Dawna Venzon is principal research scientist at Amway’s supplement brand Nutrilite.
She told us that, launching at the end of this year in Japan first, is a supplement called Truvivity by Nutrilite TruYouth, containing a patented blend of aronia berry, three different factions of licorice root, and sage, which the company has linked to a slowing down of forming what they call ‘advanced glycated ends.’
“These were original identified in diabetes,” Venzon explained. “Individuals with diabetes have a lot of long-term negative effects in some of their small vessels, and it was identified that it was related to sugar molecules modifying the protein, causing tissue damage.”
It’s called the Maillard reaction, which we see in cooking, for instance, when toasted bread turns brown. “That happens to the human body as well, but at a slower rate, because we obviously don’t live in an oven,” she said. “With diabetics they have more sugar floating around so that reaction is much more likely to happen.”
Venzon added that research suggests that advanced glycated ends is an endogenous part of aging, not related to UV light or pollution, but a natural part of metabolism.
“As of right now, there’s really no way to break those glycated end-products once they’ve formed,” she said. But her research with Nutrilite has explored how to decrease the rate by which these products accumulate in the skin.
In a still unpublished pilot study using the blend, which took a year and half, researchers looked at plasma glycation markers. “We found that the supplemented group did have a decrease in the accumulation of those glycated end-products that were accumulated in the skin in a period of 16 weeks,” Venzon added.
Dawna Venzon is a panelist at our upcoming FREE Beauty-from-Within Webinar
On Thursday, Sept. 20 at 1 pm Eastern, she will be joined by Sarah Greenfield, director of education at HUM Nutrition; Taryn Forrelli, VP of Product at Olly; David Tyrrell, Global Skincare Analyst at Mintel; and Simon Pitman, Senior Editor of CosmeticsDesign.com for a 60-minute roundtable discussion with a Q&A. Register and submit your questions today by CLICKING HERE.
