Medicine From Fish: How to reverse disease with therapeutic protein

[Guest guest]

http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_fish_protein_1.html

 

Why many sick people are actually suffering from chronic protein absorption

deficiency.

How specific protein peptides are being used as medicinal compounds.

The truth about common protein powders and why " whole food protein " is superior

to isolated proteins.

How amino acids can act like powerful medicine in the human body.

Surprise! The gut has its own nervous system called " the second brain. "

How protein deficiency accelerates aging.

Why gut problems (leaky gut syndrome, IBS, Crohn's disease and more) are often

caused by poor nutrient assimilation.

The promise of probiotics: How " feeding your gut " can help you overcome disease.

How poor digestion is the root cause of all degenerative disease (and how to fix

it fast!)

Why drugs-and-surgery medicine will never make you truly health.

The little-known link between your mind and your digestive health.

How to overcome chemotherapy side effects with improved protein assimilation.

Why senior citizens desperately need quality protein sources to revive their

health.

How to eliminate migraine headaches with proper nutrition.

Which herbs and nutrients detoxify and rejuvenate the liver.

 

Protein deficiency caused by poor absorptionIn this exclusive NaturalNews

interview, Mike interviews Tom Staverosky, president of ForeverWell

(www.Foreverwell.com) about a unique fermented protein product that shows

benefits for migraine sufferers and people with digestive disorders such as IBS.

was not paid for this interview and earns nothing from the sale of the

product discussed here.

Mike: Let us start from the top. You have an interesting product that has a

multitude of uses and is based on fish protein. What is this product, how did

you come up with it, and what are some of its applications?

Tom: In my study of natural medicine over the last fifteen years, one of the

things that inspired me was the number of doctors who told me 80 percent of the

people walking into their offices -- regardless of what disease they had -- were

protein malnourished. Not because they weren't eating adequate protein, but

because they were not digesting and absorbing it properly.

In order to try and improve that situation, digestive enzymes or probiotics were

used, but a lot of the doctors felt their patients still needed supplemental

protein. However, when they used the various protein powders, shakes, and other

protein sources that are available in the marketplace, they found that they had

little therapeutic value.

They could get some therapeutic benefit from individual amino acids or amino

acid blends, but essentially what I learned was the real frustration amongst the

natural medicine community relative to protein metabolism issues in all kinds of

ill patients. I, for a variety of reasons, happened to come across research in

the critical care arena.

Protein is a main component of the body. If you take the water out of the body

-- which is about 70 to 80 percent of the body's weight -- what is left is about

70 percent protein. Protein plays a role in every function of the body:

hormones, tissue repair agents, and enzymes are all protein derivatives.

I became intrigued by this possibility that protein malabsorption was a real

problem for a wide variety of conditions. I went to the library and looked for

books on how the body digests, absorbs, and utilizes protein. I dug in the

medical literature looking for it and really could not find much. The only thing

I could find that seemed to be of real scientific value was studies done in the

body building and the athletic markets, which did not seem to have a lot of

implications for the chronically ill.

Mike: Let me ask you a question about that, because many people reading this

article might think that protien concerns only apply to body builders, not to

the average person. They may think they get plenty of protein in beef or soy or

whatever protein source they consume. Isn't it true that many of us, even in

industrialized nations, are eating protein but not absorbing it?

Tom: Absolutely. The old saying, " You are what you eat, " ought to be replaced

with, " You are what you digest, absorb, and assimilate. " It seems that the

rampant digestive dysfunction that doctors see in so many chronically ill

patients -- I do not care what disease you are talking about, the doctors will

say that whether it is diagnosed or not -- is playing a role on these diseases.

In particular, the body's ability to digest, absorb, and utilize protein. It

does not matter how much protein we are eating. The question should be, are we

absorbing and assimilating it?

Mike: I want to add that, of course, DNA is made of protein chains or protein

bonds, and there are proteins surrounding DNA that also control how DNA is

expressed, correct?

Tom: Yes. What was fascinating was that it was difficult to find any good, clear

medical research on protein utilization. You can learn more about how a chicken

digests, absorbs, and utilizes protein than you can a human being. Why? Because

we raise chickens for money.

I was finally guided to some information in critical care research. This is an

area where you might think, " Well, what does critical care have to do with

arthritis or migraines or athletes trying to recover from a serious workout? " or

other applications where protein seems to play a role in our daily lives.

Well, interestingly enough, in critical care they are concerned about bacterial

translocation and maintaining the integrity of a gut wall. Those are protein

metabolism issues. Essentially, when people are in critical care, it is because

they have gone through some surgery or trauma, and they are being tube-fed

directly into their stomachs. The doctor's main focus is getting protein

nutrition into the patient, because if you cannot provide outside sources of

protein, then the body will start to break down. The body will begin to break

down muscle protein and other proteins within the body for essential needs.

Protein assimilation and premature agingMike: We see the aging process

accelerating in many people.

Tom: Absolutely. You look at our senior citizens, and you wonder why their

appetites and their diets start to deteriorate, but it is because their

digestive functions start to deteriorate and they are unable to digest, absorb,

and assimilate protein. Then they start to waste away.

Mike: Often we jump to the conclusion that, " Oh, that is just aging, " but in

fact it is not aging. We are watching a degeneration process.

Tom: That is right.

Mike: That could be avoided or slowed at least, right?

Tom: At least slowed, yes. I think depending on how early the onset of aging is,

it can be reversed for people dealing with chronic issues. I will tell you what

I learned from the critical care research that is very intriguing -- now well

known -- and defining in the work that I am doing. The various feeding formulas

that are available from the pharmaceutical companies for enteral feeding -- tube

feeding in their stomach-type situations -- in critical care, in the research in

that area, compare the relative value of intact protein formulas, three-amino

acid formulas, and what are referred to as peptide formulas. So in a feeding

formula that is made with fish protein, milk protein or egg protein, those

proteins are in their full couple-hundred amino acid links that have to be

further digested to be utilized by the body.

Then, you have amino acid-based formulas in which they use various chemical

methods to synthetically reproduce individual amino acids, and they are blended

and put into a feeding formula. The other type, the third type of formulation,

is peptide based.

Therapeutic peptides have specific biological activity

Tom: Now let us define peptide for a minute, because it is truly a poorly

defined term. If you take an intact protein and break it in half, you have two

peptides. Those long chain peptides must be further digested by the body in

order for them to have any application in the body.

Depending on when a doctor got his medical training, he was probably taught that

the body digests all protein down to amino acids, that amino acids are the only

thing that cross the gut barrier, and that they are reformed into the hormones,

enzymes, and tissue repair agents that protein is utilized for in the body.

The healing properties of amino acidsMore recently, the research very clearly

shows that the body absorbs both individual amino acids and small chain

peptides, which are two, three, four, and five chains of amino acids still

linked together. Small chain peptides are absorbed intact and, more

interestingly, have specific biological activity in the body in addition to

their direct nutritional value.

Mike: This is new information for a lot of people. I want to make sure everybody

gets this. You are saying that previously, conventional doctors thought that

these peptides were molecularly too large to be absorbed into the blood stream

through the intestinal wall, correct?

Tom: Through normal protein absorption mechanisms. They thought that they had to

be broken down into the individual amino acids.

Mike: You are saying that the new research shows these are, in fact, passed

through the wall into the blood stream intact as peptides?

Tom: They have specific biological activity in addition to their direct

nutritional value. Now what I mean by that is if you have a three-chain peptide

that is maybe argenine, tryptophan and glutamine, it has the nutritional value

of those three amino acids, but the combination of them in peptide form has a

specific action in the body as well.

Mike: It is almost like a hormone.

Tom: Or an enzyme, tissue repair agent, or a trigger for any number of different

things. What is fascinating is if you do a Google search on peptide, what you

will find is that a lot of pharmaceutical companies are now starting to identify

specific peptides and their activity, synthetically reproduce them, and we are

going to see a new generation of drugs that are individual peptides.

Unfortunately, the human organism does not work on individual peptides any more

than it works on the active ingredient of an herb better than it acts on the

whole herb or the whole protein -- not the whole intact protein, but the cascade

of peptides that the body generates by the digestive process when it digests an

intact protein down to who knows how many peptides.

The truth is when you think of how many two, three, four, and five chain

peptides that you can create out of twenty-some amino acids, it is hundreds of

thousands. The specific action of individual peptides is limited to a handful at

this point. Maybe 15 or 20 have been identified for their specific actions.

How to heal your gut with quality digestible proteinsHere is one of the aspects

of this critical care research that really speaks to the folks in natural

medicine: They have shown that the cells of the gut wall are fed locally rather

than systemically, meaning they get their nutritional support from nutrients as

they are absorbed through the mucosal lining. From a protein standpoint, that

support is coming from peptides and not individual amino acids.

When you are trying to deal with leaky gut, malabsorption, or any kind of

inflammatory bowel disease, the best nutrient that you can provide in the lumen

of the gut is small chain peptides. They have actually shown that if they feed

these patients, these critical care patients, only amino acids, the integrity of

the gut wall deteriorates, and malabsorption and bacterial translocation

problems actually increase, which is the exact thing they are trying to avoid.

The form of your protein makes a critical difference in addressing some

biological issues within the body. When it comes to gut integrity, addressing

leaky gut and malabsorption issues, the missing link for a huge number of people

out there is small chain peptides.

How fermented fish protein helps with IBS and Crohn's disease

Mike: That explains why so many of your customers experience benefits from your

product for irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's Disease, and other digestive

disorders. I also notice a lot of benefits in terms of faster recovery time from

physical exertion, athletic performance, and muscle gains. How do you explain

those benefits?

Tom: That is an excellent question, and it all relates to how well the body is

absorbing and utilizing protein. When I was a wrestler in college back in the

early 70s -- just to date myself -- a training meal before a wrestling match was

steak and eggs. You have to get that protein in there to rebuild the body tissue

that you are going to tear down in an athletic competition.

With additional study, they realized that the steak and egg I was eating at nine

in the morning for a one o'clock match was not digested and available to the

body until the next day. Then training meals went towards carbohydrates, fast

energy sources. The truth is that in athletic competition, we are tearing down

muscle tissue.

Quality protein: The Foundation FormulaProtein availability is critical. If you

can have a protein source ready completely predigested in the proper form --

meaning a combination of amino acids and small chain peptides -- then you have

the potential of actually having something available to rebuild that body tissue

the moment it is being torn down. This would lead to much faster recovery times

and greater endurance; things that we have seen certainly on an anecdotal level.

Mike: That is exactly what I have experienced on your Foundation Formula. I do

very intense athletic activities such as Capoeira, that Afro-Brazilian dance art

that is sort of half gymnastics, half dance. Let us talk about what is in the

Foundation Formula.

What's in the Foundation Formula

Tom: What we set out to do was make the best one-step digestive product

available on the market today. We knew from the research on peptides and

critical care that it had to be small-chain peptide based. I have investigated

just about every small-chain peptide product available on the marketplace, and

we focused in on one made from fish. We are big fans of whole-food nutrition,

and we did not want just a protein powder, we wanted a whole-food powder that

had a high level of protein predigested into amino acids and small chain

peptides. The nice thing about fish is that anything coming out of the ocean has

a beautiful mineral component. They also have a beautiful fatty acid component,

and we consider these things very complementary to the body's ability to digest

and absorb protein efficiently. The main ingredient was this predigested fish

powder that has a high concentration of small chain peptides.

We also learned through our study that probiotics, the beneficial bacteria that

help us digest and absorb our food is a huge need for many people suffering

digestive issues. Literally, trillions of bacteria live in our digestive tract

generally for health.

The beneficial bacteria outnumber and keep in control the detrimental bacteria,

but when disease and the use of antibiotics -- and other things I am sure your

readers are familiar with -- cause an imbalance in that good and bad bacteria,

we end up with dysbiosis, yeast infections and all kinds of issues. We searched

for the most bioactive probiotics product we could find. Interestingly enough,

we found it in a product that we import from Australia. The man there takes sea

vegetables -- which we were excited about as well -- and organic grasses, and he

ferments them with a blend of 14 naturally occurring probiotics. We have the

peptides, the probiotics, and just a beautiful array of trace minerals and

micro-nutrients in a combination whole food fish, whole food sea vegetable, and

organic grass product.

Mike: Wow, that is remarkable. I am genuinely excited about what is in there.

Just getting sea vegetables by themselves is usually considered very healthy.

The mineral profile by combining that with the predigested protein -- no wonder

I am getting good results from this. Can you explain to people exactly what you

mean by predigested?

Tom: Sometimes I get the question, " Well, should I just eat more fish to get the

same results? " Well, certainly I believe that fish is a good quality food, but

if you are not digesting and absorbing the protein in the milk, eggs, chicken,

or any other source of protein -- if you can't do that -- then you are not going

to do any better by eating fish. An intact protein is made up of hundreds of

amino acids linked together. When we eat any protein source, even vegetable

sources of protein, the body triggers pancreatic enzymes and hydrochloric acid

in the stomach and other things that work to digest that protein.

We found companies that have unique technologies based on enzymatic fermentation

that, essentially, is the same process the pharmaceutical companies use to make

the peptide base enteral feeding formulas. Just like enzymes do in your body,

these laboratory-based enzymes break the protein down to a certain point where

we end up with a combination of three amino acids and small chain peptides.

People have to be careful in this area.

What's wrong with popular protein productsTom: You will find peptide-based

products in various body building formulas in the health food store. Yet, if you

look at the molecular weights of those peptides, they are still only partially

digested proteins. This means when you get down to a small chain peptide of two

or three amino acids, the molecular weight of those peptides is much, much

smaller than the various designer proteins you might find in the health food

store that are claiming to be peptides. That's because " peptides " is a poorly

defined term. They are not completely pre-digested like the proteins in our

product.

Mike: We see that on body-building products -- they'll say micro-filtered and

cross-filtered.

Tom: Yes, and the molecular weights are often in, I think, it is a term called

" Dacrons " or " Datrons " I forget now exactly. The weight measurement is certainly

much larger than what we were looking for.

We did not see a therapeutic advantage to using partially digested proteins over

completely digested proteins. I mean, one of the difficult aspects of this

product is that you can go into a health food store, buy a whole tub of protein

for 20 bucks, and scoop out 40 grams a day for two months. Your cost is then 30

cents a day.

Our retail price is $40 for a bottle of 180 half-gram capsules of protein

powder. Even though it is whole-food protein powder, the process of predigesting

down to small chain peptides is an extensive process. That is why in the enteral

feeding formulas in the hospital, the protein formulas are rarely used because

they are about 10 times more expensive than the intact protein formulas.

Mike: I have an explanation that might help readers here: In chemistry, you have

O2, oxygen, which is essential for us, but if you add another atom, you have O3,

which is extremely dangerous to us. It can burn our lung tissues, right? So it

is all oxygen, but it is different chain lengths. Then, you can have carbon

monoxide CO, which is a poison to us. It is the same element, but it is how the

element is arranged that determines whether it is beneficial or harmful.

Tom: That is an excellent correlation, so let me tie it back to the protein.

With leaky gut syndrome and the delayed food allergy problems that we see in

natural medicine -- it is the kind of case where someone can eat an egg on

Friday, then have a delayed response food allergy to the proteins in that egg,

and they end up with a migraine, an attack of arthritis, gout or something three

days later -- there is no direct correlation. That is because with leaky gut and

malabsorption issues, if a long chain peptide is absorbed in the body intact,

but incompletely digested, the body sees it as a foreign substance and has an

internal allergic reaction to it. So, longer chain peptides create allergic food

allergy problems in the body.

Until the digestive system is working well enough to digest our protein down to

the smallest component that it needs -- that is, amino acids and small chain

peptides -- we are running the risk of longer chain peptides -- incompletely

digested protein -- crossing a leaky gut; a gut barrier problem that creates the

food allergy issues that so many alternative doctors deal with.

Mike: That is an excellent point, and I want to mention, too, that also it can

result in a lot of joint pain in people.

Why healthy digestion is the cornerstone of good healthTom: The doctors who have

inspired me in my work taught me that when somebody has a digestive dysfunction

protein metabolism issue, and it is causing an underlying dysfunction in the

body, what symptoms any one individual manifests is not a result of the disease

that has attacked them, because diseases do not attack.

It is a breakdown of normal function; it is how the genetic predisposition of

any one individual will adjust to that underlying problem. You and I could eat

the exact same diet, live the exact same lifestyle, and develop the exact same

underlying protein absorption issue, and your food allergy issue would be

addressed by your body's balancing and counter-balancing mechanisms directed by

your genetics to create the symptoms -- we end up calling it chronic fatigue.

Well, maybe with the same initial insult, my genetic predisposition will create

the symptoms that maybe we end up seeing as Parkinson's Disease. The root cause

is the body not working right; the body not getting what it needs or not

eliminating what it cannot use: gut, liver, gut, liver, gut, liver, and when in

doubt, gut liver. They have the body's balancing and counter-balancing

mechanisms which adjust to those underlying problems.

The health benefits of high quality protein nutrition

Mike: You have discussed some of the holistic ramifications of this protein, and

the importance of digestion and assimilation. What kind of benefits people can

expect to experience when they have a high quality, predigested protein source?

Tom: This is what you can hear from almost any alternative doctor: it is

reasonable to expect that one aspect of stress and other daily issues is protein

malabsorption. Now, the first question is, what issues manifest from protein

malabsorption issues or protein metabolism issues?

Well, when you look at what proteins are responsible for in the body, you start

seeing that almost anything can respond through improved digestion and improved

protein nutrition: any kind of tissue repair or wound-healing issues; certainly

any kind of digestive dysfunction where these small chain peptides are healing

the gut wall. Certainly, any kind of inter-related protein issues like

neuro-peptides, neurotransmitter issues. You can surmise that improving

somebody's digestion -- protein metabolism issues -- has an implication with

certainly anything digestive and anything neurological, and that is why our

specific work is focused on migraines and tissue repair issues like arthritis or

athletes repairing and recovering from strenuous workouts.

If you are going to look at the medical paradigm, disease is something that

attacks us. When we are sick, and we go to the doctor and say, " Fix me, " as if

it is his fault and his responsibility to get certain answers. If you choose to

look at disease as the breakdown of normal function, you then have to ask this

question: " What are the critical functions that are breaking down that I have to

address first? " The obvious answer is digestion and protein metabolism issues.

Based on genetics, they can manifest almost anywhere in the body.

The second brainMike: Are you familiar with a book " The Second Brain " by Dr.

Gershon?

Tom: I am extremely familiar with that research. It is one of my favorite books

on the planet, even though it is one of the most difficult books on the planet

to read.

Mike: Maybe you recommended this book to me. It is important for readers to know

that there is emerging science in the field of neurogastroenterology. Even the

name implies that the gut has its own complex nervous system, that it is a

second brain and communicates with the primary brain. Like you said, the

neurotransmitters that we are so concerned about in our brains and with

antidepressant drugs and SSRIs and so on, those neurotransmitters are actually

manufactured in the gut. I think these are " wow " concepts for a lot of people.

Holistic healing and the gut / brain connection

Tom: The beauty of the book " The Second Brain, " and the field of

neurogastroenterology, is that it is the first concrete evidence we can hold

onto to show a merging of two paradigms.

Now, the natural medicine paradigm, if you look at traditional Chinese medicine,

classic naturopathic philosophy, the Shamanic traditions, or the native culture

traditions, will look at disease as an imbalance in the body's mechanisms and a

breakdown of normal function. Most of those protocols, if you look at the

philosophies underpinning these different paradigms, point to bringing balance

back to the body, even though modern natural medicine is becoming too much

" green allopathic, " or using natural products used to treat symptoms, rather

than address disease in the body. So many of the protocols talk about gut and

liver, and it all begins in that area. It is great that there really is, within

the philosophies of those traditions, some real commonality, but it would be

nice if there were some modern medical research that would help us gain some

real credence to the possibility of what these ancient traditions are teaching.

That is where " The Second Brain " and neurogastroenterology just rings huge

bells. We have always known that the gut is responsible for digesting and

absorbing the food that we eat and getting the nutrients out of food that we

need. For a long time, we have also accepted that the gut is a huge player in

our immune function. Now this research is showing it is also huge in

neurological function.

Probably the most compelling evidence from that book, in my mind, is two things:

the first is that when they do autopsies on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients

they find tissue damage, lesions in the brain tissue that are indicative of

either Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Obviously, we have always accepted those

conditions as being neurological brain injury diseases. However, in those same

patients, if they continue to dissect the gut tissue, and they get to the

neurological tissue of the second brain and the enteric nervous system -- the

gut brain -- they find lesions in the gut identical to what they see in the

brain.

For the first time, we are able to show that a condition thought to be strictly

neurological has pathology in the gut. Does it start in the brain and move to

the gut? Start in the gut and move to the brain? Or, is in both places at the

same time? What you can extrapolate from this work is that if you have a problem

in your brain, you have a problem in your gut. Now, is this not directly

reflective of all the ancient healing traditions?

Mike: Absolutely, and just the very idea that both health and disease are

holistic in nature. You cannot isolate the body parts and treat them in

isolation.

Tom: That is exactly right.

Mike: They are all connected. Again, it gets back to the food. Your food is your

best medicine. If there is something wrong with your health, food is probably

the first place to look.

Why conventional medicine failsTom: The other thing with reading " The Second

Brain " is how complex the balancing and counter-balancing mechanisms of the body

truly are. It reinforced a belief that has evolved for me.

I share this with a lot of people, including doctors, and I have yet to have one

of them argue with me: If all the information necessary to understand how the

body works, what causes disease, and what it takes to recover from disease is a

gallon of water, then what we truly understand with our brightest minds so far

is about two tablespoons. Interestingly, what most doctors say to me when I say

that to them is that the more they read, the more they realize how little we

truly understand.

The sad truth is we have all been taught in this society that when we are sick

to go to the doctor and say, " Fix me, " as if it is their fault and their

responsibility. All I want people to do is recognize that they are turning

themselves over to somebody that has much more limited information than they

realize. It is not to condemn them. I think that most doctors are sincerely

interested in trying to help us. It is just that they are working with too

little information. The gut brain research and all that I have learned has

really helped me to honor how wise the human organism truly is; that within any

paradigm, you want to look at protocols that work with the body to help it work

better. If you do that, you stand a much higher chance of getting to a path of

wellness than with protocols that are interfering with the body's biochemistry

or biophysics.

Mike: Indeed -- complement the biochemistry, don't highjack it.

Tom: Absolutely. It is just a shame that so many of the protocols in

pharmaceutical medicine -- and even in natural medicine -- are focused on

interference rather than on complementing the body's biochemistry and its

mechanisms.

Mike: Yes, absolutely.

Tom: They are so complex and so poorly understood. It is difficult to understand

how best to interfere with them. Now the conclusion that we came to and the

reason we designed the products we did, was because there is nothing in the body

that can get better and no disease that can be healed, in our opinion, until gut

and liver are working as well as possible.

Who benefits from Foundation Formula?Mike: Let me ask you this: Which groups,

which demographics, are likely to experience the greatest benefits from this?

Tom: Well, certainly people with any type of gut dysfunction. I do not care if

it is chronic constipation, chronic diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, or

Crohn's colitis. Now it is rare that someone will say that their product will

work for both chronic constipation and chronic diarrhea, and yet that is exactly

what we see because this product brings the body in balance.

With any kind of digestive issue, protein metabolism improvement is the first

step. The second area -- the area that we focused in on initially -- is migraine

headaches, in particular, and neurological conditions in general. We have been

getting very nice results in our focused work on migraines with chronic migraine

sufferers using Foundation and Renew to get their gut and liver working right.

It is so easy to point to the traditional healing philosophies and the gut brain

research to show that neurological issues have a gut root. The body is an

intelligent organism constantly trying to be healthy and balanced.

Mike: What about attention deficit disorder, and those types of neurological

symptoms?

Tom: We have not done any specific work there, but I would love to. All you have

to do is look at the dietary change from two generations ago and look at what

our kids are eating now: sugar and way too much processed food compared to the

home cooked meals every night that most of us in our 50s enjoyed from our

parents.

Anecdotally, I have had some doctors use our products with ADHD and see very

nice results. I have had a naturopathic physician in Colorado tell me that,

relative to her depression and bipolar patients, she has never seen better

results since she started using our products.

Mike: That is very interesting. What about expectant mothers? They have such a

high need during pregnancy.

Tom: It is so interesting, because almost any product on the planet will say,

" If you are expecting, check with your doctor before using this, " no matter what

it is. When I look at the specifics on premature births, I am just convinced

that some day we are going to do a study that shows dramatic changes in at-risk

populations if they are on Foundation Formula during their pregnancy.

Absolutely.

Mike: That makes sense.

Tom: That is protein metabolism, and it is also essential fatty acid in tablet

form.

Mike: And the trace minerals, which are so often lacking in both the mother and

the fetus.

Tom: The issue that a lot of people raise when they think about fish protein is

they say, " Oh my God! What about the mercury? " So let me speak to that just for

a moment, because almost anything coming out of the ocean will have some level

of trace mercury in it.

The raw materials we use consistently tested less than one-tenth of one part per

million, and generally speaking, one part per million is considered safe. More

importantly than that, the dosage that we are recommending people take is like

having them eat less than one pound of fish per month. Essentially, they are

eating a bite of fish a day. The stress on the detoxification system is

miniscule compared to the value of ending the digestive dysfunction and protein

metabolism issues that are at the root of most people's problems.

Mike: It is like a bite of fish each day, but that bite is highly bio-available,

because it is predigested. It is packed with trace minerals from the ocean.

Healing cancer, slowing agingTom: One of the anecdotal examples of its

bio-availablity is we have had chemotherapy patients and AIDS patients -- people

who are really shutdown digestively -- and we get them on this product, and

their guts heal. They really notice a difference. When somebody is throwing up

everything they eat, and you give them a supplement that they not only tolerate,

but that causes them to feel their energy coming back or their appetite starting

to return, that is when you know that product is absolutely supporting the

body's essential mechanisms.

Anti-aging and Foundation Formula

Mike: What about senior citizens? I see so many elderly who are literally

starving no matter how much they eat because they cannot digest and assimilate

nutrients.

Tom: That is exactly right, Mike and certainly the aging process has an impact

on all of our function. At 54 or 53 I do not run as fast as I did when I was 20.

One of the areas that breaks down in older people is hydrochloric acid

production in the gut and digestive enzyme production. Consequentially,

digestive function starts to reduce. If it is at 100 percent capacity when you

are in your early 30s, it is probably at 70 percent when you are in your 60s and

it goes down from there.

When this company grows and we can do the kind of follow-up research we want to

do, one of the studies we are going to do is show that probably the most

important single daily supplement a senior citizen can have is a product like

Foundation and Renew. It supports the liver, kidney function, and protein

metabolism issues.

If you talk to older folks, you know what their complaints are. " Oh I cannot

eat, I do not eat as much. I do not have an appetite. " Well, the body is telling

them, " Do not send it down here -- I cannot digest it. " Their energy levels

deteriorate. It is all protein metabolism issues.

Mike: Yes, and it is so sad. I see it so much in retirement centers and senior

centers.

Tom: I had a doctor in Florida who has used our products with a lot of senior

citizens, and one of the comments he made to me was, " Ever since I added your

products to my standard protocol, I have been able to cut in half all the other

supplementation I have my patients on. "

Mike: That does not surprise me at all.

Tom: They are absorbing so much better.

Mike: Well, I have personally seen really amazing results with a liquid vitamin

product called " Ola Loa Vitamins. " It is liquid. It has highly bio-availabile

ingredients. I have seen senior citizens really do well on that. I have not yet

been able to witness personally any senior citizens on your Foundation Formula,

but I am sure interested to do so.

Tom: Well, I would love to work with you to do that.

Healing childrens' healthMike: Now, what about children? Children have very high

protein requirements during their growth phase. They typically do not eat that

well in Western Culture today.

Tom: As I suggested, our specific area of work so far has been with migraines,

and we see very nice results with these products in kids who are suffering the

onset of migraine headache issues. In our world, that is all related to their

digestion absorption issues. As is ADHD, and so everything is interconnected.

This was the huge light bulb moment for me when I first got involved in this

industry as a lay person like you. One of the first things that hit me as I was

going to various alternative doctor conventions all over the country is that the

naturopaths would say this, and the chiropractors would say that, and there was

no guiding philosophy. There was no way to understand what works and what does

not and why. That, I think, is the big challenge for most lay people. We all

have a sense that there is something good about natural medicine, but we are not

sure what. When we turn to the book store, the Internet, and the health food

store to learn, more often what we get is overwhelming and confusing. With the

exception of folks with good websites like your own that really give people the

direction they need.

What I learned from the doctors who have inspired me is this whole concept that

the things that work are going to be the things that help the body work better.

My initial reaction to that approach was, " Well, that kind of makes sense. " It

speaks to my intuitive knowledge of how the body works. It almost even seems a

little too simplistic. I will tell you this: I have come to honor the wisdom of

simplicity. I am just a huge believer that what we have to do is address the

foundational needs of the body, whether it is in a child, in a stressed-out

single mom, a high-powered executive, or a senior citizen. The underlying

dysfunction that leads to the breakdown of the balancing and counter-balancing

mechanisms of the body and lead to symptoms of any particular disease can only

be countered by getting the body to work better.

Mike: That also alludes to the very important point that the body already knows

how to heal itself. It just needs the environment, the raw materials, the

energy; it needs to be able to get rid of waste. It just needs these basic

things.

People ask me, " Why do you drink pomegranate juice? There is no scientific

evidence that it does anything. " And I say, " I do not need something written on

paper, because the pomegranate juice is naturally utilized by my body in a

healing way, regardless of whether or not I intellectually know the formula. "

You do not have to know it intellectually to benefit from it. Your body heals

itself on its own.

Tom: That is exactly right. A lot of people say the body can heal itself. I like

to take it a step farther and say not only is the body capable of healing itself

but in every minute of every day, it is constantly trying to achieve health and

vitality. That is an important thing to remember, because what that speaks to is

that a little bit of the right thing can help it move in the right direction and

stimulate remarkable results.

Reviving liver functionMike: Again, the product name is " Foundation Formula. "

The website is www.ForeverWell.com. I want to warn readers too that this product

does have a fishy type of smell, although it does not have a fishy taste after I

eat it.

Tom: That is certainly an issue that we warn people about in the instruction

sheet that comes with the product. We instruct them that if the fishy odor is

problematic keep it in the refrigerator. Cold does slow down those volatile

little molecules. In addition, the concentration in the bottle is much stronger

than a couple of capsules you take out for a daily dose.

Mike: I have not found any problem with that. To me, it is just an indication

that this is the real deal. This is what you say it is. There is actually high

density pre-digested fish protein in those capsules. No doubt about that.

Tom: People are not going to wonder if it is fish.

Complementary liver support with Renew

Mike: What else would you like to include here?

Tom: I would like to talk a little bit about Renew, why it is complementary, and

why we believe it is two sides of the same coin because when you look at

digestive issues if you are not also addressing liver issues, then you are

running a risk. Some of your readers have heard me say so far that we are a

company trying to address the foundational needs of the body. While our initial

focus has been on applying that philosophy to the treatment of migraine headache

sufferers, it really has implications and applications within a wide variety of

chronic diseases. I believe the best example of the underlying philosophy is a

classic naturopathic philosophy, which says disease is caused by the breakdown

of normal function in one of three areas, and one of those is the body not

getting what it needs, which is digestive function and dietary choices, which is

the focus of our Foundation Formula.

The second cause is the body not eliminating what it cannot use, which is

largely a problem with the liver, kidney or low vitality, and the vitality is

something that no one can address with a pill. Vitality is the choices that we

make in our life to be vibrant, alive, and energetic, or not, and that is the

whole spiritual bio-energetic side.

We have covered Foundation pretty extensively. I would like to mention Renew

Formula, which is our liver support product. We are concerned about the amount

of literature out there about liver detox and liver cleansing. While I see the

value of that, I worry that people are being guided down a path that says, " Oh,

take this group of herbs for two weeks, poop your brains out for a couple of

days -- pardon the expression -- and your liver is healthy again. " I worry that

is stressful to the organ. Let us remember that the liver, by design, is

detoxing on a daily basis. A lot of people who are chronically ill have their

livers overloaded, and they need nutritional support.

Our Renew Formula is designed to give the active functions of the liver the

support they need in a food-like presentation. Now what I mean by that is we

could not find a pre-digested whole-food product that addressed liver kidney

issues the way Foundation addresses digestive issues. That would have been our

preference. What we did is we looked in the medical literature and asked, " What

is it that the liver needs for detoxification pathways? What is it that it needs

for the formation of glutathione? What is it that it needs for the other

activities and responsibilities it has in the body? " We looked at the

literature, and we saw this micro-nutrient and this vitamin and this herb and

this mineral all play a role.

We created a product that has 21 different ingredients in it: vitamins,

minerals, herbs, and micro-nutrients, none of which are included in what is

generally considered to be a therapeutic dose, because we believe that the liver

-- just like the digestive system -- needs to be able to pick and choose the

pieces that it needs, and little amounts of the right things are all that is

necessary.

The nice thing about Renew is that it is not something that you can only use for

a certain amount of time. It is a gentle support product that effectively helps

the liver and kidney work well. In our world, being guided by the philosophies

of addressing the gut, liver or kidneys individually is only half the story.

They are two sides of the same coin. In our work with migraine headache

sufferers, we sold the two products as a migraine combo, because we do not want

to have to guess which patient might need more liver support and less digestive

support, or more digestive support and less liver support. We wanted to make

sure we are addressing both issues.

 

Holistic healing with nutritionMike: It is interesting to me that the

philosophies you described sound very similar to traditional Chinese medicine.

Do you have training in Chinese medicine?

Tom: I do not, but I have read about the ancient healing traditions, Chinese

medicine, ayurvedic medicine from India, and the Shamanic traditions. They talk

about imbalance or disease in the body, and if the protocol is not a spiritual

or some sort of bio-energetic protocol, if it is a biochemical protocol, it is

gut liver. They all start there. Traditional Chinese medicine, ayurvedic

medicine, Shamanic traditions, classic naturopathic philosophy; they are all the

same.

That is why I love the work on the " second brain, " because now we are getting

the kind of medical research that says, " Everything does start in the gut and

its cousin, the liver. " What is interesting about the second-brain work is it

shows that the second brain, the gut, operates the digestive processes

independent of direction from the head brain. It's able to tell the liver when

to release bile. It's able to tell the pancreas when to shoot digestive enzymes

into the intestines. It's able to direct the support of the organs of the

digestive process independent of any direction from the head brain.

Mike: I think it also must explain why people so rapidly tend to deteriorate in

their health once they take pharmaceuticals, because almost every pharmaceutical

is toxic or stressful to the liver and the gut.

Tom: Yes, absolutely.

Mike: Even over-the-counter pain killers can cause permanent liver damage, and

they do.

Tom: Yes, absolutely.

Mike: Or gastrointestinal bleeding, right?

Tom: The two most common side effects of pharmaceutical medications are gut and

liver dysfunction.

Mike: Then, of course, the typical Western doctor would look at whatever new

symptom appears and prescribe a second drug for that, and that cascade

continues.

Tom: All of which continues to interfere with the foundational needs of the

body. Basically, you are looking at two different paradigms. You can accept the

paradigm that says the best way to treat the body is to interfere with the

mechanisms of the body, or you can say the best way to treat the body is to

support the natural mechanisms of the body.

For more information about ForeverWell, visit www.ForeverWell.com

The interviewer, Mike , is the executive director of the non-profit

Consumer Wellness Center (www.ConsumerWellness.org) and a writer for NaturalNews

(www.NaturalNews.com). is dedicated to improving human health through

nutrition education.

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

 

" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport