Best Innovation Guides for Women’s Health

Women (still) drive up to 80% of a household’s purchases.*

While this stat has held strong for 30 years, innovating for women’s health has finally taken hold with marketers in a bigger, bolder way. The opportunity is enormous as targeting women is still a Blue Ocean Strategy. So, here are some ideas on how to effectively target women.

Intermittent Fasting and the Low-Carb Lifestyle

Remember when eating breakfast was the most important meal of the day? Not anymore. Now intermittent fasting (“IF”) is the #1 diet in the country, keto is on life support, and low-carb is here to stay. No one is going to coffee and talking about her new, high-carb diet. Higher fat and protein are cool, and the latest topic of conversation is adding in some fermentable fiber. **

Food as Medicine

Fermented foods have been big for years (i.e. the boom in kombucha), and connecting fermentation, gut health, and wellness is important. Check out this study that showed fermented foods promoted greater gut microbiome diversity than fiber.

Look for a near-future trend of fermentable fibers like pea, potato and green banana starches, as well as combining with soluble and insoluble fiber like organic baobab fruit fiber (as Fibriss™). In particular, green banana starch is a fermentable fiber with a cool factor that will show itself in upcoming meal replacement products, soups and more. Baobab fruit fiber (aka Fibriss™) will also trend because it tastes great and checks the most important boxes for consumers such as sustainable, organic and wild-harvested.  Who wants to bloat on inulin when you can have organic baobab fiber that uses zero water, zero fertilizer, and is wild-harvested and sustainable? Bottom line: all food passes through the gut and gut health is inextricably linked to overall health. In this case, women’s health and their pre-pro-postbiotic gut health journey. Fermented foods and the connection to overall wellness for women is not a secret anymore. It is sought after for nearly all women in wellness.

We’re all seeing that what we eat is directly tied to our health and our family’s health. Given that the market is hearing and understanding this food-health connection, below is some potential marketing content.

Good content to consider:

Daily products like coffee or tea as well as greens and polyphenols to show how the gut and brain can work well together. Coffee plays extremely well with the mushroom trend (i.e. Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps or PeakO2®). For greens, look for a re-imagination of Athletic Greens where you’d axe the “kitchen sink” formula and be more intentional about fermentable fibers and prebiotics. Definitely NO probiotics. And speaking of polyphenols, cranberry has been synonymous with UTI formulas – until now.

Check out this study showing that butyrate status is most important in combatting UTIs. The study states, “Notably, the microbiomes of women with recurrent UTIs were particularly scarce in bacteria that produce butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid with anti-inflammatory effects.”

Bioavailable butyrate (aka CoreBiome®) is arguably the largest opportunity in women’s health.

Gut health and its role in mood. Look for more content relating gut health to serotonin, dopamine, and mood; and referencing the vagus nerve in connecting gut and brain. While CoreBiome® is the foundation of gut health and gut-brain connection, new uses for TeaCrine® in preserving dopaminergic neurons is crucially important to mood and the impacts of stress. If a formulator were considering an innovative gut-brain product, it’s hard to argue there is a more impactful combination than CoreBiome® and TeaCrine®. Other options to include with CoreBiome® are lutein, berberine, magnesium and/or polyamines (aka Yüth™).

Linking food to skin health. Can you imagine food NOT affecting our skin health? Of course not! So, the fermentable fiber story, along with baobab (as Fibriss™) and polyphenols and carotenoids will grow. Think grape seed extract, resveratrol and even a unique ingredient called MicrobiomeX™ from Europe. The carotenoid, astaxanthin, will share the spotlight, too. And in the popular gummy world, polyamines (i.e., Yüth™), vitamin A and astaxanthin will come on strong.

Energy Via Adaptogens. Mushrooms. Mushrooms. Mushrooms. They’re great for health, and they won’t fade away anytime soon. Whether it’s PeakO2®, cordyceps or a unique mushroom coffee, everyone would love to create the next Four Sigmatic or Mud\Wtr.

How food affects blood sugar levels and sleep hygiene. Melatonin is out-of-style because who wants to shut down one’s own natural melatonin production?! Try magnesium, theanine, GABA and/or apigenin. And for blood sugar, don’t overlook TeaCrine® for both glucose metabolism and a sensory impact.

Now, magnesium doesn’t necessarily directly impact blood sugar, but there is still a LOT of room for growth in this category. Because magnesium doses are relatively high, gummies aren’t effective or recommended. Try a chewable tablet! If you go the powder route, it’s hard not to simply take Natural Vitality’s Calm and make it a bit better with fermented Reb M (aka OnoSweet™) for natural sweetening. You could also use a unique type of magnesium and/or theanine.

Kids’ Health

While the magnesium train has been focused on adults, there is a giant growth opportunity in kids’ health. Taste is king, so Sukré™ and OnoSweet™ (fermented Reb M) are important here. For ease-of-use, chewable tablets likely have the most upside potential.

There are additional opportunities with multivitamins that contain trace minerals, or even carotenoids like astaxanthin and/or lutein. You can formulate direct-to-tongue pixie sticks, chewables or sugar-free gummies if the doses of the actives are low enough to be effective.

Beauty Trends

Beauty is not trite. The fact is that it’s big and not just in North America, but the market for beauty is  incredibly powerful in Asia, the Middle East, and Brazil. It’s a global powerhouse trend . It should be noted that Asian women are joining the workforce in record numbers and that’s increasing demand, too.

Globally, the beauty trend may take the form of collagen, ceramides, or antioxidant creams. In Asia, it may include skin whitening via gamma oryzanol or glutathione. In the USA, we simply have to formulate “beyond biotin.” That means combining biotin with ingredients such as vitamin A and polyamines like “Yüth™.” There are some condition-specific probiotics to consider, as well. Most importantly, don’t formulate or ingest a sugar-based gummy for skin health. Sugar isn’t helping anyone. Look for new opportunities connecting gut and skin.

So, how can you unite low-carb/intermittent fasting, food-as-medicine, and beauty into practical applications like gut health, collagen, adaptogens & low-carb/intermittent fasting? Below are a few ideas.

Gut Health

Messaging: Gut health IS human health. There is no optimized brain, heart, muscle, bone, skin or immune health without optimized gut health. Short-chain fatty acids (i.e., CoreBiome®) are the foundation of gut health and their starting point is vegetables. The next line of gut defense is fermentable fibers. Think pea, potato and green banana starches (aka Fibriss™) with ~>60% fermentable fiber content. Formulating with psyllium husk can feel dated. So, either combine it with something else that’s cool (i.e. Sukré™, fermentable fibers and/or CoreBiome®), or simply formulate around it with baobab fruit fiber (aka Fibriss™) and fermentable fibers.

But here’s another note: let’s say “no more” to sugar-based apple cider vinegar gummies. We all know they don’t work, so making money at the expense of people’s health isn’t amusing anymore. Do better with the ingredients above, as well as new angles like ‘phage’ probiotics. Those work well with CoreBiome® and this all helps improve the women’s health categories.

Gut Health

• CoreBiome® is the foundation of gut health including gut-brain, gut-skin, gut-immune and a new era of synbiotics.
• Beauty-from-within starts in the gut. Contact us here to discuss.

Collagen

It’s not just a “beauty protein,” it’s the most abundant protein in the body and important for overall wellness.

Potential applications:

• Add-to-coffee

• Use goCOCOA® for low-carb chocolate collagen
• Use goFAT® Olive Oil for superfood collagen
• Add immune-enhancing adaptogenic mushrooms in PeakO2®, or chaga or reishi for whole-body wellness
• Add iXOS™, fermentable fibers and/or Sukré™ for prebiotic collagen

Magnesium

Messaging: the calming mineral, and the second most deficient mineral in the American diet.

Potential applications:

• Chewables for adults and kids for calming
• Powders for either calm, or go the ATP route and combine with PeakO2®
• Capsules are still the go-to magnesium supplement, at the moment.

Adaptogens

From energy to immunity, adaptogens help us adapt to physical and mental stressors.

Potential applications:

• Use PeakO2® in greens, coffee or coffee alternatives
• Use Amino9® EAAs for fasted cardio products, low-stim pre-workouts, or overall active lifestyle products
• While ashwagandha for stress and adrenal support, reishi for immune health, curcumin for joint health, or rhodiola for energy may be “old school,” the category can be re-imagined with TeaCrine® and Dynamine™. Dynamine™ and TeaCrine® take adaptogens from anti-stress to pro-mood with a dopamine kick.

Zero Sugar / Fiber

Low carb is better named “low sugar.” Besides intermittent fasting, zero-sugar, fiber, fat and protein are the new cool in wellness. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t see Coke Zero everywhere!

Potential applications:

• goFAT® series of MCT, coconut oil, olive oil or cocoa butter powders for MRPs, coffee creamers, collagen, weight management and more
• Soluble fiber, fermentable fibers, polyphenols and prebiotics like iXOS™ and Sukré™or Fibriss™®
• CoreBiome® for weight management through satiety and gut health

The future is more than just female. The future is female wellness, fiber, gut connectivity, beauty in aging and their kids’ health, too.  This should affect how formulators put together products, so let’s do it together. If you want to learn more about targeting the strongest buyer in the household, contact us now. 

References

*Forbes: Top 10 things everyone should know about women consumers
**Foodnavigator-USA: What’s trending in nutrition?
^Statista.org: Record Number of Women are Joining Japanese Workforce