www.lux-review.com Page 63 LUX 2021 Food & Drink Awards Sep21174 With extensive research and development in the area of iminosugars, Dr Robert Nash has produced a range of products that are geared to improving the health of people suffering from certain life-changing conditions. We speak to Robert to find out more about this fascinating research and his pioneering health food creations. Dr Nash Glyco Health Health Food Shop of the Year 2021 – West Wales Oct 739 DrNashGlycoHealth is a brand name for Sugars for Health Limited (SfH), a company which was set up by Professor Robert Nash to develop health-promoting food and food supplement products from the research of its sister company, PhytoQuest Limited. “The main focus of the research is to develop new and better medicines from natural sources,” explains Robert. “We have over 20 years of R&D data and cannot follow all interesting discoveries to new medicines and so we decided three years ago to develop and market our own food products using the research we had already done.” The important thing for Robert and the employees at SfH is that the products should work to improve or maintain health and the firm measures active compounds that it has discovered and patented, then it ensures these are in the finished products. The continued research of the company is primarily on better cancer treatments, brain health, reducing inflammation and improving outcomes for diabetes (potentially curing and not just controlling blood sugars). Professor Nash has a strong academic background with more than 200 referred scientific publications and granted patents. His main focus is on the importance of sugars in health, and he was awarded the 1st Pierre Fabre Prize by the Phytochemical Society of Europe in 2001 for his work on iminosugars. “SfH is a leader in research on the iminosugar group of active molecules present in many if not most plants,” Robert elaborates, telling us the key differentiators which work to distinguish the organisation from competitors. “Few other groups work on these molecules because they are difficult to detect, and the biological effects are very complicated for non-specialists. Most companies and researchers focus on easily measured compounds such as flavonoids and other anti-oxidants even though they are in fact in all plants and so do not really explain why some plants are much more beneficial to health than others.” Whilst it is not clear that high doses of antioxidants really are good for you, Robert explains that iminosugars are able to control sugars and responses to sugars in the body in many ways. The immune system uses sugar signals to pick-up viral and bacterial infections and cancerous cells. He says, “We make sure we stay ahead of others on iminosugar research and that our products contain these important components.” SfH has a dedicated team of highly qualified research staff with broad experience relevant to the organisation’s interests. All staff have to be interested in the research and in finding new, better medicines and this is an imperative feature when Robert is recruiting for new employees. “They need to be inquisitive and inventive and not just follow protocols as we need to find new active molecules,” Robert says. Robert has a range of iminosugar products available for sale from his online shop, including Q-actin, a quality-controlled cucumber extract with an anti-inflammatory iminosugar, and IminoHoney for maintaining immune function. Inflammation and immune responses are seen as more important than ever after Covid-19, and so it is a particularly good time to have such products available. Robert breaks things down for us as he tells us, “We are primarily working a new group of iminosugar molecules that activate the immune system to cancer cells without being toxic. These are very rare in nature, but we have found one, Iminose A, is in a natural honey but each batch has to be checked for the molecule as it is not always there. The molecule has been synthesised along with variants and we are confident one of these will one day be a ground-breaking solid tumour cancer treatment that does not damage the general health of the patient. Some vets have been using the honey product in dogs with natural tumours and results are encouraging. The anti-inflammatory molecule (idoBR1) from certain cucumbers is also very exciting because inflammation is seen as a key factor in ageing and illnesses such as osteo-arthritis and Alzheimer’s. idoBR1 seems much safer than a steroid and much more effective than glucosamine and chondroitin.” Having recently been awarded the prestigious accolade of Health Food Shop of the Year 2021 – West Wales in the LUXlife Food and Drink Awards, DrNashGlycoHealth has a few developments in the pipeline for the future. Contact: Professor Robert Nash Company: DrNashGlycoHealth Web Address: www.drnashglycohealth.co.uk
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