Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The newest - Glyconutrients

I have randomly seen glyconutrients mentioned in forums and on web sites for healing immune dysfunction, but their price and the idea of adding yet another supplement to our daily routine appealed to me just about as much as swimming with sharks would appeal to me!  So I never really chose to read much about them.  Recently, they popped up again in one of the forums I frequent and whenever I see someone mention them, they always say that they would never be without them.  That appears to be the recurring feeling about glyconutrients.  It intrigued me enough (especially since having illness after illness run through our household all through the holidays) to check out what they really do. 

Let me just start by saying that I am a skeptic by nature and when something appears too good to be true, it probably is!  Glyconutrients fit into that box for me, but the more I read, the more miraculous stories I would find, one after another, after another, people with Lupus, CFS, diabetes, Lyme, amoebic infections, and even cancer all healing!  I even came across quite a few reports of success with autistic kids.  So I dug deeper into the function of the product and let me just say this, it makes sense. 

Let me try to provide you with a simple explanation about what glyconutrients are.  Glyconutrients are immune modulators.  Ok, so what exactly does that mean?  Our cells are surrounded by little hairs that hold carbohydrate sugars and these sugars are how our cells communicate to each other.  Simply put, if we don't have these sugars or we are even just short on them, our cells aren't communicating properly, and what happens when our cells don't communicate properly?  Well, they begin to misunderstand which cells are safe and which are intruders, AKA - autoimmune disease, our body begins to attack healthy cells, among other things.  When our cells can't determine which cells are safe and which are intruders, that also means that viruses, yeast, bacteria, parasites and the like, are free to roam our bodies where they will do a number on the immune system and organ function.  This is precisely how cancer starts!  We all have cancer cells in our bodies, but our own cells (when communicating properly) attack them, regularly.  These little battles occur in your body daily!  I am sure the next question on your lips is why wouldn't we have these sugars surrounding our cells?  Some of them we make in our bodies and some are obtained only from diet.  In order for our body to make the sugars that it can  and should be making, we need at least two of the sugars obtained from our diet.  Soils do not contain the nutrients it once did, so we are deficient in many nutrients, including these sugars.  And just to stop here for a moment, we NEED these sugars to survive, did you get that?  We cannot survive without them, that is how important they are! 

Another piece I find interesting is for those who are casein free, because one of the sugars known as galactose, is only available in milk.  When you remove milk from one's diet, they aren't getting these precious sugars anywhere else.  This would make sense why children on the GFCF diet would suffer from the results of a deficiency in these sugars!  I'm sure you are thinking, well, just put those sugars back into the diet then!  Not as easy as it appears.  The reason casein is removed in the first place, is the inability for these children to digest it, which means, they wouldn't benefit from the sugars if they were returned to the diet anyway.  So glyconutrients provide these necessary sugars to our starved cells. 

The most amazing piece of information I gathered from all of my research involves stem cells.  There was a study done where the doctor checked all the participants before dosing them with 6 days of glyconutrients, most of them had no stem cells to speak of.  Within a week of taking the glyconutrients, these same people showed an average of between 200-400 stem cells in one small sample of blood!  Multiply that by the entire body and that is TRILLIONS of stem cells!!  Do you know what this can mean?  What illness does not respond to stem cells?  The minute I read that, I was sold.

There have been multiple Nobel awards given for glycobiotics, doctors use and recommend their use, there are books written on the topic, so I figured what the heck, if they will do what the science says they will do, perhaps we can cut down on some of the other things we use.  I don't expect them to be THE answer, but to aid in a faster recovery, maybe!  Needless to say we decided to give them a shot, and heck, when the company offers a 90 day money back guarantee, how could I resist??  We chose to purchase from a company whose product only contains the top two important sugars known to effect healing, galactose and mannose.  Using other formulations reduces the concentrations of these very important sugars, thereby reducing their effectiveness, so the quality of the product is VERY important.  The other thing that was important to me about the product we chose is that they don't have multiple fillers.  They use a small amount of larch bark (not rice bran like other companies) to aid in mixing the product with liquid.  It is a completely pure product with no other extras, so when you spend your small fortune on a bottle of miracle sugars, you are sure you are getting pure sugars, no extras.  This also means that the bottle lasts longer, because the dose necessary to reach therapeutic results is much lower. 

Our delivery arrived today, I was like a school girl again, giddy with excitement to start our first dose.  So Gavin and I dove right in.  We had empty bellies (requires taking on an empty stomach) so I promptly mixed a cocktail for each of us, at the starting doses.  Well, I went a little higher, because I didn't read the instructions, he he he.  I based my dose on a discussion I had with a representative of the company, who recommended starting the kids off at 1/2 teaspoon once a day, given with an EFA.  So I just chose double that, lol.  Within 30 minutes of that dose, I started feeling fatigued.  My eyelids became heavy, my head started to feel full and then I got this sensation all over me, including in my head, like I had a sudden increase in blood flow, complete with full-body goosebumps.  WEIRD!!  An hour later, it's all calmed down, but it definitely did SOMETHING to me!  It isn't uncommon to see a die-off effect from taking glyconutrients initially, because by allowing the cells to communicate properly, the pathogens will be attacked.  It also encourages natural detox. 

I am going to be chronicling our events, anything different or new while we embark on this new adventure. 

Wish us luck!

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