“We now have a greater insight as to how important probiotics and prebiotics are to a healthy immune system,” says Winston.
(AHG), founder of Herbalist & Alchemist, Washington, NJ. The rise of these options has coincided with our newfound knowledge of the intestinal microbiome, according to David Winston, R.H. “One distinct example of this is an increased awareness of the role probiotics play in immune support,” Levy says. But new science is allowing other options to gain a foothold. Vitamins, minerals and antioxidants will always have a prominent place in the immune health category, according to Jay Levy, director of sales for Wakunaga of America Co., Ltd., Mission Viejo, CA. “From our perspective, our researchers continue to be invested and interested in how maitake mushroom and its D-fraction influences and impacts immune balance via a multitude of biochemical pathways,” she says. Baker’s yeast is also a useful source of immune-supporting beta-glucans.Īccording to Donna Noonan, president of Mushroom Wisdom Inc., Kearny, NJ, her company’s focus is on developing the role of mushrooms in this space. There is a large body of research on beta-glucans for this purpose,” he says. “Beta-glucans can be found in mushrooms as well as certain species of yeast. The use of beta-glucans to help support immune health over both the short and long term is an interesting trend, says Gene Bruno, M.S., MHS, director of category management for Twinlab Corporation, New York, NY. Ingredients of increased interest intermingle with new product formulations and delivery systems to produce an exciting space ripe with innovation. The trends and novelties at the forefront of the immune health category are quite varied. Of course, it helps to remember that all your customers care about (and the customer is king) is that the castle is well defended. Research, meanwhile, provides a foundation for confidence in our continued security. Developments within the immune support category are bringing new techniques to the task of protecting the citadel. If we think of the body as a fortress, then we can liken the body’s endlessly complex immune system to the ramparts, the masonry, the moat and drawbridge (if we’re going medieval), and the soldiers within that fortress. However, the effect is geographically uneven, and may be negative for members of these groups living on the urban fringe.Advances in the immune health category and insights on the market.
The analysis reveals that overall distance-based fares benefit low-income, elderly, and non-white populations.
We apply the method to a case study in the Wasatch Front, Utah, where the Utah Transit Authority is exploring a switch to a distance-based fare structure. The system enables a transit planner to visualize and compare distance travelled and transit-cost maps for different population profiles and fare structures. Our solution is to incorporate a joint ordinal/continuous model of trip generation and distance travelled into a GIS Decision Support System. This means that transit agencies currently lack guidelines for assessing the social equity impacts of replacing flat fare with distance-based fare structures.
According to federal law, such disparities must be evaluated by the transit agency, but the area-based techniques identified by the Federal Transit Authority for assessing discrimination fail to account for disparities in distances travelled by transit users. Shifting to a distance-based fare structure can disproportionately favor or penalize different subgroups of a population based on variations in settlement patterns, travel needs, and most importantly, transit use. The goal of this study is to develop and apply a new method for assessing social equity impacts of distance-based public transit fares.