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Hi, this is Dr. Shawn Talbott, welcome to another edition
of "From the Lab" And as you can see, once again it's becoming a common
theme, we're not exactly in the laboratory. Today I'm in
and for the last week, I've been in the jungle in Malaysia. Actually not in the jungle the whole
time. I've spent the last 10 days, I guess in Malaysia
half of the trip has been in the jungle, half of the trip; the first part of the trip
was in a scientific conference. I'm here to speak at Malaysian
palm oil nutrition week. And I'm speaking about some of the phytonutrients
that we find in plants in general, but in palm
fruit in particular...this little tiny fruit that I'll talk about
in this edition of "From the Lab", the kinds of nutrients that are in here and how they
can benefit everybody. I spoke specifically a couple of days ago, I spoke specifically about
how the palm fruit nutrients can be used in athletes because
one of the things that this is very rich in, well it's rich in lots of things, but it's rich in some very
unique fatty acids, that can help athletes recover.
Help athletes reduce inflammation and come back from their
very hard training. But also in this fruit, you can its bright color
it's very, very rich in keratinoids, which i've talked about in other
editions of "From the Lab" And it's also rich; new research is telling us
that it's also rich in flavinoids. And flavinoids are the phytonutrients
that acai is particularity rich in. So this, the whole
package in some ways is very similar to what we already know
about the acai fruit where it grows on these palm trees in a
very rough area of the world, you know with lots of heat and lots of
lots of stress on these plants, so the plants produce
these protective phytonutrients. Fatty acids
in the case of palm fruit, you see a lot of
oleic acid, you see a lot of you actually see a range of fatty acids
So palm fruit is a little bit different from other fruits in that you see about
50% saturated fatty acids and 50% monounsaturated
fatty acids. Something like acai which I've shown in other editions is
very rich in oleic acid, a polyunsaturated fat
acid. Same kind of fatty acid that you'll find in olives
and that you'll find in olive oil. So this blend
of fatty acids is really unique because it can help in different parts
of the body, just when we talk about the antioxidant network, where different
kinds of free radicals are fought by different kinds of antioxidants
in different parts of the body, you see the same kind of an idea with different
kinds of fatty acids. you actually want to have a blend of different kinds
fatty acids in your diet. You want to have some saturated fats and some
monounsaturated fats and some polyunsaturated fats. And this
palm fruit is a good source of those. But I'm really most interested in this from the
phytonutrient perspective where we're looking at the carotenoids
we're looking at the flavinoids, we're looking at the phytosterols, we're looking at the
tocotrienols, which are a very unique type of vitamin E. And so the science
conference I was at, really dove into the fact that the tocotrienols
are very nero-protective; they can protect your brain
from the stress of living, they can protect your brain from the stress of
inflmmation and the stress of oxidation. But some of the researchers were showing
that these tocotrienols can actually protect your brain after a stroke
the area of the brain that is damaged can actually come back
and regenerate itself if those tocotrienols are present. Much
better after that stroke damage compared to
a placebo group or a control kind of group. So we are actually looking
at some of the tocotrienols that we can derive from
this fruit in a future edition of a product that will be
coming to you soon here at MonaVie. So it's a very
unique way of thinking about brain protection and brain aging.
and brain performance and, I don't want to talk about it too much here
and give too much away, but it is a very exciting project that we're working on.
couple of other things about my trip here. we spent a bunch of days talking about the
science of tocotrienols, and carotenoids and flavinoids and it really
impressed me that researchers from around the world are doing a lot of the same
kinds of findings. We're finding that these nutrients from the tropics can be used to
address all of these health problems that we have in the modern world.
if we talk about aging, if we talk about
fatigue, if we talk about depression if we talk about mental
issues like ADD and things like that. they all
benefit from....CANCER for goodness sake! heart disease. they all benefit
from having more of these phytonutrients on board. Whether it comes from
palm fruit, acai, any other of the kinds of things
that we're looking at around the world. In this cheif
and innovation role that I play for MonaVie, coming to these parts of the world
and finding these kinds of things and working with researchers
and to see how they're researching them, and what the bio-actives are
and how can we process them to harness these bio-actives and put them in a
product that someone can just put into their lives; that's whats really
exciting about this position for me. I spent a day with researchers
from MIT, talking about the
very new patented researching about the flavinoids that a lot of
us even didn't know existed in this fruit.
We did the science for a few days and now we're out in the rainforest seeing actually
how these fruits are grown, how they're harvested
how the sustainable agricultural practices can help keep this fruit comig to us in a way
that we're always going to have access to in a way that's good for the planet
that is good for the local, indigenous people. I was talking to some people from the
Malaysian Palm Oil Council, who is a government
oversight board that really manages the plantation structure here in
Malaysia and one of the things that I found so interesting from these people is that
one of their statistics is that 40% of the
palm fruit harvesting comes from family farmers.
The people who have 10, 20 or 30 acres,
of palm fruit trees, they'll harvest the fruit
and they bring it in. Sounds like a collective where they'll
bring it in, they'll sell it to somebody is who
bringing small family farmers together and they'll
get their price and they'll be able to use that money to go back and support their family and support their
farm and those kinds of things. What struck me,
is that it's very similar to what we've already seen for the acai palms.
in the Brazilian rainforest where I was several weeks ago. Where these very
small farmers; these subsistent farmers are using the
plants, using the fruits. Not just
nourish themselves, but to provide for their families. 40%
of all the palm fruit agriculture and
funding goes through these family farms. So that
is that's amazing. What that says to me is
that those people; those farmers want to take care of
their trees. They want to take good care of their land so that they can take good
care of their families. This is their business, this is their livelihood. They're not
going to be doing what we hear happens in some other countries out
side of Malaysia where there is clear cutting of the forest. Where there's
deforestation so they can get rid of these palm
trees and grow other stuff. They grow vegetables
or those kinds of things. Exactly what we've seen in the Amazon
rainforests, we're seeing here in the Malaysian rainforests where
the people have realized; "Wait a minute, I can make a business with this
tree? There is no reason for me to cut this tree down and replace it with something else?"
There's an outlet, market for these phytonutrients
in these fruits that are growing. And just like what we've seen in the
Amazonian rainforests, people are now preserving those
Acai palms. Here, they're now preserving these red palm
fruit trees. And it's interesting to see the trees, once they're mature,
they will produce every 2 or 3 months. They'll produce a giant fruit
that has many menevies on there and they'll do that every two or three months
for 25 years. So you really can't get much more sustainable than that
in terms of growing these fruits, having them produce
beneficial phytonutrients, having a market to sell that into. MonaVie
is just a small part of the global market for these phytonutrients
that's going to be growing and growing and growing as the world population ages and
needs to have more energy and needs to have better health and needs to have access to
phytonutrients. So it's amazing that no matter where I go
in the world, I'm seeing the same kind of idea.
And it's gratifying to be a scientist
in a business such as MonaVie, where I can come into these places and I can
say to these people, "You know what? We can help you! We can help you take
what you're doing; to provide for your family, we can make it and put it into
a product and bring it to the world." Those people are distributing
can use those finished products to provide to their families. It's
it might sound a little corny, but it really is gratifying to be
that middle person from a scientific perspective.
To be able to look at this little fruit, talk to other scientists, put our heads
together, and say "Now what can we do?" Now how can we take
beneficial phytonutrients and all the research with
collected, how can we apply that on a global basis?
to improve how people feel, how they function and how they live their lives. That's
really what this all about. It's really cool to go out here and spend
some time in the rainforest, and meet these people and share some meals with them
and everyone likes to see monkeys running through the trees. you can actually hear some of them
hooting and hollering behind me. that's all really
cool from an experience perspective. But when I get back
to the laboratory and say "OK, this is what we've done for Acai,
let's use this as a model." to do the same thing for other phytonutrients we can find
in jungles and mountaintops and river bottoms around the
entire world. How can we sustainedly get these
phytonutrients. help those indigenous people and put in products that are going to help
millions of people around the world. And that's what it's all about. And I really appreciate you guys
joining me on another edition of "From the Lab."
Who knows where I'll be next! I think I'll actually be in the laboratory.
for the next edition. But thanks for joining me on all jungle treks
that we've been taking. I'll see you next time. This Dr. Shawn Talbott
see ya next time on "From the Lab." bye bye!