Natural Health Products & Reversal of Metabolic Disorders
Live from the house in Repentigny with Pierre Haddad to meet you around the book but also to answer your questions about Metabzen and Gluconig, the formulas he created.
Transcript of the live session that you can watch here. * (in French)
Pierre Haddad is a pharmacologist, scientific director, researcher, professor, and co-founder of the Canadian Society for Natural Health Products Research, founded in 2003.
Answer to your questions:
Can everyone try these formulas? Is there a danger in trying a natural health product such as, for example, Metabzen?
In fact, it should not be harmful for someone who does not have health issues. It is mainly a preventive tool. It works on the liver and the entire body with American Ginseng. By the way, it's an aspect I hadn't thought of: the boost in energy that people notice with Metabzen. It was really in the sense of the role of American Ginseng for sugar management and metabolism in general. But it is true that it works on an endocrine level, so the hormones, the nervous system, and the immune system. American Ginseng also provides more energy on both mental and physical levels. That aspect wasn't planned, let's say!
On this subject: testimony from Stéphanie, whom we had met earlier this summer in Vaudreuil and who was discouraged, due to menopause, by her lack of energy. Today, she came back to tell us that she has regained her energy with the B Complex and Metabzen.
Another great testimony today, that of Louise: she was prediabetic and now has no signs.
Do we then say that diabetes is in remission?
It doesn't disappear, it depends on our lifestyle habits. It's true that if we continued to live in a world where healthy eating is difficult (especially if we work), but there is a way to do it, and I admire Jacynthe for this aspect of rigor that is not always easy because sugary and fatty foods are like drugs, in a way.
Reversal of diabetes:
It is, moreover, a clinical reality that is increasingly being accepted: the reversal of diabetes. Obviously, it depends on how far along you are. As with all diseases, if we are too advanced, reversing will be more difficult. That's why Metabzen is really formulated to address metabolic syndrome, that is, when we are prediabetic, have an excessive waist circumference, elevated triglycerides, low good cholesterol, a bit of hypertension, so a constellation of symptoms (but they are not symptoms because you don't feel hypertension unless there are headaches or things like that). So, this formula was really conceived and thought out in terms of prevention. We don't need to wait until we're sick to start helping ourselves.
Nutrition is the cornerstone, and supplements add tools. You really have to see it as tools!
There is Milk Thistle really well dosed to help liver functions. The liver is a central organ in general metabolism and even in the energetic aspect. I don't know much about traditional Chinese medicine, but I am certain that the liver really helps with the circulation of energy.
Can a person with type 2 diabetes take Metabzen and Gluconig?
Absolutely because once again, it's supportive. I have been thinking about this formula for about fifteen years, precisely by studying plants against diabetes and looking at the problems that arise in metabolic diseases like this. So, I know that the liver is a central organ, but vitamin D is also needed because a lack of vitamin D increases the chances of developing metabolic diseases. There are three components that help with blood sugar, including American Ginseng and Nigella, which is truly a wonderful plant, and Chromium, an essential trace element for insulin action. For the congested liver, diet will help if we eliminate sugar and all that, but the plants that work on the liver will support our body through these changes. So, it works very well together and it was really designed in that sense, to be a general support and to address the different levels of disorders.
Can we take Metabzen and Gluconig spaced 2 hours apart from our medication intake?
And if you take oral hypoglycemics, it depends on which class you have, there is still a risk of hypoglycemia because these are active plants. It is pharmacologically active even if it is natural, I teach this at the university! You need to monitor your blood sugar levels. If you are diabetic, you do it anyway. So, if you plan to add something, you obviously need to talk to your doctor about it. And it's like anything else: your doctor won't add medications without adjusting the dose of the others if you were already on one. It's a bit of the same principle; you have to approach it thoughtfully and with guidance. If you monitor your blood sugar levels and notice episodes of hypoglycemia, it would be better to stop and consult your doctor. Even if it means adjusting the medication dose. It's not necessarily a bad thing if Metabzen works for you to help manage your blood sugar better. Well, we can consider adjusting the medication doses downwards to work with that. I'm not a doctor; we need to be accompanied by our healthcare specialist.
What can we do to purify the liver?
Purify... it's one of the terms that healthcare professionals don't really like. I would use the term "supporting liver functions" instead. Moreover, these are the claims we can make because the scientific evidence is there. Health Canada, everything we can indicate about the claims has been recognized by international pharmacopoeias, by research, etc. Even I have conducted studies with Milk Thistle in the case of the famous non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. It's true that it was on animals, but that's part of the normal progression of research. We call that preclinical studies, so before going to humans, we test our ideas. And it had significant benefits for supporting the liver and preventing the negative effects of a high-fat diet that somewhat mimicked fatty liver and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. You're right, it has become the most common liver disease and it follows the health problems that are linked to the environment we live in: poorer diet, decreased physical activity, and stress. We always forget this last factor and you talk about it in your book. What I liked about the book is the holistic vision; because we can't reduce everything. Metabzen is not a miracle, it's a tool.
Gluconig:
To have less impact on the increase in sugar after a meal. We also call it postprandial in more scientific terms. And then it's a Quebec innovation. It's really a blend of brown seaweeds from the St. Lawrence estuary developed in Rimouski by a 100% Quebec company, supported by a lot of scientific and clinical research, including on humans, to show the benefits of this. What it does is slow down the digestion of complex sugars by the enzymes in your intestine. It's especially the last stage where simpler sugars are transformed into monosaccharides, like glucose, fructose, all the very simple sugars. (...) It helps to reduce the spike. Instead of a very high blood sugar spike that causes the pancreas to produce a lot of insulin to try to control it, we will have a much slower and much less stressful rise for the pancreas and the entire body. This avoids crashes, like the crashes after a chocolate bar or something sweet. We get a sugar buzz, but then, because insulin does its job well, it lowers the sugar but below normal levels, leading to hypoglycemia afterwards. And this is all because of the too rapid rise in blood sugar after meals, especially those rich in sugar.
In fact, what I like about your book is that it doesn't deny the fact, even what you say, that even from the age of 30, metabolism starts to slow down, collagen production starts to slow down, so for the joints, it's another important part to manage. Healthy habits, a healthy life; if we start having joint pain, we will have a less interesting quality of life.
To return to the aspect of Metabzen, it is really a general support for a healthy metabolism and it will mitigate the effects on the liver by helping it with its functions. It helps with bile secretion, there's Turmeric that does that in Metabzen. There are plenty of good things to support the liver.
What will an unhealthy liver cause? What are the related problems?
It's mainly at the level of digestion. Stéphanie (whom we met earlier) mentioned that she felt a heaviness, digestion was difficult. The liver, we forget, is a central organ of the gastrointestinal system. It produces bile, which helps to properly emulsify fats so that they are digested and then better absorbed. And bile plays very important roles in digestion. The liver is an organ whose function is difficult to perceive because it has metabolic functions, but it is central.
It also manages all our nutrition. In fact, all the blood from the viscera must pass through the liver before entering the general circulation. It's quite particular because the liver receives three-quarters of its blood supply, a venous blood that drains the viscera, and thus plays a role in food management, but also in defense. All exogenous molecules, a good portion of them is also processed in the intestine itself, we're talking about enzymes for example; this is important for interactions with medications. So, it's not just your metabolic factory, its metabolism, but metabolism for protection against foreign exogenous substances, even if they come from your normal diet.
The liver, I teach it a lot. It produces all the proteins that transport your lipids in the blood, both good and bad cholesterol. It's the liver that produces them. The coagulation proteins too. It's a really central role. It also plays a significant role in hormone metabolism.
Diabetes and inflammation:
The liver is a central organ for managing this. What often happens is the clogging of fats that accumulate in the liver. It slows down metabolism, it slows down liver functions, and it also decreases the effect of insulin, which normally is to slow down. Because the liver is the only organ, with a little help from the kidneys, that can produce glucose according to your needs. So, it stores it, there is a form of storage called glycogen, a bit like animal starch, and which is available if you fast; well, for 24 hours your liver will provide you with glucose from that, but it can also do something else: it can transform amino acids or fatty acids into sugar, we call that new glycogenesis, it's the generation of sugar. So, it can provide sugar. Normally, insulin puts a brake on that, but when the liver gets overloaded with fat, the brake doesn't work very well, so your liver produces too much glucose. There are two important factors for insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes: in the liver, too much sugar production, and in skeletal muscles, which normally absorb and use glucose to function (for your movements, the energy source is glucose), and well, insulin brings glucose into the muscles, and here too, if there is insulin resistance, insulin does it less effectively. So, less sugar enters your muscles and more sugar is produced by the liver, leading to hyperglycemia and diabetes.
If we take antacids, can we still take Metabzen?
Normally, it shouldn't interfere...
And for a person who no longer has a spleen?
The spleen is more related to the immune system to my knowledge, it shouldn't interfere... ...
