CRN’s Andrea Wong examines evolution of research, trends and access to nutrition
As CRN celebrates its 50th anniversary, Andrea Wong, SVP, scientific and regulatory affairs, CRN, is also celebrating an important milestone: 10 years at CRN.
We caught up with Wong at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, to reflect on the evolution of research around supplements over the last decade.
“I've definitely noticed more interest in precision nutrition, the concept that one size does not necessarily fit all for people in terms of what they eat and the supplements they may need. And so what we're seeing is some of these larger research studies where the effect size may have been pretty small overall across thousands of people, but if you look at specific population groups, that's where you see the really interesting data.
“Something that comes to mind for me is the Vital Study that was published a couple years ago. That looked at vitamin D and omega-3 supplementation and on the omega-3 side, when they looked at the 25,000 people that participated, there wasn't a significant effect on cardiovascular disease risk. But they had actually over-sampled for Black participants in that study. So there were 5,000 Black participants and that's where you saw a significant effect on things like heart attacks if they were supplemented with omega-3s,” noted Wong.
Throughout the conference, an ongoing theme often mentioned was access. Looking ahead, Wong highlighted the importance of getting everyone better access to nutrition.
“It's concerning because we all know and have heard over the years that Americans are not getting the nutrients they need. But if you look at people from low income populations or households that deficit is exacerbated and there's got to be ways to really close that gap,” Wong said.
