RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif., July 19, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Organic & Natural Health Association along with research partner, GrassrootsHealth, was awarded the Nutrition Business Journal’s 2017 award for Education for its Nutrient Power education and research campaign July 18 at the NBJ Summit at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos. The Nutrient Power campaign educates the public about nutrient deficiencies that can be reversed through the use of dietary supplements and provides accessible at-home testing, of which results are connected to a large-scale field trial led by GrassrootsHealth that assesses the value of supplementation on a variety of health issues over a period of time.
The organizations launched the campaign in 2016 with a focus on vitamin D education and testing, then in 2017 added omega-3 DHA and EPA testing to the same vitamin D self-testing kit. To date, more than 12,000 participants are being monitored for vitamin D and currently 1,000 are being monitored for omega-3. The Nutrient Power campaign encourages people to take charge of their health while advancing nutrient research at the same time.
“Taking charge of our health requires informed decisions. Most people do not know their vitamin D levels or how it affects specific health outcomes,” said Carole Baggerly, director of GrassrootsHealth. “We are providing personal health information based on personal measurements of vitamin D and omega-3 levels merged with the science of the effects on health for each person participating in a GrassrootsHealth project.”
The success of Organic & Natural Health’s Nutrient Power campaign has extended beyond consumer education and awareness of knowing your nutrient levels fueled by more than 250 million media impressions to date since its launch in 2016. The message of reversing nutrient deficiencies through simple blood spot testing and supplementation has also garnered attention of healthcare practitioners and congressional leaders to change the standard of care.
Recently published research conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina along with GrassrootsHealth, shows pregnant woman who maintain vitamin D levels of 40-60 ng/ml, experience a reduction in preterm births by up to 60 percent. Out of the 1,000 pregnant women studied, 90 percent were deficient in vitamin D. During the study, researchers did not find any complications related to pregnant women taking vitamin D. Based on these results, MUSC has dramatically improved the standard of care for pregnant women by monitoring vitamin D throughout pregnancy.
With more than 1,000 babies born prematurely everyday in North America, taking the new MUSC model of monitoring and supplementing vitamin D to hospitals nationwide could have major implications when it comes to reducing healthcare costs and saving lives. This year, Organic & Natural Health submitted a petition to the FDA, requesting a health claim on the reduction of preterm births for vitamin D supplements. If 50 percent of preterm births could be prevented each year in the United States, there could be nearly $6 billion available for other health services.
“It’s quite frankly criminal that families do not have access to this information when there is more than a foot of research that validates MUSC’s findings for reduction of preterm births through vitamin D supplementation,” said Karen Howard, CEO and executive director of Organic & Natural Health. “Giving dietary supplement companies authority to educate consumers through this proposed vitamin D health claim would literally be a game changer, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of families that could be spared the trauma for preterm births each year.”
Organic & Natural Health’s Nutrient Power campaign isn’t going to stop with vitamin D and omega-3. The organization has plans to do a similar field study research and consumer education model with 13 more nutrients Americans are commonly deficient in. Howard says by extending the Nutrient Power research program and educating more people on knowing their levels of basic nutrients, similar transformations that are being made for pregnant women with vitamin D could also be made in other sectors of the healthcare system.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6120d48c-28ca-41ec-a7f2-007705ed05cb