Stem Cells, Glyconutrients and the Controversy

By Dr. Lycurgus L. Muldrow

Stem cell research is awe-inspiring, exciting, and one of the most controversial areas of science today. This is because the unspecialized stem cells can potentially migrate to any damaged tissue in the body and replace the damaged tissue with healthy cells, thus curing the disease. For example: a heart attack victim can regenerate healthy, beating heart muscle cells, or a person with Parkinson’s disease can have functioning neurons grow back in the brain, or a person with diabetes can grow back insulin producing cells in the pancreas. This research is controversial because one method to obtain stem cells involves harvesting human embryos.

So the questions we pose are: “Is the controversial research on stem cells a new miracle afforded to mankind by the advancements in biological research? Or are stem cells a part of God’s original plan for the body to regenerate damaged tissue and cure itself from deadly diseases?”
To answer these questions, let’s first take a look at the biology of stem cells. There are two types of stem cells: embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated (unspecialized) cells in a human embryo several days old. These cells have the potential to differentiate into a wide variety of specialized cells. Adult stem cells are also undifferentiated cells found in mature differentiated tissue such as the bone marrow. An adult stem cell can divide and renew itself, or differentiate into other tissues such as muscle, brain, bone marrow, etc.

The dilemma with adult stem cells is that after the embryo has developed, the number of these cells found in the body of the average American citizen is extremely low. Thus the ability of the adult body to heal itself with its own stem cell population is limited. Therein lies why stem cell research is proliferating. The main approach used by research scientists for clinical stem cell therapy involves first harvesting embryonic stem cells, culturing them in the lab, and then transplanting them into patients with specific diseases or syndromes. However, significant technological breakthroughs are still required before these procedures can be widely used for a variety of different diseases. Some of the difficulties that have to be overcome are: avoiding immune rejection problems, insuring the stem cells survive in the recipient after transplant, and promoting differentiation into the desired cell types with enough proliferation to generate the new healthy tissue.

Stem cells and the resulting controversy are even greater than harvesting human embryos. Suppose years of research did not have to be done for mankind to benefit from the healing effects of stem cells. Suppose a way to produce stem cells in adults and children which overcome the obstacles of immune regulation was possible. Suppose there was a natural way to stimulate the proliferation of adult stem cells that results in the body healing itself from literally dozens of diseases and syndromes. Suppose this same procedure for stimulating stem cells also caused a normally healthy person to be even healthier, stronger, brighter and with a reduction in biological age. Well, suppose no more! All of the above is true, right now!

A relatively new discovery that came from the correlation of hundreds of independent research studies has come to light. A simple natural formulation of food substances called glyconutrients has been clinically shown to increase the number of adult stem cells circulating in the peripheral blood. And yes, the clinical implications of these nutraceutical glyconutrients is more than impressive. There are documented cases of babies with fetal alcohol syndrome where the heart and brain tissue has been repaired after taking the glyconutrients. There are thousands of testimonials from individuals taking these glyconutrients that have had miraculous recoveries from diseases ranging from the common cold to diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, allergies, obesity, autoimmune diseases, cancer, ADHD, and on and on.

Why has the world not heard about this miraculous breakthrough in stem cell research? Why has the word “glyconutrients” not become part of everyone’s vocabulary? The answer is simple: lack of marketing funds, and a medical community that does not support nutritional supplements.
Glyconutrients are not drugs. They come from natural food sources like sea weed and tree gums or resins. They did not have to pass the FDA regulations, and rightly so as they were put on earth by the Creator and not by years of research by pharmaceutical businesses.

Drugs are big business. Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars a year advertising drugs in the U.S. alone. Nutraceutical companies are not yet large enough to spend this kind of money in the promotion of a product. Thus, major advertisement campaigns on TV, radio, magazines and billboards has not been done for the glyconutrients.

In addition, the traditional medical community of this country has not provided information about glyconutrients because our well-intended medical community is about the treatment of symptoms and the management of disease. Traditional medicine is not about the prevention of disease, or the promotion of natural substances that allow the body to heal itself. For instance, for decades vitamins have been scientifically known to prevent disease, but the American Medical Association (AMA) has only recently stated in an article published in June, 2002, that the AMA recommends that adults take vitamins.

So the problem is that the information about glyconutrients has not yet been publicized. However, the science behind glyconutrients’ ability to give the body the correct nutrition for the body to heal itself via the production of stem cells, and improvement of cell-to-cell communication is extremely impressive. For example, the study of glycobiology has yielded over 20,000 clinical and scientific research publications from reputable universities, hospitals and research facilities. In the 1990’s four Nobel Prizes in physiology and medicine were awarded for discoveries made in glycobiology. Information about glycobiology appeared in major publications like Science, and Scientific American, and has even appeared on major television programming such as Good Morning America.
Technology Review published by MIT states that glycomics (the study of glycobiology) is one of the emerging technologies that will change the world. There is absolutely no shortage of research validation that glycobiology is an emerging field of biological research that will change the world as we know it.

So the link between glycobiology and glyconutrients is simple. Glycobiology states that there are eight monosaccharides (biological sugars) that provide the code for cells to communicate. The concept is simple, just as there are 26 letters in the alphabet that allow for written communication, and four bases that allow for the genetic code of DNA, there are eight sugars that allow cells to talk to one another. If the cells do not communicate well, the tissues cannot function. And if the tissues have a problem, the organs and organ systems do not work optimally, and consequently health is compromised.

Even though the body can make all eight of these glyconutrients, the human body is designed by nature (God) to get (salvage) these glyconutrients from the diet. However, the problem in the U.S. is that processed foods and green-harvested fruits and vegetables are devoid of the glyconutrients. In fact, the American diet only has two of these glyconutrients in it. When our society is compared to less developed nations where people buy fruits and vegetables from the corner market an interesting story develops. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. is ranked number one in the world in emergency medical care, and number 37 in the world in chronic debilitating diseases. This opens the discussion as to whether this sad report about the health care in the U.S. needs improvement.

It is a known fact that if the body is given the nutrition it needs, the body is designed to heal itself. And science has shown that if you feed the body the required glyconutrients, somehow the body knows to increase the number of stem cells, which theoretically migrate to damaged tissue, differentiate, proliferate by division, and repair the damaged tissue.

Glyconutrients do not heal. Glyconutrients simply provide the correct nutrition for the body to heal itself. So if we return to the original question posed in this article, it appears that stem cells are a part of God’s original plan for the body to regenerate damaged tissue and cure itself. All we need for this to happen is the correct nutrition. After all it is written in the Bible in Revelations 22:2 that “… the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

To learn more about glycobiology or attend the free science seminar on glyconutrients, call 770 909-8575.
Dr. Lycurgus Muldrow earned his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Tennessee, is a former research scientist, and was a faculty member in the Atlanta University Center for 12 years.