Danielle Lin, CN: Hello and welcome. I’m Danielle Lin and this is Science of Your Life. We have literally designed a library to help you as a formulator and developer and if you are an innovator, identifying where you are going in the nutraceutical lifestyle industries, this will help you locate the leading companies in the world offering branded ingredients in the premium and based on science with proven efficacy and sustainability.
We are addressing healthy aging, embracing life stages and healthcare needs according to the different times in one’s life. The idea is to be proactive. Each year 3.5 million Baby-Boomers turn 55 and by 2050 there will be more than 80 million elderly persons. There is a growing need for quality products and healthcare, especially when you look in nutraceuticals and what they can do to provide a quality of life.
Today we will highlight Pycnogenol®, a proprietary and patented antioxidant plant extract from the bark of French Maritime Pine Bark. It is one of the moth versatile and significant single, natural ingredients in the world with over 130 clinical studies on 10,000 patients and considered (from my perspective) a platform nutraceutical. Horphag® Research from Switzerland has devoted over 40 years to cultivate the brand and impact one ingredient and shows how just one ingredient can impact worldwide and on the quality of life as we age.
Danielle Lin, CN: Joining me is Dr. Fred Pescatore, a New York Times Best Selling Author. He has his new book out, “The A-List Diet.” I happen to have done it and I’m good. He’s one of the nation’s foremost authorities on diet and nutrition, complimentary medicine, and a wide range of wellness and lifestyle topics. He’s a regular contributor to my radio program and for consumers.
I really believe he is one of the major advocates for human health in the world and sets standards that the industry rises to. He hails out of New York with a global practice and, again, it is always so…I don’t know, you’ve just become one of the favorite experts and masters that have been on my show over the 3 decades and every time we are together I always feel like I walk away with something powerful.
Danielle Lin, C.N.: Welcome back and I’m glad to be talking about your favorite, Pycnogenol®. You’re famous for it.
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Yes, Pycnogenol® is one of my absolute favorites.
Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
Danielle Lin, CN: Literally. Dr. Fred Pescatore: It can do so many different things because of its mechanism of action. I am excited to be talking to you and to everyone about this.
Danielle Lin, CN: I think it’s part of the challenge because it is…especially since it’s related to vascular health, it’s a challenge when you can do all and be all to focus the enormity of the impact Pycnogenol® can have. So, let’s talk about what makes the ingredients so unique and effective.
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Well, what makes it, I think, unique and effective is that it can help regenerate Collagen and Hyaluronic Acid and so Collagen, as people may or may not know, is literally in pretty much every cell of our body. It lines our blood vessels. It lines our lungs.
It does so many different things. It’s in our joint spaces. Breath So, that’s why when you are looking at an ingredient like Pycnogenol® you can really create a product that can work with skin, heart, brain, and joint health. I mean the list just goes on and on and that’s why it’s so fascinating. It works to promote skin micro-circulation and it’s an antioxidant that is 50 times more powerful than Vitamin E and 20 times more powerful than Vitamin C.
Danielle Lin, CN: Remember when Vitamin C was the only antioxidant and then E came along. We’ve come so far. People believe that you have to have so many, but I want you to share your experience of what one ingredient can do when you’re formulating and still how potent it can be when you deliver something to the marketplace.
We’re talking with Dr. Fred Pescatore. It is all about Pycnogenol®. If you’ve ever listened to my program you know we’ve talked about it for years. It’s spelled PYCNOGENOL® and, as I mentioned, it’s an extract from French Maritime Pine Trees. So, you can take a look at that from Horphag® and we’ll give you the information when we return. Pycnogenol.com is a great place to start.
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Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
Danielle Lin, CN: When you have a single ingredient it’s kind of astounding to think you could do so many clinical studies but imagine for a minute that you have 130 clinical studies with over 10,000 patients backing you when you formulate? So, on the back of that product ingredient, you know, you would see the ingredient on the bottle and it would say Pycnogenol® and if you’re not putting branded names on the backs of your products you are losing out on (I think) exposure and good exposure and power that people say, “Well, I don’t want anybody to know what I have in it.”
You should absolutely have someone know (and especially consumers nowadays) because Pycnogenol® is one of the most (I think a far as marketed to the consumer) there isn’t another ingredient in the world that anyone has ever taken responsibility for so we’re continuing here talking about Horphag® Research bringing Pycnogenol® to the market, first patented in 1987 and Dr. Pescatore is with us. Dr. Pescatore, let’s run through the clinicals. I know there is so many but there’s a real focus here when you are talking about health aging.
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Well, sure. I mean, when you are looking at healthy aging it’s more than just about skin but if you want to start off talking about skin I think we should look at this skin health study that showed that Pycnogenol® improves visual signs of aging at a physiological and molecular level. So, it increases skin hydration up to 8%, and skin elasticity by 25% in women and that study was published in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology. So, that’s important. It was also found that it’s the only natural supplement to date that stimulates Hyaluronic Acid production in human skin.
Then, you can look at some of the heart-health studies published in the European Heart Journal. This Dr. Ensolite showed for the first time that Pycnogenol® improves endothelial production and blood-flow in patients with Coronary Artery Disease who are dependent on medication.
Another study showed that Pycnogenol® is effective in helping to reduce health risk factors associated with Metabolic Syndrome including obesity and high blood pressure. Metabolic Syndrome is probably one of the main killers
in the United States right now.
Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
We can talk about brain function studies as well. The Journal of Neurosurgical Sciences found that Pycnogenol® improved attention span, decision making and memory for baby-boomers, and that year-long study also recorded that supplementation with Pycnogenol® was found to boost all around cognitive performance including the ability to manage people, finances, and stress (which is what a lot of people do these days).
Pycnogenol® was also found to improve memory in test scores in college students while decreasing test anxiety by 17%. So, that study only further brought Pycnogenol® in with the memory and senior citizen study that they also had. So, now we have Pycnogenol®, a study, looking at younger people and with older people.
Then, if we go right to joint, which is another healthy aging thing, there is a series of 3 double-blind placebo controlled clinical studies carried out on Pycnogenol® in U.S. and Europe which found significant pain relief and joint flexibility movement in patients with osteoarthritis. Another published study showed it lowered a biomarker called CRP in patients with arthritis after taking Pycnogenol®. So, when you can find a branded ingredient, when you can find clinical biomarkers that the end-user, whether it be the physician, whether it be the consumer themselves, can do something and see, that’s super powerful.
Danielle Lin, CN: You look at it and you realize clinical studies and trials with skin, heart, cognitive, and joint…and the truth is there’s just too many to even talk about because it’s that vast and the significance is like the vascular system is everything. It drives your nutrients, it builds your cell walls with the continuity within the body.
When Pycnogenol® enters into the body it does so many magnificent things. It is astounding. That’s why when you talk about it you think, oh, it’s a Panacea. No, it really is a perfected nutrient and that’s why it’s exciting to talk about it. You can hear that in Dr. Pescatore’s voice.
I’m Danielle Lin, this is Science of Your Life. We’re going to talk about the mechanism of action, the specifications, the dosage in the studies, and how you can formulate with one of the most reliable companies in the world in the Lifestyle and Nutraceutical ingredient industry.
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Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
When I started on the radio decades ago, 3 decades ago, Pycnogenol® is one of the very first companies that supported me when I began to believe that raw materials were the most relevant thing you could ever talk about in life and that branded raw materials (which maybe at that time there were 3) everyone thought they were crazy. Pycnogenol® continued to hold the course, stay steady, do the studies, be consistent, never lose the quality, never base it on price. It was always on the grace of this French Maritime Pine Tree.
That’s why today I can honestly say this, the #1 branded ingredient in the world as far as story-telling and delivery of a proprietary, patented ingredient. There is no other French Maritime Pine Bark. You just, you know, this is what you buy. I can say that with all truth because I watched this industry grow for so many years.
Dr. Pescatore, I know you could talk about it because you say it’s your desert island nutraceutical but when we look at it from a science point of view, the specifications, what’s in Pycnogenol® that we should know about as a standardized ingredient?
Dr. Fred Pescatore: It’s a natural, unique blend of Procyanidins, Bioflavonoid, and Organic Acids and that all together along with the antioxidant potential gives it its’ amazing health properties. It’s standardized ingredients, so it’s compound and so the combinations are consistent in every product that you can formulate so that you don’t have to worry about.
Danielle: You and I both love looking. I know, someone said to me, “Oh, you’re talking to scientists again. How is that going?” You know, I get so excited when people go, “Oh, that’s some science!” I go, “Yeah! Right?” Mechanism of action.
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Well, you have to talk science, right? You have to know what you’re doing when you’re formulating ingredients. Pycnogenol® is pretty much basic properties with its mechanisms of action, right?
So, it’s a powerful antioxidant (which I’ve talked about), it acts as a natural anti-inflammatory, it helps bind Collagen and Elastin in the skin, and aids in the production of Endothelial Nitric Oxide which helps to dilate blood vessels.
So, pretty much, that’s why. Danielle, you mention it all the time. It’s why Pycnogenol® has so many applications because these are four pretty…we call them basic properties…but they really are foundations of health.
Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
Danielle Lin, CN: Yeah, they are platforms, you know, it’s a platform nutraceutical. You can build any product on top. I think there’s over 700 products with Pycnogenol®. You would think, oh, the market is crowded but no. If you went down the street and said, “Hey, do you know the word Pycnogenol®?” The truth is, most people would not know. Real quick because I want to get to the dosage, but I remember when the first time it was introduced to me, the endothelial and nitric oxide, talk about just for a second why that is so important when it aids in the production of that.
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Nitric-Oxide helps to open up blood vessels. Blood vessels in many different diseases close down and that’s why we get blocked arteries. That’s why we get migraine headaches and all sorts of things. So, to enable to increase Nitric-Oxide, I mean that’s why it can also help with sports nutrition. Anything that opens up blood vessels brings oxygen into parts of the body. When you have oxygen going to parts of the body that’s when the body can heal, repair, grow, be healthy, and do what it needs to do.
Danielle: When the dosage you look at or taken as a supplement, what’s the typical that’s in the studies and that you would take and is it every day in the lifestyle again in that same area?
Dr. Fred Pescatore: Sure, the typical dosage is anywhere in the studies was usually up to 150mg per day. I generally told patients to take 100mg every day. Because of all of those mechanisms of action I have my patients take it every single day. So, I recommend it every day. I take it every day. It’s anywhere from 30mg to 150mg per day.
Danielle Lin, CN: I know for me I never get on an airplane, I never go to a trade event, I never worry about my feet swelling, you can pretty much guarantee when you take this when you get on a plane (this is just my opinion and my experience) that you have to take it when you are doing travel because of the fact that is helps you on a vascular level so much.
We’re talking about Pycnogenol® from Horphag®. Pychogenol.com is the place you can get it when you are formulating in liquid, powder, capsules, and we will talk more about the different areas in functional foods in cosmetic formulas, in beverages for target market segments when we return. Danielle Lin, this is Science of Your Life.
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Science of Your Life – Transcription with Danielle Lin, C.N
Danielle Lin, CN: You’re listening to Science of Your Life, the truth is (and I’m Danielle Lin) at the end of the day with Pycnogenol® and not all others (and I can say that) we could do a series on Pycnogenol®. That’s how significant it is. When you start looking at how you can make a difference in your customer’s lives.
So, I want you to go to Pycnogenol.com. That’s where you can learn all of the information. The ingredient is GRAS, non-GMO, trademarked, patented, as we said before one of the best reasons to partner and, again, with a novel (we talked about Robuvit®) but this is like a standard. Robuvit® is new into the industry so you have novelty in a positive way. It’s novel. There’s a new story.
Pycnogenol® is so deep with substance and rich with texture that’s why it is outlasting for so many decades most ingredients in the world. When you look at working with Horphag® Research that’s what you’re going to find. A worldwide exclusive supplier has invested millions of dollars into this securing of extensive quality clinicals, the evidence with over 340 published studies and reviewing articles and expanding all the time.
Dr. Pescatore, one thing that I wanted to bring back, we’ve talked about the Baby- Boomer generation and the fact that this Pycnogenol® really, I don’t know what young age you can start at but mind the Millenn
French maritime pine bark extract is a high-quality, premium ingredient, a unique blend of natural antioxidants. Over 40 years of research have been dedicated by Horphag to establishing the safety, efficacy and quality of Pycnogenol®.
Guest: Fred Pescatore, M.D.
