Speaking at the Nutra Healthspan Summit in London on Nov. 12, Dr. Ripa said that this is Nestlé’s most critical scientific priority today, explaining that the goal is to help people become what are considered ‘escapers’, a term for those who reach 90 to 95 years old without chronic disease or hospitalization.
“How we do that is challenging, though we now have tools to monitor the aging rate and assess whether interventions can slow it,” Dr. Ripa said. “We believe nutrition will be central, and discovering novel ingredients that reduce biological age is key to slowing the aging rate, compressing morbidity and promoting healthy aging.”
Quantitative analysis of biological age
While analysis and understanding of biological age is evolving rapidly, Dr. Ripa predicts that there will soon be advanced clocks that can capture the aging process more comprehensively, with much stronger predictive power regarding future risks and diseases.
“We do have tools to quantify the rate of aging, however, their limitation is that, while they are complex and have strong predictive power for disease and health risk, they still capture only part of the aging process, not the whole,” he said.
“Advancement in this technology will be very important for personalized medicine, and I believe that in the near future, aging clocks will merge with medical practice to allow personalized health programs based on these predictions.”
Mitochondrial function and healthy aging
One area where such personalized insights are especially valuable is mitochondrial function, a central driver of healthy aging, Dr. Ripa explained, noting the strong connection between mitochondrial dysfunction, which is one of the key hallmarks of aging, and sarcopenia, a major issue in the elderly.
“Mitochondria are the cell’s powerhouses, essential for producing the energy we need, he said. ”This becomes particularly problematic in people with sarcopenia."
He noted that some nutritional interventions are well known to improve sarcopenic conditions; however, underlying mechanisms had not been fully explored..
Seeing that the Mediterranean diet, which includes high olive oil intake, can improve outcomes somewhat, Nestlé investigated the mechanisms and identified a novel ingredient, oleuropein, derived from olive oil.
“We found that oleuropein can counter sarcopenia by restoring mitochondrial function, and specifically, it restores mitochondrial calcium import, which is a key function that is severely impaired in people with sarcopenia,” he explained.
Across several studies, supplementation with oleuropein increased mitochondrial respiration, followed by improved muscle performance, strength and mass in both humans and model organisms.
“This is exciting because, for the first time, we have identified a novel ingredient that can counter the effects of sarcopenia and understand the mechanism behind it,” Dr. Ripa said. “This opens the door to future applications, such as combining oleuropein with other nutrients to synergize and maximize the effect.”
