Nutrition Nutz, with Jim Wilk C.N.C.

The Power of Polyphenols and More with Cheryl Myers, Europharma/Terry Naturally

• Jim Wilk C.N.C. • Season 5 • Episode 11

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What's the secret to reducing cancer risks through natural means? Discover groundbreaking insights from a recent health convention and listen as we explore the latest research on probiotics, gut health, and the disparity in cancer rates between countries with different diets. Jim refers to Dr. Ajay Goel's findings on potent, natural treatments like turmeric and grapeseed extract, offering practical tips that could change your approach to health.

We're thrilled to welcome Cheryl Myers, RN BA, from Europharma (a Terry Naturally brand), who shares her expertise on Aronia berries, also known as black chokeberries. These berries are a powerhouse of polyphenols and antioxidants. Cheryl explains the critical role of polyphenols in maintaining long-term health and the necessity of a diverse, plant-based diet. Grapeseed extract and its beneficial role in blood vessel strength and flexibility is also discussed. 

The discussion doesn't stop there. We tackle the dangers of xenobiotics like xenoestrogens and their impact on our health, with solutions to counteract these harmful compounds. You'll also learn about the powerful benefits of combining red sage and red ginseng for better circulation and cardiovascular health. Finally, we delve into ways to boost nutrient absorption, featuring supplements with Gamma Sorb, and improve male sexual function. Tune in for a comprehensive and fascinating guide to better health through natural means.

Use coupon code "NUTZ" (in your cart) for 15% off your entire order of featured products on our sponsor's website: HollyHillVitamins.com.

Jim Wilk:

Welcome to Nutrition Nut, where we explore breakthroughs in nutrition science, wellness trends and dietary supplements. You'll hear from industry leaders, health practitioners and research scientists giving you cutting-edge insights and actionable tips for living your healthiest life. I am your host and also head nut, jim Wilk, certified nutritionist. Thanks to our main sponsor, hollyllyhillvitaminscom, the place for great selection, service and prices. Thank you so much for joining us today on Nutrition Nuts.

Jim Wilk:

I am your host, Jim Wilk, and recently was attending a wonderful convention down in Orlando, florida, at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center Beautiful place if you ever get a chance to get over there. It's like a city unto itself Beautiful atrium with alligators running around and seven beautiful restaurants and a really nice place. So I've been down there before to attend Soho. It's a regional health convention show where they have a lot of exhibits of companies down there. So I got to schmooze with some of the old friends at a lot of these wonderful companies that are still producing wonderful products and got to attend some great lectures. The big theme, I think, was probiotics. There were a few lectures on the microbiome and gut health and things like that. So that seems to be still pretty prevalent in recent years as far as topics go, and I also went to a wonderful seminar on cancer.

Jim Wilk:

I know that sounds kind of weird, but AJ Gohl. He's a professor and chair Department of Molecular Diagnostics, therapeutics and Translational Oncology at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in California there and he's an internationally recognized and honored cancer researcher, author of dozens of groundbreaking published studies and natural ways to address cancer and it was really an eye-opener listening to him how prevalent it is out there and the difference between us and a lot of other countries. We're not doing too good folks when it comes to that and some of the other countries that have low incidences ironically have poor diets and what I mean by poor diets is that they're not eating a lot of the convenience and junk foods they're not getting. They just got to stick to what grows around them and things, if you want to consider that poor or not. But Africa is one of the least countries, at least the northern part of Africa there Probably some Arctic areas too, he was saying, and other countries like even India, where I think he originally hailed from using the use of spices and things might be keeping things down. So he talked about how it's still on the rise that he feels there's never going to be a cure and what we can do and utilizing some good natural things like turmeric and boswellia and grapeseed extract and things like that. And he also dispelled some of the myths surrounding the use of natural products along with your chemotherapy and radiation and things like that. And he's willing to talk to your oncologist if you ever have the misfortune of coming down with something like that. And he says he's once not convinced a doctor to go along with what he says. So that was pretty encouraging there. So I'd love to get him on the show one day, but I really enjoyed that lecture there.

Jim Wilk:

Maybe I'll get into it more at another time there, but today we have a returning star, cheryl Myers, and she is the head of scientific affairs and education for Europharma, which is a natural medicine company with over 80 products being sold throughout North America and Europe, and you probably you may not know the name Europharma, but you probably know Terry, naturally if you've ever walked into a health food store before. One of the premier companies out there started by Terry Lameron and even in his 80s he's still affiliated with the company and still travels the world discovering things. Guy's got a fantastic history. He's been on the show before, but Cheryl oversees the technical literature, development, product research, validation, educational outreach and acts as a liaison with thought leaders in integrative health, and she's been a guest on more than 250 radio and television shows. She's done my old radio show years ago and she's well known as an advocate of bridging the worlds of mainstream and natural medicine to achieve health outcomes neither can create alone. She's been interviewed by the New York Times Prevention Magazine, wall Street Journal and many other periodicals worldwide. She's been on PBS, she is a member of the editorial board of the Natural Medicine Journal, which is the official journal of the American Naturopathic Association, and she's as an expert educator on dietary supplements. She's been invited to give educational presentations on a lot of topics at the Mayo Clinic, at the Jefferson Mjolnir Brin Center of Integrative Medicine, the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and my backyard here in Philadelphia, pa, and at the Florida Hospital, celebration Health in Central Florida. So please welcome Cheryl Myers. Okay, and on the phone we have Cheryl Myers. Thank you for joining us today. Cheryl, appreciate it.

Jim Wilk:

I wanted to start off with there's some really interesting products from Terry, naturally that I'd like like to discuss some new things and some oldies too, that I use myself and I think the audience would really appreciate, and also about a new technology.

Jim Wilk:

Well, it's funny because it's not new but something that Terry is using in some of his products called gamma cyclodextrin and we're going to get into that a little later, folks, but that's worth sticking in here and listening to that, because the whole problem with a lot of times with supplements is absorption, and this seems to be a pretty good plant-based product there that can make things the supplements more powerful and effective. So we'll talk about that. But first I'd like to talk about aronia, or chokeberry, and I've heard about it over the years. I haven't seen too many products on the market that recommend it to too many companies, but Europharma the makers of Terry Naturally came out with aronia berries in a capsule form, and I'd like to go into it because it seems very intriguing to me and what I read about it. It's one of those things. Oh man, I got to try this product too, but I do that with all Terry's products. So I'd like to tell the audience here about Aronia Berries and see if any of them are familiar with it.

Cheryl Myers:

Well, I don't think that very many people have heard of them. Gosh, I had never heard of Aronia before I met Terry. But Terry is big on aronia berry, also called black chokeberry. And they call it black chokeberry because the purple is so deep, the berries darn near look black. It's a very tart cherry kind of berry. Rather, it's not something that most people would just pluck off the plant and eat. They wouldn't pull it off the shrub and just sit there and eat it. But it is ridiculously high in polyphenols and antioxidants. Now I know that you know Terry Lemmerand, who is the founder and president of our company, and he has been in this industry for a long time. Terry dresses very well. He's a very dapper dresser. He always looks nice. His suits are always very nicely coordinated. His shoes are always polished. You know when Terry goes out he's going to go out for a beautiful dinner of grass-fed organic beef and a glass of red wine. He's very elegant in my opinion.

Cheryl Myers:

You don't think of him in farmer overalls, with a straw hat. He does not have a garden, he is not tilling the land. But let me tell you there's one thing, and one thing only, that Terry grows.

Cheryl Myers:

He has about 50 aronia berry bushes on his land because he could not find aronia berries and the research on them especially in the majority of research, like many herbals, are done in Europe. The research is just so amazing that he wanted them to be a part of his diet every single day. So he has about 50 aronia bushes. He picks the berries, some he uses fresh and the rest he freezes in big bags and then he throws a huge handful in with his smoothie in the morning. So that's how you kind of get around. That tart kind of astringent flavor is to throw it in with some other things. But he's very he's long long been a devotee of aronia berries, so that's how I learned about them. So let's fast forward a few years and now we have an aronia berry extract from Europe that has high amounts of polyphenols. Now, when I say polyphenols, a lot of people's eyes may glaze over in the audience, but let me tell you how important polyphenols. A lot of people's eyes may glaze over in the audience, but let me tell you how important polyphenols are. The first, most important thing that a person needs in their diet and they will die if they don't have it is food, proteins, carbohydrates, fats. Those are called macronutrients. You have to eat those or you will not survive. The next most important group are things called essential vitamins and minerals. These are compounds found in food that our bodies cannot make and yet they are essential for life. One example many people use is vitamin C. If you have zero vitamin C in your diet, you are going to come down with a deficiency syndrome called scurvy and you will not last more than a month or two or three. You need to have these essential vitamins and nutrients. So those. I think everybody's on board with that. They all know that you have to have the macronutrients, you have to have the micronutrients. But what's the next step? What's the next most important things that you have to have in your diet? The next most important things are called polyphenols. There's over a thousand different kinds of polyphenols and they only occur in plants. So polyphenols. Some plants have huge amounts of polyphenols. Some plants don't have very many. Some plants have small amounts, but what they have is unique and extraordinarily powerful. So the list goes on. These polyphenols can do amazing things. It may surprise you to learn that the ECGC in green tea is a polyphenol. It may surprise you to learn that when we look at turmeric curcumin, the natural medicine that we find in turmeric is a polyphenol. So these polyphenols are absolutely amazing.

Cheryl Myers:

It's estimated that we need a minimum of a thousand milligrams of polyphenols in our diet every single day, but that's not enough. It can't just be a thousand. So let's say you're a person who loves lettuce and spinach salads, and so every day for lunch and dinner you have a huge salad made out of spinach and lettuce. You don't put anything else on it Well, maybe some dressing, some vinegar and oil or something, but that's it. You have this.

Cheryl Myers:

So you may get easily a thousand milligrams of polyphenols from those leafy plants, but they're all green. That's why, when we talk about you need all the colors of the rainbow we're not just talking about Lucky Charm. You need all the colors of the rainbow because every color is an indicator of different types of polyphenols. So it's not enough to get a thousand milligrams a day. You need a thousand milligrams, but they need to be made up of purple and blue and green and red and pink and orange, and the list goes on. So there are different colors that are associated with different activities. So when we talk about curcumin, which is a polyphenol in turmeric, it's the most amazing natural anti-inflammatory compound. In the world of natural medicine, it is a superstar.

Cheryl Myers:

And it's orange and it's orange, and so when we are looking at using a polyphenol medicinally, we need to understand what it does and we need to understand what the concentration needed is, and there's just different kinds of things we have to look into. There's a quote from an article that I just love that says you will not die as quickly from lack of polyphenols as lack of the other essential classes of nutrients, but you cannot live a long and healthy life without them. That is why scientists call them lifespan essentials. So that's what we're talking about when we're talking about polyphenols. There is a unique grouping of polyphenols in aronia berry and they have antioxidant activity. They are antiviral. They have some anti-cancer activity. They've been studied for atherosclerotic heart disease, problems with blood pressure, abnormal blood clotting, dysfunctional blood sugar. I mean, they are some true whole body benefits that are specific to aronia berry. In an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, they found that aronia could help reverse memory problems. In a human clinical trial, looking at reaction time, it improves mental reaction time. So if you feel like you're slowed down a little bit and it takes you longer to react, this might be a product that you want to think about. It helps increase insulin sensitivity, which is fantastic for type 2 diabetes. It has anti-cancer activity and because it's a strong antioxidant, it protects against both cataracts and macular degeneration.

Cheryl Myers:

There was a two-month human clinical trial on metabolic syndrome. Sometimes people call metabolic syndrome syndrome X. Metabolic syndrome means that you have a cluster of symptoms that is, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high blood triglycerides, and you are starting to accumulate more and more fat around the waist. Either you know, sometimes they call it a donut or a spare tire all the fats getting deposited right at your waistline, that dysfunctional, dysregulated cholesterol with high blood pressure, high blood sugar. That's called metabolic syndrome. They cluster together because the commonalities are similar. So they did this study with aronia berry for two months and found that it reduced the total cholesterol but it increased HDL, and HDL is the good cholesterol. I always say HDL because you want it to be higher, higher, higher. H for higher LDL is not as useful. That's L, for we want it lower, lower, lower. It reduced triglycerides and it also showed some small reductions in BMI and also in waist circumference after only two months of use. So aronia really is a unique source of a group of polyphenols that can have truly great protective and medicinal benefits.

Jim Wilk:

The antioxidant value is tremendous. I think, like you said, the polyphenols, there's like a thousand different antioxidants too. So if someone's taking one particular food, they think they're getting all their antioxidants, but only certain ones are in certain foods. So it's nice to get a blend, and the ORAC value maybe you can go into a little bit about that is through the roof there.

Cheryl Myers:

Yes, when we look at berries, the USDA United States Department of Agriculture reports antioxidant activity using a system called ORAC, and ORAC stands for oxygen radical absorbance capacity. So it's one way not the only way, but one way to measure the antioxidant strength of a food, and they measure it per 100 grams. So 100 grams of strawberries pretty good 3,500 ORAC value. Blueberries are even better. Everybody knows how healthy blueberries are 6,500. When you look at aronia berries, 16,000. Almost three times the value, the ORAC value, of blueberries. Now I'm not dissing blueberries. Blueberries have compounds in them that are unique, that you don't find in aronia. I'm not saying pick an either, or, but I am saying, when it comes to just sheer antioxidant value, aronia berries are the powerhouse.

Jim Wilk:

Wow, and you were going to mention something about teri before I.

Cheryl Myers:

Yes, teri always makes a good thing better, right? So in the aronia berry complex he wanted to include another source of very powerful polyphenols that also have published clinical studies, and that would be French grapeseed extract. Grapeseed extract contains compounds called OPCs. I don't know who makes up these names because they're quite the mouthful, but OPC stands for oligomeric proanthocyanidins. These OPCs have anti-cancer benefits. They have heart benefits.

Cheryl Myers:

I believe that the polyphenols in grapeseed are the most powerful natural medicine for blood vessel strength and blood vessel flexibility. So you see studies, a lot of cardiovascular studies, because it's important that those blood vessels stay flexible and strong. Different types of aneurysms, microaneurysms, problems with oh like, even things that are not necessarily life-threatening, like varicose veins or hemorrhoids. There are problems with the strength of the blood vessel wall, so this can be used for so many different things. Those OPCs are absolutely amazing.

Cheryl Myers:

However, opcs come in more than one size and when I'm talking to patients, I always say OPCs are like dogs. There's dog could be a Great Dane, a dog could be a Chihuahua. If you're in the house and your back door has a little doggy door that's about 18 inches by 12 inches, and you call your dog and it's a Great Dane, that dog is not going to fit stuck in a house alone. But if your dog is a chihuahua, then that chihuahua is going to scoot right through that door. In fact, if you have five or six chihuahuas, they're all going to make it through that doggy door, no problem, that's. The difference with our grapeseed extract is every single OPC is a chihuahua. There are no Great Danes. Now, when you buy grapeseed extract that isn't standardized in this manner, then some part all could be Great Danes, which will not harm you but cannot get squeezed through the doggy door. They're not going to get into your body to provide benefits.

Jim Wilk:

As.

Cheryl Myers:

I said 100% Chihuahua product. That means that it is standardized for low molecular weight and easy absorption, and it is 100% absorbable. It has published scientific studies and it is just a powerhouse. So you put these two together. What would I use them for? Well, I think that if you want to look and feel good and still be able to tap dance when you're 99 years old and get those complex polyphenol products on board, now.

Cheryl Myers:

Because those are going to make a huge difference. I really think it shines for cardiovascular disease, dysfunctional cholesterol, problems with blood vessels, those types of things.

Cheryl Myers:

And athletes, athletes as well. Did you know that athletes burn through their antioxidants faster than we mere mortals? So if people are really engaged in athletics, that's at a higher level, not just hopping on your bike once or twice a week to tour the neighborhood, but the really serious folks. Even in the weekend warriors they blow through their antioxidants quickly, which means that leaves them vulnerable to more oxidative stress. So they need many times more levels of antioxidants than someone who is not super physically active, plus the inflammatory responses of athletes oh gosh, yeah, absolutely.

Jim Wilk:

I was reading in the book Terry and AJ Goel, who's done years of research in his cancer clinic. In fact I mentioned him. That's who I went to see down in Orlando recently and they were talking about like you were talking about the inflammation, how aronia can help with that, the oxidation. But they also mentioned xenobiotic, which I thought was pretty interesting. It's anti-xenobiotic. Can you explain that a little bit?

Cheryl Myers:

When we talk about xenobiotics, these are things that are from outside the body, that can perform things inside the body, that play a role in a variety of different activities. So what specifically about its activity as a xenobiotic attracted your interest?

Jim Wilk:

Well, it's just so much environmental problems out there that can be causing upset in your cells and things and that it just seems Absolutely. Yeah, it seemed like something to help your immune system would be great.

Cheryl Myers:

You are absolutely right on. So one of the things that I see are what we call endocrine disruptors. So an endocrine gland in your body is any gland that makes hormones. So when we think hormones, we always think testicles for men making testosterone and ovaries in women making estrogen. But it's not quite as simple as that. There's lots of glands that make hormones. So there are actually xenoestrogens out there xeno meaning foreign outside the body that look like estrogens to the body.

Cheryl Myers:

A well-known one that I bet a lot of your listeners will know about is BPA. How many times do they look for a water bottle that does not contain BPA plastic or they want to make sure that they're canned goods or BPA free? Well, they know that it's bad, but they don't know why it's bad. It's bad because BPA looks like estrogen in the body. It stands for bisphenol A and when you have BPA in the body, it attaches to estrogen receptors and gives signals that can be highly, highly disruptive and dysfunctional to the body.

Cheryl Myers:

Estrogens can transition through many forms in the body. Some of them healthful and beneficial, some of them dangerous. Xenoestrogens are almost always dangerous. They stimulate the growth of hormonally dependent cancers like breast cancer, uterine cancer, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial problems, xenoestrogens fuel things like uterine fibroid tumors fuel things like uterine fibroid tumors, endometriosis, menstrual migraines. In men, we see higher levels. When you have a lot of exposure to these xenoestrogens, we see higher levels of prostate cancer. So you're right, there are these compounds out in our environment that look enough like compounds that are found inside our body that they just throw a monkey wrench in the whole works and can cause just tremendous, tremendous problems, and so that's another reason why we need these really healthy, beneficial anti-cancer compounds on board every single day to help push back.

Jim Wilk:

Yeah, it's an amazing product. Folks Reading the book and talking to Cheryl now I'm going to have to partake and remember it's also called chokeberry, it's like the colloquial name for it. But it grows all over North America and in Europe and things and you can get I think I read in the book 38 pounds or something of chokeberry out of a single shrub. So if he's got all those growing out there, he's set for life there. I'm telling you he's set for life there. I'm telling you it's great stuff.

Cheryl Myers:

Every fall he sends out an email and says you know, does anybody need? If anybody wants some. If you come out and pick them, you can have. He also leaves a certain amount for the birds, because birds are smart and birds know what's pretty awesome.

Jim Wilk:

There you go, that's it All, right. Another cool product that was recently put out by Terry. Naturally, again, folks, you're a farmer, it's the company. Also, just to remind people, our sponsor, hollyhillvitaminscom. You can go and we'll mention. You heard it on nutz. There it's a code word and you get a 15% discount on that. It is the red sage. And since, I also wanted to talk to you a little bit about ginseng, because that's something that I love and I think people are needing these days. So Terry came out with red sage plus the ginseng. So let's talk a little bit about the sage part and then we'll go more in-depth into the ginseng part, because they also make a standalone item, folks, ginseng yeah, for sure.

Cheryl Myers:

Do you remember when we were kids and we read comic books and watched cartoons and we always talked about batman and robin?

Jim Wilk:

much, much, much to my family's chagrin.

Cheryl Myers:

Yes, so you know I'm not sure that terry's a comic book fan. However, terry is quite the fan of dynamic duos. You may have noticed that many of our products are duos. He loves the idea of finding something that does almost everything that he thinks it should do and then putting something else with it that fills in the gap and boosts it further still. So this is another one of our dynamic duo products. This is a combination of red sage plus red ginseng, and he didn't pick them just because their first name started with red.

Jim Wilk:

There's some other reasons.

Cheryl Myers:

But when we look at, there are some commonalities. What this product is targeting is something called nitric oxide production. Now, nitric oxide is not nitrous oxide. That's what you get in a dentist chair, where they put the gas on and you get goofy so you don't care that they're filling your cavity. That's nitrous oxide.

Cheryl Myers:

Nitric oxide is a compound that our body creates that signals and causes vasodilation. It does some other things as well, but that's really what we're focusing on. Nitric oxide causes the blood vessels to relax and to open up and improve blood flow. Now you might say to yourself well, I don't have any circulatory issues. If that's true, you may not think that you have any circulatory issues. But think about it for a moment.

Cheryl Myers:

Blood carries oxygen, which every cell in our body needs, and blood carries nutrients, food that can be converted into fuel to cause energy. It carries the fuel in our bloodstream and it also is a garbage truck. So when a cell has to get rid of something that's broken down, or if something in our body, if we have something that dies off, that has to be carried away to be disposed of, that's what your blood does. If you start to see a reduction in the ability of your blood to get somewhere, because of calcifications in your arteries or atherosclerotic changes in your arteries, or lots and lots of high blood pressure causing some damage and some ruptures of some of the smaller blood vessels.

Cheryl Myers:

Whatever the case may be, it's not just going to be as well. How do I know that I don't have good circulation? It's not just whether your hands and feet are cold. Right, it could be a reduction in kidney activity. It could be damage to your eyesight. It could be changes in how your liver can detoxify because it doesn't have optimal amounts of oxygen and energy to do its job.

Cheryl Myers:

It could be changes in how your brain works. This is why I think this is such a beautiful product is because it boosts nitric oxide production and enhances healthy blood flow and circulation to every single organ in the body, and that is where red sage shines. Red sage has been used for millennia in traditional Chinese medicine. It contains more than 100 bioactive compounds. In TCM they call it Dan Shen. It is still one of the most prescribed medications in China for treating cardiovascular disease. They use it to treat atherosclerosis, thrombosis, which means abnormal creation of blood clots, and angina. So it is still being used in China, even in mainstream medicine, because of its ability to help relax and improve circulation, relax the blood vessels and improve circulation. So that's the superpower.

Cheryl Myers:

Does red sage do other things? Of course, you know all botanical things. They don't just go one place and do one thing, but that's its most powerful activity and that's why it was selected. And then Terry paired that wonderful red sage with red ginseng. Now red ginseng is also an Asian herb Panax ginseng. Now some folks may say wait, wait, wait.

Cheryl Myers:

There's a ginseng that grows in America, that's a cousin, that's called Panax kinkifolius. It has some health benefits. It's not the same. You and your cousin are not identical. One of you might be a musical genius, the other one might be fantastic at math. You know they do different things even though there are some similarities. You both might still have brown hair. That's the same thing with ginseng. When we look at Panax ginseng, it's a cousin to Panax kinkifolius, but they are very different in their activities. Ginseng has also been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine. It was named by the Greeks Panax ginseng because Panax stands for all cure or cure all. So even a thousand years ago people were pretty darn amazed with the power of ginseng. I would have to say, if you made me pick one single herbal compound to come out of China with the most amazing health benefits, I would probably pick panic's ginseng.

Jim Wilk:

Yeah, the hierarchy there used to take it right the emperors. They got the most prized roots right, oh God.

Cheryl Myers:

Absolutely so. You get it from the roots, and the roots are just like people the older they get, the stronger they get, because the roots have to survive lack of nutrition, changes in sunlight, people stepping on their leaves, insects chewing on their stems. I mean, you know what?

Jim Wilk:

It's a terrible existence. It's horrible, right.

Cheryl Myers:

So if you know that philosopher who said if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, that's true of panicked ginseng Because in order to fight back against these threats it has to build up muscles. Those muscles are called rare, noble ginsenosides. The reason I say rare noble is because there's another kind, called classic ginsenosides. That are what you find in the young plant. So in the young plant you see these classic ginsenosides. They have some mild health activity. But the real benefits are with the production of the rare noble ginsenosides, which happens when the plant is much older.

Cheryl Myers:

So when there were times in Chinese history where only the royal family was allowed to use ginseng, you would be in big trouble if you were a commoner and you were trying to use ginseng for your health. It all went to the royal family. If even today in China, if you can find a 20, 25-year-old root, which is when it really starts to max out with its power, it's worth its weight in gold and jewels. I mean it is worth an enormous amount of money. So that's why, when I look at, the ginseng we use is called HRG80 red ginseng. That stands for hydroponic red ginseng. Because it is not grown in the earth, there's not much wild ginseng left. You really can't make a business out of it. It's very, very, very, very hard to find the old roots, so everybody's harvesting the young roots, which don't provide many health benefits.

Cheryl Myers:

And people are cultivating it on thousands and thousands and thousands of acres where they decimate the forest because it grows best in forest soil but they don't want the trees competing with the ginseng. And then they douse the crop with all kinds of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, because they can only harvest it at every seven or eight years.

Jim Wilk:

There's lots of subterfuge there non-transparency when people buy ginseng off a shelf somewhere, they don't know that they're getting a young plant or something like that. That has very little effect. It's the older ones that have survived this lawn that really make a difference.

Cheryl Myers:

You know. So when we look at this hydroponic system that took by the way it was developed in Belgium took seven years to develop. Some really smart people worked on this, including PhD level agronomists, who said we can do this. Let's grow it without deforestation, let's grow it without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, but make it strong. So they created a system where it's grown hydroponically starts out with really great, perfect nutrition, but over the course of its growth they stress it. Then they figured out which stressors create the best response. So maybe one day they take the light away, or maybe the next day they drop the temperature by 20 degrees, or maybe on another day they take away a key nutrient. They have all of these different systems that they put together in a sequence and so at the end of the growing cycle it is the equivalent of 20-year-old wildcrafted red ginseng because it's filled. It has just enormous amounts of these rare noble vent ginsenosides seven times more on average than traditional ginseng that you can buy in the store, and these rare, noble ginsenosides are 17 times better absorbed. So it is just a win-win-win.

Cheryl Myers:

This is an amazing product to increase energy. Now, this is not Red Bull and a tablet. This increases energy not by stimulation. It increases energy by reducing how quickly you become fatigued. So you don't get that crash and burn you get with Red Bull or with caffeine products where you hype, hype, hype, you know because you're so tired, but then when they wear off, all your fatigue comes rushing in. This keeps you from getting fatigued in the first place.

Jim Wilk:

Right, I tell my people that you should take this for a while to really start noticing the benefits, just like in Asia, where they drink ginseng tea every day, a few times a day or something. It's an accumulative thing, right.

Cheryl Myers:

It can be. Some people, though, do feel a difference.

Jim Wilk:

day one Really, and they don't feel revved up.

Cheryl Myers:

What they feel is, about three or four hours later, they're just not getting tired, like I've had people who get tired after lunch and say, oh my God, I can barely focus at work, and yet they don't feel that anymore. Or someone who generally, when they get done with work, they just dread going home because now they have to start making dinner and they have to throw in a load of laundry and all they want to do is sit. All of a sudden it's like they got a little bit left laundry and all they want to do is sit. All of a sudden it's like they got a little bit left. You know, they got a little left. At the end of the day, they can go home and they're listening to the radio while they're cooking and they just have more left. You just don't get as tired. So this is, I love this product. I love this product. This is one of my secret weapons that.

Cheryl Myers:

I use the Red Ginseng because we do have it as part of the red sage as a dynamic duo product, but we also have it on its own and it's chewable. And if I go to some of the conventions or conferences, if I'm doing educational presentations or wherever I might be, sometimes my day starts at seven in the morning and I have to meet people for breakfast. Then I have to go out and do interviews with some of the you know, some of the media that's specific to our industry. Then I might have to do an educational presentation in front of a group of people and then at dinner we might have different customers or vendors that we need to meet with and I don't get back to my room till 10 o'clock at night. This is how I managed to do it without falling over. In my know. I take a chewable tablet of our red ginseng energy and I mean I'm tired. Don't get me wrong. You know, after working a 15, 16, 18 hour day, I am tired but I'm managing and it does not interfere with my sleep. So I love it on its own for restoring energy, especially for folks who people think of energy as just roller skating and disco dancing. No, energy is also the energy for your body to repair itself. So if you've been in a terrible, if anybody's ever had a broken bone, terrible car accident, anything like that, where they've had to go through physical therapy, it is exhausting and ginseng can help you have the strength and stamina to do what you need to do to heal your body. People who come off of chemotherapy, radiation therapy it is so draining and so exhausting and so depleting that this is a fantastic intervention to help people get back on board again. One of our doctors that we is a fantastic intervention to help people get back on board again One of our doctors that we have a great deal of respect for Dr Jacob Teitelbaum.

Cheryl Myers:

He is a specialist in chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and post-viral fatigue. He is an author. He wrote from Fatigue to Fantastic and Pain-Free 123. He's one of the best integrative physicians. He's a medical doctor, an internist, but he's also one of the best integrative physicians I've ever met.

Cheryl Myers:

Dr Teitelbaum did a study of this HRGAD regensing on people that had chronic fatigue, post-viral fatigue, those kinds of issues, serious issues and he found after only four weeks of use four weeks of use of the 60.1% that had a big response. They saw just enormous improvements, like 60 plus percent improvement in energy, 70 plus percent improvement in stamina. I mean just really huge after only four weeks of use. So this is not just a you know, when we talk about it as a standalone, the red ginseng energy, the blood vessels we're looking at. One of the things that we see with protecting the heart is that the red ginseng is also good at boosting nitric oxide production and it also helps those little energy producers inside ourselves called mitochondria. Sometimes they get kind of glitched up and it helps straighten them out again and get them running the way they're supposed to. So you put these two together and you can see some tremendous improvement in everything from cellular energy to blood pressure, to cardiovascular concerns. The list just goes on and on and on.

Jim Wilk:

You know I have a bunch of copies of Jacob Teitelbaum's book the Healing Power of Red Ginseng. So, guys, if you want to go to hollyhillvitaminscom and maybe order some ginseng stuff, we can throw some books in there. I have a limited amount but it's a $9 value here. But it's a very interesting book and Cheryl was right, it's an amazing amount of studies and things like that Can you also just touch on. A lot of people also think of ginseng at least when I was growing up as a help with sexual functioning as well.

Cheryl Myers:

Absolutely. You know, we do have products that are more specific to sexual function, but one of the most, especially for men. One of the biggest issues that men have with aging is that their nitric oxide production diminishes. They also can have some circulatory problems. So when you look at prescription drugs like when you look at Viagra, when you look at Cialis the way that they work is that they temporarily give you this huge boost of nitric oxide. I am not keen on that. Does it work? Yes, that's why these are I was going to say million dollar, but I bet they're probably billion dollar drugs when you put those together. Does it work? Yes, these are great date night products, but that sudden surge in nitric oxide and opening up circulation and allowing more blood to flow into the penis so that the man can have a stronger erection.

Cheryl Myers:

There's some downside to that and that is that there's a problem called priapism, where the blood gets trapped in the penis and has to be surgically drained. That is an emergency room visit. It doesn't happen that often, but it is a risk factor. There's risk factors for strain on our blood vessels that feed our eyes and feed our ears, and so huge surges in nitric oxide all at once. It doesn't just go to one part of the body, it goes to every part of the body. So we see some risk for vision, we see some risk for hearing, so that's you know, we see some slight increase for like risk for strokes, heart attacks etc.

Cheryl Myers:

So I'm not so keen on that as I am when I think about health longitudinally. What longitudinally is? How do we get just better nitric oxide every single day? So to me that seems much more like what naturally occurs in your body versus forcing the body to perform, whether it's physically capable or not. This just keeps improving nitric oxide a little bit every day until you get to levels where you get much better response for sexual function, so that you do get improved blood flow. So when you use something like Red Sage, plus would be fantastic for nitric oxide production.

Cheryl Myers:

The Red Ginseng has published studies on male sexual function. Could it be useful? Could it be used with our male sexual function product? Absolutely, but it's more of a rebuilding of health, which means that you're going to have to wait four, six, maybe even seven weeks before you get the optimal amount of response that you desire. Seven weeks before you get the optimal amount of response that you desire. But yes, I love this for that, because when you look at male sexual function products on the internet, well, first be careful, because it's probably pretty scary what you might stumble onto, but I've seen them like.

Cheryl Myers:

have you ever gone into convenience stores or truck stops to pay?

Jim Wilk:

for your gas.

Cheryl Myers:

The things that they sell and the names of them are almost pornographic and there have been independent research studies.

Cheryl Myers:

Some of these products, about 60 to 80 percent of these, are adulterated with drugs, so you might say to yourself well, how can it have, how can this let's just, I'm just making up a name hard steel, because they always have those kinds of names, right? So how does this product I mean you know Viagra is really expensive. How could it have Viagra in it? Well, viagra is expensive because it's a legitimate drug and the company makes it and has a patent on it. If you want to illegally copy it as a synthetic, you can make it for pennies, and so people buy these things and they think it's all natural, but in fact have drugs in it.

Cheryl Myers:

And did you know that if you have angina and you're being treated with angina with these little tablets that you put under the tongue whenever you have an episode of angina, if you take something that contains Viagra or Cialis along with it, that can be a fatal combination combination. And so to buy these products that are adulterated with drugs and you think that they're safer because they say they're all natural, they are not all natural. Please, please, please unless you're buying a candy bar or a bottle of water, please don't buy things in convenience stores and truck stops to put in your body medicinally.

Jim Wilk:

What's going on at truck stops? That's what I want to know. Gee whiz.

Cheryl Myers:

I don't know why I see so many. Well, they also have a lot of those perk up. Pay attention, you know what I mean. No dose kinds of products.

Jim Wilk:

Don't get sleepy kinds of products. They have that too.

Cheryl Myers:

I'll have to bring a date there next time, please, if you're looking for something, if you have a legitimate health concern and, by the way, men who are struggling with erectile function, that's a legitimate health concern. That's not made up, it's almost. You know, it's usually not a psychological issue. Generally, the way they can tell a difference between a psychological versus a physiological issue with male sexual function has to do with sleep. If a man gets an erection in his sleep, it is a psychological issue. If he is not getting an erection during the daytime, if you know that in his sleep, it is a psychological issue. If he is not getting an erection during the daytime, that's not that common.

Cheryl Myers:

It is usually a physical problem, and if you fix that physical problem, things are going to work better. It's a health concern. Don't treat it with products that you find on websites with scantily clad women and all kinds of crazy claims. Right, all right, cheryl, let's finish up with just something that I thought is pretty unique as well. Your farmer puts into some of their products there the GammaZorb that it sort of sounds like a Japanese movie monster like GammaZorb versus.

Cheryl Myers:

Godzilla. It sounds kind of Frankenstein and unnatural, but it is not. Surprisingly, it's a compound called gamma cyclodextrin and it is a natural compound found in plants. It's in the starchy part of the plant and you extract it and if you look at cyclodextrins under a microscope they look like little pieces of elbow macaroni with one end bigger than the other. The outside of the macaroni loves water that's called hydrophilic loves water. The inside of that little macaroni loves fat they call that lipophilic. So if you have fat-soluble compounds like red ginseng or like quercetin or like berberine or like coenzyme Q10, the list goes on. When you look at some of these compounds they don't absorb very well and so if you put them into, if you pack those little macaronis with these fat-soluble compounds, it can boost absorption, like, for example, one study on coenzyme Q10 showed that putting it in a cyclodextrin system can boost absorption eight times better than plain CoQ10. So that's huge. So gamma cyclodextrin I said natural plant compounds.

Cheryl Myers:

Science has known about cyclodextrins for decades. The earliest ones were called alpha and beta cyclodextrins. These cyclodextrins were small and they used them and their macaroni pieces were itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny. They used them in the pharmaceutical industry for delivery systems, because when you look at pharmaceuticals, they tend to be teeny-tiny, they tend to be very, very small, whereas nutrients are usually much larger. But more recently, there's been more research on the gamma form, which is the largest form of the cyclodextrin, and it, yes, indeed, can accommodate nutrients, and that's why we adopted using gamma cyclodextrin in our trademark system that we named GammaZorb. That boosts the absorption of these fat-soluble compounds and, as a very smart person I know once said it doesn't matter what you take, it matters what you absorb. If you can't absorb it, it's not going to do anything for you, and so that's why, as you know, many of the products in the Terry Naturally line are in what we call the GammaZorb system or in the boosted absorption system, not every one.

Cheryl Myers:

Some people say well, if it's so good, why don't you put every single, put every product in the GammaZorb system? Well, it's because every product doesn't need the GammaZorb system. Some things are completely water-soluble and they don't really benefit from GammaZorb. Some things absorb just fine on their own, so why would you add another level of complexity and cost? But I'm telling you, for those things that don't absorb very well, you will notice a difference, for example, with the red ginseng standalone product, that chewable red ginseng energy I was talking about.

Cheryl Myers:

That is in GammaZorb system. We do have it in a capsule. That's not gamazorb and that's entirely fine if that's the way you prefer to take your supplements. But that chewable, that's the one that you're going to notice, in my opinion, a massive difference when you use that product. And in fact, when Dr Teitelbaum did his study on chronic fatigue and post-viral fatigue, he allowed people to use either the capsule or the chewable and he found that even though the capsules were higher dosing each capsule was 200 milligrams, the chewable was 100 milligrams that one single chewable, 100 milligram red ginseng energy, worked as well or better than two or 400 milligrams of that same red ginseng in a capsule. So I have felt the difference that GammaZorb can make. I believe that your listeners will notice the difference too. If they've tried something in the past and not gotten the results that they desired, then try. You know, like, for example, with ginseng, try it in that GammaZorb system. It will surprise you.

Jim Wilk:

There you go, folks. Cheryl, is there any way people can follow you or you have anything going on that people can get in touch or follow some of your ventures?

Cheryl Myers:

Well, if anybody has questions, they can always contact me at info at EuroPharmaUSAcom. So it's Euro like Europe, pharma like pharmaceutical. So it's E-U-R-O-P-H-A-R-M-A. Make sure you put on the USA or you're going to end up in Europe. So, info at EuropharmaUSAcom Say that you have a question for Cheryl. I am absolutely delighted to try and help with that. If you want to visit our website, our website is uropharmausacom, where you can look at a list of our products. You can look at our corporate history. You can meet some of the people who work here. There's some articles on there about quality standards, so it's a nice place to visit to learn more about these really powerful and scientifically-based natural medicines.

Jim Wilk:

Cheryl, thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it. Remember, folks, you can go to hollyhillvitaminscom, mention nutz and UTZ and get 15% off some of these wonderful things we were talking about today. And, like what Terry says, all his products are guaranteed, so you got nothing to lose there. He's that sure of himself there, which is great. I like that confidence in him. Thank you so much, Cheryl, for being on.

Cheryl Myers:

It's always a delight. Thank you for inviting me.

Jim Wilk:

All right, folks, we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to the channel so you can get our latest episodes, and if you want to contact me with any questions or comments, try jimwilkcnc at gmailcom. Thanks again.