Vital Care Hong Kong took home the award with its Adrien Gagnon NMN 15000 Women product in September’s NutraIngredients-Asia Awards.
“We are truly honoured that Adrien Gagnon NMN 15000 Women has been recognised with the Innovations in Women's Health Award.
“This is a great recognition of our commitment to provide highly innovative and relevant products to the community, and of our ability to deliver the innovations in a user-friendly and cost-effective way,” the firm said.
Aside from nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), the vegan product is also formulated with seven other ingredients.
They are resveratrol, saffron trademarked AFFRONEYE, biotin, curcumin, L-cysteine, L-lysine, and L-proline.
Explaining the inspiration behind the product, the firm said the purpose was to help promote healthspan - the number of years in which one is able to spend his/her life in good physical and mental health, free from chronic diseases and serious illnesses.
“The Adrien Gagnon NMN Project is based on promoting the healthspan concept, while addressing consumers’ emotional and physical demands.
“It is a new generation product that may help fight against the body’s age-related issues through cellular rejuvenation and DNA damage repair.
“Instead of a single-ingredient product containing NMN, Vital Care has set out to develop a multiple-ingredient combination nutraceutical product that provides consumers with additional benefits for joints, skin, hair, and eyes," the firm added.
Aside from women, the firm has also formulated another product containing NMN for men. This is to address the biological and behavioural differences between the two genders.
One in eight people in Hong Kong was aged 65 and above last year. The average life expectancy for women was 87.7, which was 4.7 years longer than men.
Women’s health needs
Moving forward, the company plans to develop products for women of different age groups as it expands its women’s health portfolio.
Some of the common women’s health concerns include metabolic, weight-related issues, bone density loss, ageing skin, and gynaecological conditions.
This is on top of life-cycle related concerns, such as fertility, pre-pregnancy, prenatal, and postnatal care.
“Women have different health concerns at different life stages. For example, younger women may have to overcome their menstrual issues, while women of childbearing age may need to know how to preserve their fertility or how to prepare for prenatal and postnatal care.
”In Hong Kong, the prevalence of depression is higher in women than in men. Young women are more than twice as likely to experience depression, and almost four times as likely than young men to experience severe depression.
“Stress manifests itself in physical, emotional and psychological symptoms. All of these symptoms can worsen with hormonal imbalance,” the firm said.