What is all the fuss about glyconutrients?

Why is everyone so fired up about glyconutrients? What is it, why should you take it? We decided to take a closer look:

What can Glyconutrients do for You?

The preoccupation with medicine and surgical procedures is causing people to turn away from traditional medicine and explore alternative health therapies. Although many alternative therapies lack scientific evidence of their effectiveness, they have continued to improve the lives of millions of people who have just about given up on conventional medicine. One alternative therapy that has caught the public’s attention is the use of glyconutrients, also known as glyconutritionals.

Your body is the miracle and supporting your body's systems is essential to your health. If you are missing essential elements to support health, then your body can not perform the entire miracle of good health and disease can set in.

Glyconutrients are eight simple sugars that Harper's Biochemistry calls "essential sugars". These are simple sugars or "monosacharrides" that create cellular communication. They are responsible for getting your cells to "talk" to one another.

Changing Cancer Cells' Surface Sugars Can Inhibit Tumor Growth
The key to halting cancer cells may lie in their sugary coats, scientists say. Carbohydrate molecules surround all cells and help them to identify and interact with one another. Now new research, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that altering some of the surface sugars associated with cancer cells can control tumor growth. The findings suggest that the sugars could one day serve as targets for new anti-cancer therapies.
Read more.

Rita Elkins concludes in her book, Miracle Sugars, that glyconutrients fight cancer in four ways:

• First, they stimulate macrophage and immune killer cells to destroy cancer (first line of defense).
• Second, they increase the production of substances like interferon to target and destroy malignant cells. 
• Third, they activate T-cells to recognize invaders and destroy them (second line of defense).
• Fourth, they help to regulate when cells die off (apoptosis). 

When this safety mechanism fails, cancer cells are allowed to keep replicating.  There are also reports that glyconutritional supplementation may enhance the effects of chemotherapy for cancer patients.

Proceedings of the Fisher Institute for Medical Research, (November, 1997) reported that people with Type 1 Diabetes who were given glyconutrients (mannose and others) experienced a dramatic improvement in their over-all health, including a decrease in vision problems, better wound healing, less infections and lower blood pressure.  Some of the participants were able to lower their insulin medications.