Nutritional Outlook's Women in Nutraceuticals Roundtable: The Future of Women's Health Research

This roundtable is a supplement to a recent article commissioned by Women in Nutraceuticals and published by Nutritional Outlook, titled “Taking Initiative: Can the WHI’s model help the nutraceutical industry answer questions the study didn’t even ask?”

In that article, author Kimberly J. Decker explores the legacy of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), and what the nutraceutical industry can learn from it. For those who may be unfamiliar, the WHI is a long-term national health study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute that focused on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. WHI began in 1991 and is one the largest women’s health projects ever launched in the U.S. It had over 161,000 women enrolled at 40 clinical centers, and was divided into three parts; a clinical trial, an observational study, and a community prevention study. Data collection was completed in 2005, but its data continues to sow fruit with ancillary and extension studies that are projected to run through 2026.

There have been a number of valuable findings that resulted from the WHI. For example, researchers learned that estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy following menopause elevated the risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, breast cancer, and dementia. Hormone therapy with estrogen alone offered some benefits to younger women who had prior hysterectomies, but it did raise the risk of stroke and blood clots in these women, as well as others in the study.

In the area of nutrition, the WHI dietary modification study found that a low fat diet did not have a significant impact on a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, heart disease, or stroke, did not reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, but did reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. Additionally, the WHI Calcium and Vitamin D trial found that supplementation with calcium and vitamin D did provide a modest benefit in preserving bone mass and preventing hip fractures for some participants, including older women.

It's clear that the WHI has had a significant impact on what we know about the health of postmenopausal women, but the nature of science is that there’s always more to learn. You’ve no doubt seen a surge of products related to women’s health in the nutraceutical space, particularly targeting menopause support. Numerous branded ingredients tout positive findings in their ability to support symptoms of menopause as well as other areas of interest such as fertility, as well as pre- and post-natal health. But how can the nutraceutical industry apply this model to answer new or unanswered questions from the WHI?

To discuss this scenario, Nutritional Outlook was joined by Dr. Jacqueline Jacques, Dr. Yalda Shokooh, and David Foreman.

Dr. Jacqueline Jacques. Photo credit: Jessica Bodas Photography

Dr. Jacqueline Jacques is a Naturopathic Doctor with over 20 years of leadership experience in the medical nutrition and wellness industries as a founder, formulator, speaker, writer, executive, and trusted advisor. Jacqueline’s career is reflective of her cumulative experience in medicine and industry, and her consistent ability to bridge the gap between the two for the purpose of helping organizations succeed. Currently working as a top-tier industry consultant, Jacqueline’s unique cross-functional expertise allows her to help a diverse set of clients with their strategic growth. Most recently, she spent 9 years in leadership roles at Thorne HealthTech.

Dr. Yalda Shokooh

Dr. Yalda Shokooh, the Director of Science and Nutrition at NOW, has more than 20 years of experience in natural products. She did research on botanicals for two decades and published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. She is a Pharm D as well as having a doctorate in Pharmacognosy. She had two fellowships in “Phytochemistry” and “Medicinal plants analysis”. Most recently, she was a full professor at Sonoran University of Health Sciences, where she did research on herbs and taught Pharmacology. She has been in leadership roles for the last 11 years and has a passion for natural products.

David Foreman

David Foreman is a pharmacist, author, speaker and media personality known internationally as, “The Herbal Pharmacist®”.His background in pharmacy and natural medicine put Foreman in an elite class of health experts. Foreman is highly sought for his abilities to connect the science world with sales and marketing. Foreman is a graduate of the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, and author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books.He currently is a on the editorial advisory board for Nutritional Outlook and frequent speaker at most industry events such as; Vitafoods Europe, Vitafoods Asia, Supply Side West and Vitafoods Insights.

Full video:

More bite-size highlights of our discussion can be viewed here:

Takeaways and lingering questions from the WHI
Applying the WHI model to nutraceuticals
Challenges of communicating scientific research