Nitric Oxide - The “Miracle Molecule” and PRIME NO Activator from Qivana

PRIME is the most effective method available for restoring Nitric Oxide and improving blood flow.
Most supplement companies don’t bother with research, but PRIME was more than 10 years in development with the top Nitric Oxide scientists in the world. This is truly a next-generation product. All of the Nitric Oxide products on the market rely entirely on the amino acid L-arginine to boost nitric oxide. Yet this complex pathway has proven to be highly inefficient and works much less in people over age 40. L-arginine supplements can help some, but we’ve proven they aren’t the best.

PRIME is so advanced that it’s light years ahead of the next best product on the market. It is the only product that restores Nitric Oxide production using all the known pathways, not just L-arginine. We’ve tested hundreds and hundreds of different plants, roots, barks, foods, and extracts. Using our proprietary algorithm we were able to quantify the Nitric Oxide potential of each and create a supplement using only the most potent materials proven to produce nitric oxide. We don’t ignore the L-arginine pathway…but we also use entirely new and different pathways, that are more effective for creating nitric oxide.

Our technology also takes advantage of a little known fact – a significant amount of N-O production occurs in the mouth! That’s right…nutrients react with bacteria in the mouth and produce nitric oxide. That means that the majority of the products can’t take advantage of this pathway because they bypass the mouth entirely using capsules, tablets, pills, and even drinks. Our Direct Dissolve® powder formula is specifically designed to sit in your mouth and begin producing nitric oxide immediately.
PRIME is light-years ahead of the competition.

The Diminishing Case Against Saturated Fat - Dr. Donald K. Layman

Since the 1970’s, nutrition policy and recommendations have focused on reducing dietary saturated fat (SFA) and cholesterol. However, during the past decade, we’ve begun to learn that SFA and cholesterol are likely under false arrest. They’ve been framed with guilt by association and not with solid facts. Let’s explore the evidence against SFA.

The case against saturated fats dates back to the 1950’s and Dr. Ancel Keys. Dr. Keys was a researcher in public health at the University of Minnesota and a native of the island of Crete off of Greece in the Mediterranean. He observed that people in Minnesota ate more meat, dairy and SFA than people in Crete and they had greater incidence of heart disease. Keys decided that was an important link to the cause of heart disease and he set out to prove it. Keys surveyed 21 countries around the world for their intake of SFA and incidence of heart disease. To his amazement, he found no association – absolutely zero! But, Keys was convinced he was right – and did not want to ruin a good theory with facts – so, he set about to eliminate countries from his survey that did not support his theory. After eliminating the data from 14 countries (including Greece that had the same diet as Crete), he finally found 7 countries that supported his theory and he published what has become known as the “Seven Countries Survey.” Beyond the manipulation of the data in the report, other facts that Keys ignored were that people living in the more topical climate on Crete ate more fresh green vegetables, olive oil, fish, and walked everywhere. No one was over weight and the lifestyle was slow and relaxed, but those facts did not support the SFA story and were hidden from the jury.

Since the 1950’s, the SFA recommendation has remained controversial. There is an axiom in science that a theory that is true will gain momentum over time as other scientists test the theory. For SFA, just the opposite has occurred with doubts increasing over time.

How can we make sense out of the SFA case? The true part of the story is that when the blood contains high amount of SFAs, there are usually increases in the bad cholesterol (LDL). So more SFA seems to equal more bad cholesterol and presumably greater risk for heart disease. But the confusing part comes from why blood levels of SFA increase. We’ve been told it’s because we eat too many animal fats, but since 1970 consumption of red meat declined by 25%, milk by 35% and eggs by 40% and heart disease stayed the same. So the evidence doesn’t fit the crime. The truth is most of the SFA in the blood comes from dietary carbohydrates that the body makes into SFA. Scientists call this de novo lipogenesis or the process of making SFA from carbohydrates in the liver.

Okay, let’s look a little deeper. The SFA that seems to be the problem is called palmitate, a long-chain saturated fatty acid. The interesting thing about palmitate is that after thousands of years of human evolution, it is the only SFA the human can make. When you eat a meal that contains more than about 40 grams of carbohydrates, the body is forced to convert the carbs into fat for storage. The average American diet contains over 100 grams of Carbs at every meal. So about 60 grams must be converted into fat and the only fat that the body can make in the liver is palmitate.

Dr. Julie Hirsch at Rockefeller University established this piece of the puzzle back in 1996. Dr. Hirsch did a cool experiment. He fed test subjects two different diets, one diet with 40% fat and 45% Carbs and the other diet with 10% fat and 75% Carbs. Both diets used the same fat, just different amounts. The fat in each diet was a combination of olive oil, lard and corn oil containing about 31% SFA. So the subjects getting the high carb diet had ¼ the amount of palmitate in their diet. After consuming these diets for 25 days, the subjects eating the high carb diet had significantly more palmitate in their blood than the subjects eating the high fat diet. Really! The subjects getting the high fat diet got 31% of their fat as palmitate and most of the rest was olive oil, while the subjects eating the high carb diet had to convert all of the extra Carbs into fat and the ONLY fat they could make was palmitate. So they ended up with almost 45% more palmitate in their blood eating a low fat diet.

The true evidence in the SFA case is only now being uncovered from the mass of misinformation. The landmark paper by Drs. Frank Hu and Ron Krauss in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2010 found that after reviewing all of the published scientific reports “…there was no association of dietary SFA with heart disease … except when combined with a high carbohydrate diet.”

We now know that dietary SFA is dangerous only when at least three other dietary problems occur at the same time: 1) eating too many calories (obesity), 2) eating too many Carbs, and 3) eating too little protein. If your diet is balanced and healthy, then SFA are not a problem. This is the healthy balance created by the METABOLIQ Lifestyle and part of the science incorporated into every METABOLIQ Shake, Bar, and meal.

For your health,
Dr. Donald K. Layman
Qivana, CSO

Dr. Donald K. Layman is Professor Emeritus of Nutrition in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois. With more than 33 years of teaching and research experience, Dr. Layman has numerous awards and recognitions, including awards from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, the Nat

Healthy Muscles For Healthy Adults

Muscle size and strength are usually associated with body builders and athletes, but the latest research is proving that healthy muscles are critical for adult health. Average life expectancy continues to increase, but along with the blessing of longer life comes the risk of age-related diseases. The risks for obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, and cancers increase with advancing age. Excluding individuals who die early in life from an accident, injury or acute illness, we all expect to live healthy and robust lives well into our 80’s or beyond. For adults over the age of 65, the real risks for loss of health relate to muscle function and mobility. The measure of functional mobility is defined as the ability to perform activities of daily living or ADL. ADL is a measure of independent living and directly predicts morbidity and mortality – how healthy will you be? … and how long will you live?

A few years ago, a colleague, Dr. Robert Wolfe, wrote an article entitled The Underappreciate Role of Muscle in Health and Disease. The article highlighted the importance of skeletal muscle in adult health. Dr. Wolfe looked at healthy aging, acute illnesses, chronic diseases, and recovery from surgery or falls and the common factor for recovery and even survival from each of these conditions was skeletal muscle health. If your muscles are healthy, then your odds of avoiding or recovering from illnesses improve greatly. Dr. Wolfe reported some eye-opening facts – women over the age of 65 who fall and break a hip, over 50% never walk again; recovery from cancer and chemotherapy is directly related to muscle mass at initial diagnosis; and risk of developing diabetes is inversely related to muscle metabolic health. Dr. Steve Blair at the Cooper Institute coined the concept of Fit and Fat to reflect that many people can be overweight and still healthy – as long as they have good muscle health. The list of examples goes on but the point is clear, healthy muscles equal healthy adults.

The importance of muscle health highlights a critical difference among weight loss diets. There are many fad diets and so-called nutrition companies that make claims about rapid weight loss or cures for obesity, but the secret they want to hide is they also cause muscle loss. That’s a critical factor when you evaluate a weight loss program. People tend to ask “how much weight can I lose in the shortest period of time?” These quick fix fad diets may work for spring break when you’re 18 to 22, but it’s a dangerous practice for any adult over 30. The correct questions are “is it a proven weight loss program, and what are the proportions of fat and muscle lost?” Be sure that the so-called miracle diet PROVES that it only causes loss of body fat and not muscle. Loss of muscle means you have damaged your metabolic flexibility and your functional mobility and virtually guaranteed the weight will return (note: research shows 93% of weight is regained within one year with these fad diets); and even worse the weight that returns will be all body fat increasing the risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. If you lose muscle during weight loss, the muscle loss will be permanent increasing your metabolic risks and accelerating aging.

Muscle health is so important that medical experts in gerontology are debating whether adults over 60 should EVER lose weight. Skeletal muscles have obvious importance for posture and mobility. When we’re young our muscles are strong and flexible. The same is true for metabolism. Young muscles have high metabolic flexibility. Teenagers seldom get muscle soreness and usually recover rapidly after an exercise challenge. As we get older, we observe changes in physical strength and flexibility, and there are changes in metabolic flexibility that we can’t see. As we get older, muscle health and metabolic flexibility requires more attention.

To maintain muscle health, you need healthy behaviors and a healthy lifestyle. Two major components of a healthy lifestyle are physical activity and nutrition, and specifically the physical activity needs to involve stretching and resistance and the nutrition needs to control protein and Carbs. These are fundamental principles in theMETABOLIQ Lifestyle.

Don’t be fooled by the claims of the latest fad diet. Look for the research. METABOLIQ was developed and tested to protect skeletal muscles and the results are published in the leading nutrition research journals. We’ve done the research with young adults and with adults over 65. METABOLIQ allows for natural loss of body fat while protecting active muscles for everyone. Remember, muscles are the foundation of adult health and the METABOLIQ Lifestyle delivers on the promise of energizing muscles and creating a natural and healthy weight loss.

For your health,
Dr. Donald K. Layman
CSO, Qivana

Dr. Donald K. Layman is Professor Emeritus of Nutrition in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois. With more than 33 years of teaching and research experience, Dr. Layman has numerous awards and recognitions, including awards from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, the National Institutes of Health and the Nutrition and Metabolism Society.