polyphenol supplement, that uses a proprietary blend of botanicals to block two very important physiological pathways targeted by pharmaceuticals, has provided significant pain relief to arthritis patients in a clinical trial, and even outperformed a prescription medication

Buckwheat Works For Diabetes
Researchers in Canada have found new evidence that buckwheat, a grain used in making pancakes, may be beneficial in the management of diabetes. The grain was found to significantly lower blood glucose levels in rats.

Johns Hopkins study predicts nutritional supplements could prevent vision loss in 300,000 people over the next five years. A report published in the November 2003 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology predicted a significant reduction in the loss of vision caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Americans each year if individuals at risk of developing the advanced form of the disease took supplements containing the antioxidant vitamins C, E and beta-carotene, and the mineral zinc.

Australia Curbs Colloidal Silver Sales
The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration has amended its rules so that colloidal silver products for which therapeutic claims are made must meet the requirements of medicines included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Most of the products currently being marketed will become illegal therapeutic goods.

Campaign Against Illegal Online Pharmacies Continues
As increasing numbers of domestic and offshore Web sites deluge consumers with e-mails and ads for Vicodin, hydrocodone, Xanax, Valium, and other controlled substances, big players like Drugstore.com, are getting into the act to warn consumers about dangers of buying medication from rogue internet sites. For its part, the popular search engine Google will stop accepting advertising from unlicensed pharmacies that use the Internet to sell narcotics and prescription drugs without medical supervision.

Calcium Could Prevent Childhood obesity
Children should be strongly encouraged to regularly include calcium-rich foods and drinks in their diets, report US researchers, after a new study confirms the negative association between the mineral and body fat.

FDA Approves Wholegrain Health Claim
Food marketers in the US can now make a claim referring to the beneficial actions of wholegrains on reduction of heart disease risk, following an application from leading manufacturer Kraft using the newly established procedure of referring to scientific body.

Eat Your Cereal To Stay Thin
Children who frequently consume cereal are less likely to be overweight, according to the findings of a new study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

DHEA Linked to Atherosclerosis
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has published the results of a laboratory study which found that dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a sex hormone precursor marketed as an "anti-aging" dietary supplement, may promotethe formation of fatty plaques in arteries.

Green Tea Fights HIV
The main active agent in green tea, Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), prevents the first step in HIV infection and could one day be used as a new anti-HIV drug. EGCG is the most abundant catechin in green tea and thought to be responsible for the numerous health benefits attributed to the beverage, including prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Face Off With Face Transplants
Surgeons appear ready to carry out the world's first face transplants - but say they want more public debate.

Fake Drugs Trade Rises Worldwide
Fake drugs are being used increasingly as they are easy to make and cheap, says the World Health Organization.

Anti-depressants Not for Minors
The Department of Health bans the use of many commonly prescribed anti-depressants for people under 18.

Bioterror Gives Grief to Food Industry
The US today enforces new regulations that require all food plants to register with its Food and Drug Administration and food importers to give the agency notice before shipments arrive at ports or border crossings.

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Wellness Trends Archives