Do you know that you could be ill because of a deficiency in certain sugars? Hard to believe, I know, because we are told so often that too much sugar is bad for us. It was not all that long ago that scientists made the important discovery of a family of 'nutritional' sugars. Sugars that are found in plants, sugars that play an important part in the functioning of our immune systems, that boost kidney function and help prevent disease.



Scientists recognise that there is a direct link between disease and diet. The human body is an amazing machine that can heal itself of disease if it is given the proper nutrition that it requires. Conversely, the lack of appropriate nutrition in the diet can leave the body defenseless and susceptible to disease.

There are so many health problems today that can be attributed to dietary deficiencies. Fast foods and processed foods, which are lacking in nutritional value, make up a large portion of our diets today.

Many of the foods we eat are so processed that they no longer contain the essential nutrients that the body's immune system requires. This results in our immune systems becoming weaker and weaker so that they lose the ability to combat disease. The packaged foods that we eat tend to be loaded with additives that are designed to increase their shelf life with little thought of the nutritional value. Fruit and vegetables are often picked too early for the nutrients to have developed, and then are gassed to ripen.

But, let's step back in time a little. It had long been recognised that the aloe vera plant was one of the world's most popular and well-known plants used for healing. It was evident, however, that commercially processed aloe did not produce the same levels of health benefits that were evident with the fresh aloe vera gel.

In the early 1980s, a group attempting to isolate the medically active ingredient from the aloe vera plant, hired a research pharmacologist to find what caused the unique benefits of fresh aloe vera gel and why after processing, these benefits were no longer evident.

It was discovered, after lengthy research, that the active ingredient in the aloe vera gel was a long chain carbohydrate made up predominately of a sugar called Mannose. It was noticed that within a day or two of the aloe leaf being picked, this long-chain sugar molecule rapidly began to disintegrate, causing the gel to lose much of its effectiveness. A new process was then developed and patented that protected this long-chain sugar from being destroyed. This new stabilized aloe extract was then made available to the public in the form of a juice, and the testimonies began to flow in.

People with all kinds of health problems began reporting their improvement after taking the new product, and scientists could see they had their hands on something significant.

This brand new science of carbohydrate structuring was at that time being taught only at one or two universities in the world. It wasn't long, however, before researchers the world over began to take an interest and to study carbohydrates. This science became known as Glycobiology and by 1990 there had been around 4000 papers published. An article appeared identifying carbohydrates as being essential for immune function, and naming Glycobiology as one of the 'hottest' new fields of medical research. There was a complete chapter in the 1996 edition of Harper's Biochemistry, devoted to reviewing these sugars and the part they play in cell-to-cell communication.

It was found that of the 200 carbohydrate monosaccharides, or sugars, found in nature, there were eight biologically active sugars (glyconutrients) that gave our cells their structural support network and were critical for cellular communication. These glyco or sugar forms work to keep our hormones in balance, fight off disease invaders, enable blood to clot and create a complex cellular messaging system. Reason enough to include them in our diet?