We may not always eat what we
should, as diet plays an important role in health and disease.
Glyconutrients are not readily available or guaranteed in our modern diets.
Lack of the known essential sugars as communication components for cells
will leave us susceptible to modern auto-immune disorders which are
ever-growing at an alarming rate. A new world focus in health
preservation has begun.
"No technology offers more
promise than the discovery and use of the specific carbohydrates recently
recognized to be fundamental in the functions and structures of cellular
processes as well as a proactive component to disease and degenerative
conditions."
Researchers today are focused
on developing a new class of drugs- glycomic drugs. The major
pharmaceutical companies sponsor much of this research. They know that
glycomic drugs will be the drugs of the future.
Sugars in particular perform an astonishing range of jobs... So
ubiquitous are these molecules that cells appear to other cells and to the
immune system as sugarcoated.
-
Thomas Maeder, Sweet Medicines, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, July 2002
Doesn't a nutritional
approach to seem more simple and practical instead of the pharmaceutical
approach?
A unique and logical approach of
sustaining health, wellness and prevention with nutrition instead of fighting disease
at times of poor health.
"Glyconutritional products
will play a leading role in the 21st century's emerging wellness industry.
The driving determinant will be the growing realization that optimal
cell-cell communication is one of the most critical functions of the life
process and is fundamental to immune system health."
Sugar
supplements will harness simple sugars in their natural form from plants
that support and sustain normal structures and functions in order to sustain
health. This will impact normal cell processes and will be the best
way to offer them as supplements for optimal health.
Why Plants?
Today nearly every plant known
for its health properties shares at least one common factor- it has one or
more of the eight sugars identified as vital for proper cell-to-cell
communication.
Sugar
supplements will be cost-effective simply because natural sugars
already exist.
Synthetic products, glycomic drugs, will
be extremely expensive and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to
develop. They may help you get through an illness, but they won't produce
health, as they are synthetic and have never been part of the food chain..
The article explains there is no simple
"code" that determines sugar structures. So researchers have a
gigantic task, as they estimate that as many as 40,000 genes make up each
person, and each gene can code for several proteins. In fact, sugars modify
many of these proteins. Then many different cell types attach the same
sugars in various ways, forming a myriad of branching structures, each with
it's distinctive function.
Researchers know it's an extreme task.
In fact, a group of more than 40 academics from a number of disciplines
called the Consortium of Functional Glycomics is working with a $34 million
grant from the National Institutes of Health to accomplish the feat. This
could take many years of research, as they won't be able to detail every
sugar in the body.
Glyconutrients are a
breakthrough scientific discovery that has been acknowledged as the "missing
link" in human nutrition. The Naturopathic Medical Association
presented its highest honor of recognition with "The Most Significant
Breakthrough Made in Biochemistry" for 1996.
