Which women were actually included in a study? Was the finished formulation tested, or only an individual ingredient? And how can companies communicate promising research without getting ahead of the evidence?
Those questions are at the center of the Council for Responsible Nutrition’s inaugural SciComms Connect symposium, which will bring scientific, product development and communications professionals together Oct. 6 in Carlsbad, California. The program, themed “Bridging Science and Marketing to Advance Women’s Vitality,” is part of CRN’s Signature Events and precedes Innovation Exchange and CONVERGENCE ’26.
Andrea Wong, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief science officer at CRN, said increased attention to women’s health comes as consumers navigate an increasingly crowded information environment.
“Finally, women’s health is getting the attention it deserves in terms of the scientific research” being conducted by academia and industry, she told NutraIngredients.
At the same time, she said, women are encountering overhyped messaging around everything from menopause to other health concerns.
“We want to give our audience really practical tools for them to navigate this area, to look at the research,” Wong said. “What does it actually say? Don’t overhype it, but don’t undersell it either.”
Women are not one consumer
CRN built the SciComms Connect agenda around several areas of women’s health, including menopause and healthy aging, active nutrition and maternal health.
Jeff Ventura, vice president of communications at CRN, said one potential trap is treating women’s health as a catch-all category despite differences across adolescence, reproductive years, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause and healthy aging.
That distinction matters when companies decide not only what to formulate but what evidence can reasonably support their products.
“Women are not one homogeneous group, and the science, and the way we communicate it, should reflect that,” Heather Woolery-Lloyd, MD, FAAD, board-certified dermatologist and chief medical advisor at Nutrafol and speaker at the upcoming symposium, told NI.
Dr. Woolery-Lloyd pointed to hair health as an example. Hormones, stress, nutrition, aging and lifestyle can all play a role, making evidence on a popular individual ingredient less informative than research demonstrating that a specific formulation improved a defined outcome in its intended population.
What does ‘clinically studied’ mean?
Ryan Woodbury, co-founder and co-CEO of maternal nutrition company Needed, raised a similar concern around the way evidence is communicated.
Growing investment in women’s health has helped bring research and product innovation to previously overlooked areas, he said, but terms such as “clinically studied” and “clinically proven” can obscure important distinctions.
“Sometimes only one ingredient was studied, rather than the finished product, or it was tested at a different dose, in a different population or for a different outcome than the product claims,” Woodbury told NI.
For companies, that creates a communications challenge alongside the scientific one.
“We have learned that our job is to make the truth compelling...we can simplify the language without changing the evidence by remaining clear about who was studied, what was measured and how certain the conclusion is,” he added.
Closing the distance between science and consumers
SciComms Connect grew out of CRN’s previously separate Science in Session and WellComms programs. Ventura said CRN noticed attendees moving between the scientific and communications sessions when the programs were held side by side, pointing to a need for more interaction between the disciplines.
The resulting symposium is intended to serve as what he called the “connective tissue” between the science itself and how it is ultimately communicated to consumers.
That connection has become more complicated as consumers increasingly turn to social media, influencers and artificial intelligence for health information, according to Ventura.
“I think SciComms Connect ultimately is […] figuring out how to sort of shorten the distance between the laboratory and the women who are trying to make decisions about their health,” he said.
Wong said that work also needs to begin earlier within companies. Rather than handing a finished innovation to communications teams after formulation and legal and regulatory work are complete, she said scientific, regulatory, innovation and communications functions should work together throughout the process.
And despite the growing attention to women’s health, significant scientific gaps remain.
Wong pointed particularly to nutrition during the perimenopause and menopause transition and maternal health, including support for women during pregnancy and postpartum.
“We’re just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the hormonal shifts that are happening during the perimenopause, menopause transition,” she said.
“We’re starting to understand a little bit more, but I think there’s just so much.”
