Eulalee Thompson
A customer standing at the cashier's counter in the pharmacy, where I happened to be browsing the other day, was obviously peeved by the spike in the price of his usual bottle of food supplement of some sort. He sent the cashier to double check the price with the manager. She returned, confirmed the new price and the customer decided that he would get his precious supplement anyway, but replace the other items he had intended to purchase.
The 'precious supplement' turned out to be a bottle of 'Immuno-gizer'; the label states that it is a food purifier. I wondered what that could be and that curiosity eventually lead me to Dr. Robert Robinson, a specialist in internal medicine, who developed the product a few years ago to treat himself for rheumatoid arthritis.
"I used to suffer from severe arthritis, when I developed the product in 2004. When I hit my 40s, I started to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis (and) I went through the spectrum of drugs available locally. (One day) I was coming from church and I got a vision and I heard (that there was) too much fungus in my stomach," Dr. Robinson said.
Being medically trained and being a promoter of 'the Sabbatical Diet Programme' he understood the vision of stomach fungus in terms of the quality of his diet and some shift in his stomach's microflora. He went to his medical books and researched stomach bacteria and flora. He came up with the product Immuno-gizer using fruit acids as the active ingredient placed in a carrier liquid (the ester) of pure honey and, since adequate supplies of pure honey are difficult to source here, high fructose corn syrup is also used as a carrier liquid.
OFF ARTHRITIC DRUGS
"After a few months, I was off my arthritic drugs and I can play tennis again. I used to just share the product with my close friends and some of my patients, but they said that they wanted more and so business people came in and there is now a more structured marketing and sale (of the product)," he said.
Small local studies of the product indicate that the concoction not only eases arthritic symptoms, but symptoms associated with asthma, cancers, HIV/AIDS, migraine (headaches), etc.
Bad bacteria
What exactly is the science behind this invention? Dr. Robinson explains that the stomach's flora contains bacteria, some good and some not so good. Maintaining a healthy balance between good and bad bacteria promotes the proper regulation of hormones and the immune system that helps the body fight disease.
However, the healthy balance in the stomach flora is often thrown out by the quality of food and water taken. The foods we eat are making the stomach environment hostile. Processed foods (including wheat, rye barley), added preservatives and chlorine in water, Dr. Robinson said, interfere with the bacterio-fungal balance in the guts. They lead to overgrowth of bad bacteria and yeast in the gut flora.
"(Immuno-gizer) is essentially a prebiotic supplement as opposed to a probiotic, where the bacteria themselves are introduced. Prebiotics improve the environment where the bacteria grow - the intestines. Bacteria improve your health; the health of the bacteria improves on your health, the healthier the bacteria, the healthier you will be," he said.
(Yoghurt, for example, is a probiotic, supplementing the bacteria colony with new bacteria while prebiotic improves the environment in which the bacteria live).
Improves the immune system
The fruit acid concoction apparently works by suppressing the growth of bad bacteria and yeasts in the stomach and enhances the growth of good bacteria. The literature on the product also indicate by changing the condition of the stomach flora, the product is able to prevent the production of toxins and their consequent entrance into the blood and in this way improves your immune system.
"It does not remove toxins already in the blood, s your symptoms will improve immediately, a complete cure will only occur when toxins already present in the body are eliminated. Depending on the disease condition, this may take a few weeks to a few months. It is important to continue on medication and gradually reduce dosage on the advice of your doctor, as symptoms subside," product literature indicates.
I wondered if this product was registered by the Ministry of Health but Dr. Robinson indicates that it is not a drug but a food supplement.
"It is well documented that bacteria improve the immune system; it is a prebiotic component (and) it is well established that prebiotic supplement improve good bacteria," he emphasised.
eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com
