The Unmasking of Glyconutrients - Where to start??

The best place I guess is to discuss what is happening today within our environment – specifically to our food and subsequently our nutrition. No matter what the labels say on our food, studies point to the fact that there has been an overall decrease in the nutritional quality of much of the food we eat. Toxins and pollutants are a constant challenge. Much of the food we eat is picked before it is ripe: processed and pasteurised and shipped long distances to market. So while you may be eating the recommended 5-9 serves of fruits and vegetables per day (and many people are not), the nutrients may be inadequate and quantity can’t always make up for quality. Therefore we need to look at supplementation to overcome the imbalance in our modern diets.

In 1996, Harpers Biochemistry (a medical textbook) published the body’s need for and use of 8 specific sugar molecules called glyconutrients. The research also reported that of the 8 glyconutrients only 2 are prevalent in our modern diets. It showed that these glyconutrients are necessary for proper cell communication. Of course the body prefers to get these nutrients directly from food however research has also shown that in a typical diet today we are only getting 2 of these glyconutrients: glucose from table sugar and galactose from milk products. The body then has to divert its available resources to manufacture the other 6 glyconutrients - resources which could be far better utilised in maintaining overall health, protection and repair functions.