Glyconutrients and Athletes

Nutrition is paramount for athletes seeking to achieve maximal performance and rapid post-exercise recovery. For elite athletes dietary factors can often translate into those milliseconds that separate winning from losing. Glyconutrition can support athletes in increasing performance, reducing pain, and reducing recovery time.

Optimised cellular function through glyconutrients supplementation results in enhanced performance. Roy Kurban, a karate black belt and Black Belt Magazine’s previous Man of the Year had tried many new nutritional supplements before he started taking glyconutrients in 1996. He found that glyconutrients worked where others didn’t.

A study involving NFL athletes found that those taking glyconutrients experienced less pain, had an improved range of motion in their joints and experienced an overall improvement in their quality of life.

One of the major drawbacks of the intensive training regimes undertaken by elite athletes is the diminished immune system function, resulting in increased risk of infection, prolonged recovery time and decreased tissue repair mechanisms. Glyconutrients boost immune system functioning and support the natural functions of our body to heal, repair, regenerate, regulate and protect itself.; Antioxidants can help protect your cells from free radicals which are released during exercise.

It’s well known that excessive exercise diminishes immune-system function. This increases the risk of infection, prolongs recovery time and decreases tissue-repair mechanisms. Glyconutrients have been shown to enhance immune function. Both the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams officially endorse glyconutrient products for their athletes.

Glycoproteins make up more than 85% of the molecules in our cells. If glycosylation is not adequate, due to deficiency in glyconutrients, then crucial cells and their components – such as enzymes, antibodies, collagen, muscle fibres, hormones – are not created in sufficient quantities and as a result health and performance can be dramatically reduced.

Glyconutrients are non-toxic at even high amounts, and there is no possibility of long-term damage or drug interactions.

You can check out some of the athletes who use these Glyconutrients. They are part of Team Mannatech. Click here.

What are Phytonutrients?

Phytonutrients are nutrients derived from plant material that have been shown to be necessary for sustaining human life. Phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant chemicals that contain protective, disease-preventing, compounds. Their role in plants is to protect plants from disease, injuries, insects, drought, excessive heat, ultraviolet rays, and poisons or pollutants in the air or soil. They form part of the plants immune system.

Although phytochemicals are not yet classified as nutrients, substances necessary for sustaining life, they have been identified as containing properties for aiding in disease prevention. Phytochemicals are associated with the prevention and/or treatment of at least four of the leading causes of death in Western countries – cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. They are involved in many processes including ones that help prevent cell damage, prevent cancer cell replication, and decrease cholesterol levels.

One of the most important groups of phytochemicals are the phytosterols or phytohormones as they are sometimes known. These are plant based sterols that act as precursors to human sterols. They act to modulate the human endocrine system. One of the most important human sterols is Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). This hormone is produced in our adrenal glands and serves a variety of functions. It is often called the ‘mother’ hormone as it has the ability to convert itself into other hormones such as oestrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and corticosterone, on demand. Thus it is a precursor to all other hormones and active metabolites. Precursors are substances the body uses to produce other substances.

Scientific research reveals that adequate DHEA in the body can slow the aging process, and prevent, improve, and even often reverse conditions such as cancer, heart disease, memory loss, obesity, and osteoporosis. DHEA blood levels peak between ages 20 to 25 years and then decline with age in both men and women.

DHEA is the precursor of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. That is, our body makes cortisol and adrenaline from DHEA. When our body makes these hormones, DHEA levels decline. With our stressful lives it is no wonder that most people have deficient levels of DHEA and the medical conditions, and degenerative diseases listed above.

Dioscorea, found in the Mexican yam, contains a biochemical storehouse of valuable phytochemicals for use as hormone precursors. The molecular structure is almost identical to the body’s natural hormone precursors.

Who needs glyconutrients?

Whether we are suffering from a Glyconutrients and Specific Medical Conditionsor not, our bodies need glyconutrients to function.

From the Scientific Validation for Glyconutrients scientific research evidence it is clear that if our body is suffering from an auto-immune disorder or degenerative condition it can benefit from glyconutrients, notably the eight essential glyconutrients. These glyconutrients help our body to exercise its incredible ability to heal, repair, regenerate, regulate and protect itself just by giving it the raw materials it is already pre-programmed to use.

And the evidence is also clear that by the same processes, the eight necessary glyconutrients are essential to maintaining a healthy body in optimal wellness. If we were getting the essential glyconutrients in our diet in sufficient quantities, we would not need supplementation, but unfortunately current agricultural practices leave our foods with few of the eight essentials.

The bottom line is: If we are alive and have cells, we need the eight essential glyconutrients.

What Are Glyconutrients?

The most important discovery for your immune system in the last 100 years is something called glyconutrients. Science and medicine have long tried to understand the code by which the cells in the body communicate with one another in order for its complex functions to occur. For example, how does your digestive system know which food components to absorb into the blood stream and which to ignore?  Or which cells to attack and destroy and which to protect and nurture?  That code has now been broken.  This role is undertaken by glyconutrients.  Researchers proclaim it to be the most important discovery in the history of medicine ..the key to a long, healthy life.

What are glyconutrients? Glyconutrients are plant carbohydrates (monosaccharides). There are over 200 carbohydrates or sugars but only 8 are essential to bodily function. These are:

• xylose
• fucose
• galactose
• glucose
• mannose
• N-acetylglucosamine
• N-acetylgalactosamine
• N-acetylneuraminic acid (a sialic acid).These 8 essential glyconutrients combine with other molecules eg proteins and lipids, to form glycoforms or glycoconjugates which coat cell surfaces. When they combine with protein molecules, they form glycoproteins that coat the surface of every cell with a nucleus in the human body. When glyconutrients bind with lipids (fats) they form glycolipids which also adhere to the cell surface.Glyconutrients are the key to effective cellular communication and proper cell function. This has been established by the world’s leading scientists and researchers.

  Glyconutrients are not vitamins, minerals, amino acids or enzymes, but are in a class of their own as nutritional supplements derived from plants. Glyconutritional supplements are formulated based on new understanding in the biochemistry of how the human body maintains health at the cellular level. Healthy cells lead to healthy tissue – healthy tissue leads to healthy organs – and healthy organs lead to healthy bodies.

  Every cell in our body – all 600 trillion of them – needs glyconutrients.

  Despite the relatively recent discovery of glyconutrients and their functions, medical doctors and the general public are becoming increasingly aware of their importance in treating underlying causes of disease and in maintaining good health. As good as allopathic medicine is, it simply has NO answer to the increasing incidence of auto-immune diseases, cancers and degenerative diseases in Western societies.  Glyconutrients will soon become a part of standard care by medical practitioners for all auto-immune diseases, cancers, and degenerative diseases.  A glyconutritional approach gets at the root cause rather than treating only the symptoms.