What are Phytonutrients?

Don't be overwhelmed by this big word, there won't be a spelling test at the end of the day. You won't even need to understand all of the powerful properties of phytonutrients to appreciate what they do for you. You just need to know where to get them and you probably won't be surprised to find out that the richest sources of phytochemicals are in fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts. The problem is - you are not eating enough of them. Several years of effort to promote increases in fruit and vegetable consumption to at least five servings per day have failed to substantially change public eating behaviors. Recent records, according to Barbara Berry of the Produce for Better Health Foundation, show that Americans are eating only 3.4 servings of fruits and vegetables per day - and 52% of that consumption comes from potatoes, lettuce, and canned tomatoes. Even if you are eating the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables, you’re STILL not getting all of the phytonutrients and vitamins your body MUST have to function properly! You may THINK you're getting the right assortment of fruits and vegetables. Just like the bananas you see in the store which are green, the rest of the produce is also cut before it matures. When these fruits and vegetables are picked green, they lack many of the necessary phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals. Most of these properties don’t exist in the plant until the final days of ripening on the vine. When this occurs, the fruits and vegetables become very soft. This isn’t feasible for our growers to do. By the time they would arrive at your local grocery store, the fruits and vegetables would be bad or destroyed. So instead, they pick our fruits and vegetables before they are ripe and allow them to ripen during the shipping process or while they sit in your local grocery stores. The solution to this problem is to pick these vegetables after they are mature or vine-ripened and flash freeze them. When vegetables are flash frozen, they turn into a powdered form and retain all of their nutritional properties. These flash frozen fruits and vegetables are then put into tablets and sold as nutritional supplements.

What are Glyconutrtional??

The Greek word "Glyco" means "Sugar". Most people think of sugar as being bad for you. However, there are actually TWO kinds of sugars. One is the refined or "extracellular" sugars which have been long associated with human disease. The other sugars are "intracellular" which can be found in fruits and vegetables and provide the body with nutrition it needs. These sugars, also known as “complex carbohydrates” have been studied for years. However, only recently have we begun discovering their purpose in the body. An increasing number of scientists believe that certain carbohydrates represent the next frontier in the search for non-toxic treatments for various degenerative conditions. Even though we have just begun to scratch the surface in understanding the full potential of these carbohydrates, the research being reported in just the last decade has ignited a new level of hope and optimism with some of the world's leading immunologists. One of the world's most renowned veterinary immunologists, Dr. Ian R. Tizard, writes in a published paper entitled Carbohydrates, Immune Stimulating, "there has long been a tradition in folk medicine that extracts of certain fungi and plants may be of assistance in the treatment of cancer. On investigation, many of these extracts have been found to possess potent immune-stimulating activity. In many cases, this activity is attributable to complex carbohydrates." Healthy bodies are comprised of many components working together in sophisticated harmony, and must have accurate internal communication to function correctly. In it's most basic form, this communication occurs at the cellular level. To maintain a healthy body, cells must "talk" to each other. Their language is one of touch, written in saccharides (or simple sugars) on the cell surfaces. These simple sugars combine with other molecules to make glycoforms such as glycoproteins when combined with proteins or glycolipids when combined with fat. Of the 200 monosaccharides that occur naturally in plants, 8 have been discovered to be components in the cell surface glycoforms (see Harper's Textbook of Biochemistry--1996). Like thousands of different "keys" projecting from the cell surface, they will either unlock the required functions of the adjoining cell or not. If the right keys are available, the body functions smoothly. If not, it doesn't. Acta Anatomica, which is a European journal, states that these simple sugars have a coding capacity that surpasses that of amino acids!! Only two of the eight monosaccharides are found in today’s diet. Our diets have changed in response to the demands for quicker, cheaper food. Consequently, we are not eating foods that contain the necessary fuels for our cells to communicate in a healthy, effective manner. While our body has the capacity to manufacture these simple sugars, the conversion process is complicated. during the conversion process your cells are exposed to tens of thousands of free radical hits each day. This requires time, energy and a host of other micronutrients in order to complete the conversion. Viruses can also interfere with our body’s ability to make these conversions. People who are ill or who have inborn errors of metabolism are especially vulnerable to a breakdown in the process. Whenever the monosaccharides cannot be made, communication is slowed down or impaired as a result. Since your body has more than trillion cells and fully regenerates all of its cells in approximately 1 year, any miscommunication or slowdown could cause major health problems. With millions of cells regenerating each day, it's easy to imagine what could happen if during this process, the cells didn't regenerate correctly. This is why glyconutritional supplements are essential to our diet!

Glyconutrients

Glyconutrients: Miracle Cure or Placebo?With all of the exciting things people are seeing in their lives as a result of adding glyconutrients to their diet, the question has been raised “Are glyconutrients a miracle cure or are the results people have seen a placebo effect?” The answer is: NEITHER!If you haven’t heard the term “Placebo Effect”, this is a nice way of saying “It was all in your head”. This can refer to either the disease itself or the “cure”. If glyconutrients were in fact a placebo, you would see little scientific evidence to support the results. However, there have been numerous studies on glyconutrients, which scientifically validate the technology. Such studies can easily be found on the internet by searching for information on Glycobiology. One organization that has done extensive research in the field of glyconutrients and disease is The Fisher Institute. They can be found at www.FisherInstitute.OrgTo understand why people have such dramatic results after they begin taking glyconutrients, you need to take a look at how and why the body begins the disease process. First of all, glyconutrients are NOT prescription drugs that are prescribed to “cure” or “treat” any particular condition. They are a food. In fact, they are sugars. When you think of sugar, you probably think of the white stuff you put on top of your cereal. However, it has been discovered that all of our cells contain sugars at their core. Without these sugars, the cells cannot communicate properly. There are 8 of these known sugars today, but most diets only contain 2 of these sugars. Fortunately, your body can manufacture the other 6 sugars, however due to stress and other factors, this process can be slowed down or come to a grinding halt. When this happens, cells begin to miss-communicate and the disease process begins. Once the disease process begins, your immune system recognizes that something is wrong and tries to defend the body against the disease. As with any war, if your immune system has enough “ammunition” to battle the disease, your body will return to its original state of health. However, if your immune system does not have the ammunition or the proper artillery to handle the disease, the disease begins to get the upper hand and your health declines.You may be asking yourself where glyconutrients play a role in this disease process. As mentioned before, glyconutrients are not prescription drugs. They are naturally occurring sugars and found in certain plants. When you add these sugars to your diet, your cells have the necessary components to communicate effectively. It’s this very process that allows your body to win the war against the disease and heal itself. As stated previously, glyconutrients do not cure or treat conditions. Rather, they allow the body to “treat” or defend itself against diseases.For years, doctors believed that when you ate sugars, they were immediately converted to energy. In fact some doctors went as far as saying that eating any dietary supplements (such as vitamins purchased at the grocery store) did little or nothing to support cellular communication in your body. As a result, a study was conducted to understand what happened when a person added glyconutrients to their diet to determine whether or not they were converted to energy or absorbed into the body. The study showed that the body did NOT convert glyconutrients to energy as previously thought. The bottom line is that you can eat glyconutrients and gain significant health benefits.

Nutrition and Diease

Nutrition & DiseaseDisease and nutrition go hand in hand. Nutritional deficiencies causes two things. Disease and aging. The other things that also cause disease and aging are poor life style choices, mainly tobacco and alcohol. We have an obvious choice with tobacco and alcohol but we have a much harder choice with nutrition. The reason for this is mainly because it’s very difficult to get the right kind of nutrition, i.e. fresh fruits and vegetables. These are seasonal and when we depend on outside sources, we can’t be guaranteed of the quality. When they are shipped from far away places, typically they are cut before they are ripe and a lot of the active ingredients are left in the stem and root.When our bodies are given the right nutrients they can heal themselves. Genetically we are coded to do this. The only problem is that in order to fix ourselves we have to have the right nutrients to do so. Would you fix a flat tire with a rug? There have been a number of studies done on the use of various vitamins, antioxidants in treating and preventing disease. I would strongly encourage checking this out. The one field that research is exploding in is that of glycobiology. They now know that there are eight monosaccharides (simple sugars, not just table sugar) essential to cell to cell communication. This process helps identify bad cells and instructs the immune system to kill them. When the immune system is depressed, bad cells stay bad and then they multiply. Currently we only get two of these eight essential sugars in our diet: glucose (table sugar) and lactose (milk products). The other six we can manufacture but it takes a lot of energy and can involve up to 20 different reactions. There is a single product out now that is a combination of all eight monosaccharides. More information on this can be obtained by contacting the person who referred you to this site.