How Do You Know If Your Supplements Are Working?
In the fall of 2011, we added the Pharmanex Biophotonic Scanner (Raman Spectrometer) to our services. This scanner allows us to assess dermal caroteniods that are accepted in the medical literature as being an accurate biomarker of your health and nutrition status. The reason we added the scanner is that previously we had no way of non-invasively measuring nutrient absorption.
The Biophotonic Scanner is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded technology based on a Nobel Prize winning discovery in physics called the Raman effect. Based on this discovery, a new technique, called Raman spectroscopy, was developed and is now commonly used in chemistry to provide a fingerprint by which molecules can be identified.
In 1995, scientists at the University of Utah's Moran Eye Center were awarded a grant by the NIH to study eye disease (age related macular degeneration). What was known at the time was that a low level of carotenoids, antioxidants that give fruits and vegetables their red, yellow and orange colors, predisposed a person to the disease. What was unavailable was a non-invasive way to identify carotenoid content in the macula of the eye. These scientists developed the first Raman spectrometer to measure the carotenoid levels in living human tissue.
This resonance Raman spectrometer has been validated by many scientific studies including this one done by Yale University:
Recently, this scanner was called “The Ultimate Nutritional Lie Detector Test” by Dr. Oz. In the same way that taking your vital signs (blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature) and blood work gives us a biomarker of your health, the Biophotonic scanner measures how much protection you have against disease by determining the level of antioxidants in your body (called your Skin Carotenoid Score). We can now, with incredible accuracy, tell you whether you are absorbing the nutrients from your food and/or supplements!
Why is this so important? Because low carotenoid levels indicate chronic oxidative stress. This is responsible for a myriad of ailments. Current medical literature indicates that low levels of antioxidants (chronic oxidative stress) increase your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, depression, cataracts, and macular degeneration, and many other diseases.
Dr. Richard Cutler, MD, former director of Anti-Aging of the National Institutes for Health said, "The amount of antioxidants we maintain in the tissues of our bodies is directly proportional to how long we live."
Determining your level of oxidative stress is an amazing tool to help guide you on your path to optimal health. Simply put, it is not what you eat, but what you absorb!
"The cutaneous carotenoid concentration correlates with the overall antioxidant status of a person and can be seen as biomarker for nutrition and lifestyle."
"The investigations show that a healthy diet and a well-balanced lifestyle correlate with a high cutaneous antioxidant concentration and that spectroscopic biofeedback measurement of cutaneous carotenoids as part of an integrated prevention program is a feasible and effective means to raise the health awareness in adolescents."
We will take a careful look at your current diet and supplement use. It is no longer necessary to literally throw money away on supplements that don't absorb and/or could be causing harm (most of them on the market). We recommend only products which are guaranteed to enhance your absorption. We do not sell supplements, we sell validated health!
