Beta Glucan – A Powerful Immune Enhancer

Beta Glucan is the most powerful immune enhancer known to science, including both prescription and non-prescription.  It is a vital part of a good supplement program. 

There are many benefits in taking Beta Glucan.  It strengthens our immune system, has anti-tumor activity, helps to normalize our blood fats, heals your skin, and supports normal blood sugar and insulin levels.  

So what exactly is Beta Glucan? 

Beta Glucan is a polysaccharide, a chain of glucose molecules, found in foods like yeasts, oats, barley and mushrooms.  We consume Beta Glucan every time we eat these foods.  However, we do not consume enough beta glucan in our daily diets for us to reap its excellent benefits. 

Scientists have known about Beta Glucan for decades.  They knew it as a food constituent that was abundant in certain foods, but it was very difficult to extract and purify.  It has not been until recent years, that scientists have been able to formulate a way to produce beta glucan affordably and effectively. 

Around 1999, because of our ever changing technology, scientists succeeded in producing less expensive beta glucan from oats and brewers yeast, after the beer was brewed.  This gave a use to the tons of yeast that the beer brewing industry had just been throwing away after they brewed the beer.  It made it possible to offer quality beta glucan at an affordable and reasonable price.

True Beta Glucan products are inexpensive.  Currently, yeast glucan is the least expensive and mushroom glucan is the most expensive. 

When buying Beta Glucan you want to find the best, most reliable brand you can at the best price.  It needs to state the actual amount of glucan in each capsule. It needs to state that it contains at least 200 mg of actual Beta Glucan.  This is not the same thing as it stating it contains “200 mg of Beta Glucan extract” which in actuality is only 100mg of actual glucan…

So how much should you take?  An effective dosage of Beta Glucan is 200mg a day.  This is the amount taken generally for immunity and to lower one’s cholesterol.  If a person is using this to treat cancer, diabetes or another serious condition it is recommended that you take 400mg a day for a year and then drop back down to 200mg a day. 

It can be taken with prescription drugs and medications, but it’s always a good idea to tell your doctor what supplements you are taking.  In fact, it’s been shown to enhance the actions of many drugs.  It has no known side effects and the FDA classified it as GRAS, “Generally Recognized as Safe.”

All of the reasons why Beta Glucan strengthens and benefits our immune system are not known, but there are certain facts that we do know.  In our body are “macrophages,” large white blood cells, which destroy bacteria, dead and dying cells, mutated cells, and other dangerous invaders in the blood stream.  These white blood cells are the most important thing in our immune system and studies have proven that Beta Glucan strengthens and activates these amazing cells.  Beta Glucan is the so called “energy drink” for these cells that makes them more effective in defeating and destroying all things that don’t belong in our system. 

Taking Beta Glucan is an excellent way to ensure you, your children, and your pets are in best possible health.  Numerous clinical studies on Beta Glucan have been done all over the world at well known research facilities and the results have been published in some of the top scientific journals.  The results all supported and proved the same thing.  They show that Beta Glucan is a safe, natural, effective, cheap product that has no known side effects and it is the most potent immune booster known.

Beta Glucan helps in the fight against tumors and has anti-tumor activity.  There have been many studies, approximately two decades worth, done that support this statement.  In all studies, the mice were given the true 1,3 configuration of Beta Glucan whether it be from mushrooms, fungi, yeast, oat or barley.  In all of the various studies, it showed that the mice on a Beta Glucan regimen had either reduce tumor activity or, more impressively, their cancer cells were eradicated.   

The studies had many findings in which tumor cells were reduced or destroyed, lung cancer growth was measurably inhibited, Sarcoma 190 and MC.SC-1 fibrosarcoma tumors were restrained, and even lymphoma cells were detained. In one study, tumor weights were reduced 72-99% in only thirty days with no other treatment! 

The Japanese government even granted a patent, #JP10 287,284, in 1998 for using Beta Glucan generally which inhibits tumor growth by activating natural killer cells. 

The University of Louisville in Kentucky did a review of the many Beta Glucan studies.  They suggested in this review to use Beta Glucan as cancer therapy in humans in 1999, due to the extensive research done on animals.  In a study done at the Eishogen Research Center in Japan, Beta Glucan caused the peritoneal macrophages, which attack tumors, to greatly and strongly multiply in mice.  They said that there is no reason that the same results won’t be present in humans.  It all ties back to the fact that Beta Glucan helps the immune system and helps strengthen the cells in our body that fight “the enemy.”  

Beta Glucan helps lower your cholesterol.  It is used in the “cornerstone program” for high cholesterol where you take it with beta-sitosterol, soy isoflavones, guggul lipids and flax oil.  It has been proven in numerous clinical studies and trials that Beta Glucan does indeed lower bad cholesterol levels and it even raises the good cholesterol levels.  In one study at Syracuse University in New York, 71 men and women with hypercholesteremia were given various combinations of low fat diets with and without oat Beta Glucan supplements.  The participants on glucan lowered their cholesterol up to 17% and most of them even raised their levels of beneficial high-density cholesterol. 

In a study done at the University of Ottawa, the participants taking the Beta Glucan lowered the LDL cholesterol with no change in their diet or exercise.  In all studies done, with or without adjustments in diet and exercise, it was shown that Beta Glucan lowers one’s overall cholesterol levels as well as the bad cholesterol levels. 

Mushrooms are a Source of Beta Glucan

A study was done to try and discover the actual metabolic mechanisms by which Beta Glucan lowers blood fats.  They discovered it increased the secretion of bile acids in the gall bladder, which are important in keeping cholesterol and triglycerides at health levels.  It has also been shown to help lower blood pressure, blood lipid levels, and blood fats as well as improve cardiovascular risk. 

Why use expensive, statin drugs to reduce your cholesterol that may or may not be safe for your health when you can battle your cholesterol with a natural safe alternative such as Beta Glucan?

There are many other benefits of taking Beta Glucan.  Topical application of Beta Glucan can greatly benefit the skin, especially the face.  It allows the skin to rejuvenate itself.  It has been shown to heal wounds and reduce aging and wrinkles of the skin. 

Beta Glucan has amazing effects on our sugar levels and diabetes.  In one study, people were given oral Beta Glucan with their regular meals.  In only three days insulin levels fell an incredible 26% due to the fact that their cells were responding more efficiently to the normal production of insulin.  Their glucose levels dropped 12% as well.  Beta Glucan is important to take if you want to avoid blood sugar and insulin disorders.  It is also excellent for treating these problems, if you already have them. 

In one study, Beta Glucan was shown to help those battling HIV.   The patients began taking Beta Glucan and 85% of them reported an increase sense of well being with regard to their symptoms.  In another study, it was proven to reduce the effects of nuclear damage in a study done in Belgium at the Center for Nuclear Energy in 1988. 

It has also been determined through various studies that Beta Glucan can even heal gastric ulcers, enhance the ability for blood to clot normally, and to be effective against tuberculosis.  

As you can see there are many great reasons to add Beta Glucan to your supplement program.  The benefits of Beta Glucan are continually being investigated and new uses for it will continue to be discovered.

For more information on Beta Glucan CLICK HERE, >For more information on Flax Oil CLICK HERE, For more information on the “Cornerstone Program” CLICK HERE

About the Author:  This article has been written by Cape Fear Naturals as a part of our customer service to our valued website visitors. If you are interested in this product or other natural health products please visit http://www.capefearnaturals.com – April 2009, Volume 1,1, copyrighted

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