In this August 17, 2006, Health Ranger Report interview featuring Ola Loa's founder Greg Kunin and NewsTarget.com's Mike Adams, the many benefits of the Ola Loa product line and the advantages "drinking your vitamins" can provide for maximum absorpsion and optimum nutrition are discussed.
This interview is also available in readable form on NewsTarget.com, an online source of daily news and commentary on topics related to natural health, planetary health, and medicine.
READ INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT on NaturalNews.com
TEXT OF HEALTH RANGER INTERVIEW
Mike/NaturalNews.com: Hello everyone. Thanks for joining me again. This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, here with Greg Kunin of the Ola Loa vitamin company, one of my favorite vitamin companies. You've heard me talking about his company over the last year. "Drink your vitamins" is the slogan.
Greg Kunin/Ola Loa: Couldn't have said it better myself.
Adams: DrinkYourVitamins.com is the website. And you have new products this year that I'm very excited about. But let's start from the beginning: What are Ola Loa products, and why should people drink their vitamins?
Kunin: Well, Ola Loa was based on a very simple concept of making it easy to get your vitamins, to make it a pleasurable experience and to provide strategic nutrients that work synergistically to provide maximum health benefits. It was based on my father's medical practice, which has specialized for the past 40 years in the nutritionally oriented, orthomolecular approach to medicine. He was the first medical doctor in America to integrate vitamin therapy with treating disease back in the 1960s. And so we had a tremendous opportunity to work with thousands of patients over the 40-year period. His research went directly into producing this product. And it's kind of a funny story because it actually took three generations of my family to develop the product. When my son was two years old, we were developing a line of pill capsule vitamins, and there was going to be a series of about 14 pills that you'd wind up taking every day -- sometimes twice a day.
Adams: Wow, that's a lot.
Kunin: It's a lot; it's a burden. It puts your body through digestive stress. There are tremendous difficulties for people to absorb their nutrients out of pills. Tablets are the worst. Capsules are a little bit better, but it's still quite a stress to go through the process and hope that you're getting something out of those nutrients.
Adams: Yes.
Kunin: It's estimated that the average person loses about 70 percent of the nutrient value of a pill. Another way to look at that is if you spend a dollar on vitamins, 70 cents potentially could be lost. So I wanted to make it easy.
Adams: Now I want to stop you right here.
Kunin: Sure.
Adams: I want to throw something in on this. It's very important, because with nutrition it really comes down to what you absorb, not what you swallow.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: I have a friend who's always asking me about nutrition. He was taking a variety of capsules and pills for a long time, and he was really having digestion problems with them. I told this person, "Try Ola Loa." It made an instant difference. I'm not kidding. It was within minutes that he started to have a clearer mind, and then he went out immediately and started buying the orange product.
Kunin: Oh, that's exciting. I love hearing these stories. Every day we hear from people. Recently we had two phone calls from people in their 90s. One person from Hawaii was feeling so good taking our product that he wanted to come to San Francisco to see my father and have a full workup done. Another woman called me up, and she was telling me that her mother was having heart problems. She was in congestive heart failure, she was feeling terrible, she was homebound, and she was so impressed on how her daughter was doing on the product that she started taking the product. Within two weeks, she was actually up and moving around.
Adams: Oh, phenomenal.
Kunin: This is why I do what I do. It's very exciting when you can actually touch someone's life in a positive way and make him feel good about his life.
Adams: Absolutely. And these products, the nutrition that goes into them and the assimilation of nutrition can transform people's lives.
Kunin: Oh, absolutely. It's so common. I'll hear from people, and they'll say, "You know, I've tried vitamin pills. I would take that one pill, and I would never feel the difference."
Adams: Right.
Kunin: Each one of these packets is replacing roughly a dozen vitamin pills, and most people are just not willing to comply. Compliance is always an issue.
Adams: Right. It's a lot to swallow.
Kunin: With this we find that people feel the difference almost immediately. They're willing to integrate this into their daily life. And they get to point where they realize, "Gosh, I don't know how I lived without it."
Adams: Now, let's start with the basics here for those who are maybe new to the product. You take a package and empty the powder into a glass of water. You stir it up and drink it, and it tastes like fruit punch or an orange drink.
Kunin: If you want it sweeter, you just add less water. If you want it to be a little less sweet, you add more water. And what's exciting is that again, there are some other products that are on the market that maybe people have seen that they're familiar with, but they tend to be loaded with sugars -- up to 90 percent sugar.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: We're the exact opposite. We're 85 percent active nutrients.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: With one gram of fructose. And so it's safe for diabetics. It has virtually no impact on the gylcemic index. So diabetics do very well with this product, and it's very exciting to be able to provide that much nutrient support in such a delicious experience.
Adams: Absolutely. Now, let's talk about digestion and assimilation a little bit more if that's okay, Greg. Many people in Western cultures are deficient in stomach acid.
Kunin: Of course.
Adams: So without the acid, they're not really breaking down and absorbing the other nutrients they get. My guess is that people who have low stomach acid would do especially well on this product.
Kunin: They do very well because the product is actually a digestive aid, and it affects digestion from start to finish. A lot of people do have weak stomach acid and are taking antacids in a situation in which they think they're actually helping themselves. And believing, for example, that they're going to get calcium absorption. Well, calcium can't absorb in a non-acidic environment.
Adams: That's right.
Kunin: It's really quite comical.
Adams: Yes.
Kunin: But trimethoglycine is a magical amino acid that affects your digestion. Bromalein and bioflavonoids affect digestion from start to finish. We've had patients in my father's medical practice who are actually going through digestive stress hooked up to a Heidelberg machine, which we can use to actually measure the pH and watch what's going on with the digestion. Within minutes of taking the Ola Loa, it starts to settle their stomach. Our most sensitive patients will do this even if they miss a meal or are feeling a little run down. There are 1,000 milligrams of glycine in every packet of our Energy product. That glycine is really a lifesaver in terms of managing blood fats and blood sugars. So it makes a world of difference. If they can't eat, most people aren't going to rush out and take a handful of vitamin pills when they're feeling a little light-headed.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: You can do that with Ola Loa.
Adams: You know, what else is really interesting about your product, Greg, is that the nutrients in here are almost pure nutrients, whereas if you take a typical capsule, sometimes as much as 50 percent of the mass of that capsule is just filler.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: And people don't realize that you take a zinc pill, and the actual zinc is microscopic.
Kunin: A very small amount.
Adams: Yes. The rest of it is just filler. But with yours, there are full-potency nutrients.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: You're not swallowing a bunch of junk just to get the vitamins and minerals into your body.
Kunin: I may have discussed this with you in the past, but maybe this will give you another insight as to what Ola Loa is all about and what we stand for. We use a very special form of vitamin B12 in this product. Most people don't realize that not all B12 is created equal. Most of the B12 you get these days are called cyanocobalamin. Most of the vitamin companies use it because it's the cheapest form of vitamin B12 available. Unfortunately, it's toxic. It gets extremely dangerous for people with weak antioxidant protection. For example, if you were to give a smoker a cyanocobalamin injection, you run the risk of him or her going blind. Which is something that my dad has seen in his medical practice.
Adams: That's amazing.
Kunin: We're using a form of B12 here that's called hydroxycobalamin, which is much more readily available to the body, and you don't have to go through the digestive stress of trying to break up that cobalamin, so it makes a world of difference. In fact, in the scientific world, a lot of people know that cyanocobalamin is considered the anti-B12 because it can actually lower your B12.
Adams: That's very interesting.
Kunin: And it's frustrating because right now there's been a lot of talk, for example, in the arena of homocysteine. They're now saying that the theory of homocysteine in its relationship with cardiovascular disease may be in question -- when, in fact, we know that homocysteine is a pro-clotting factor. For your audience who may not know what homocysteine is -- every time you eat animal protein, you're ingesting homocysteine. And for those people who cannot manage their homocysteine through the normal pathways -- if they've got a problem with their folic acid and their B12 -- the only other way they can manage their homocysteine is through remethylation. And that's what this product is all about. It's really opening the doors to your methyl pathways, which affect every single organ of your body. More than 200 major transactions that are methyl-dependent occur in the body in what's called methyltransferase.
Adams: Yes, we did talk about this briefly last year. This is a great example of how this product not only provides support of nutrition, but also defensive phytonutrients.
Kunin: Of course. And at the same time, for those people who have genetic mutations whereby B vitamins are notorious for not working very well, we're now finding out for the first time that we actually can measure the genetic mutation level in our patients. Who's able to use their folic acid properly? Who's able to use their B12 properly? For those people who have compromised B12 and B vitamin pathways, this can be a lifesaver, because the only other way you can lower your homocysteine is through what's called remethylation.
Adams: The hydroxycobalamin is one example of the ingredients found in your product that cost more than the typical mainstream ingredients that you might find in a common multivitamin. There are others, such as CoQ10.
Kunin: Coenzyme Q10 is most frequently found as an individual vitamin that you have to get separate from your multivitamin.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: Up until recently, it was selling for as much as $5,000 a kilo. Your typical vitamin sells in the neighborhood of about $5 a kilo. An amino acid might cost $10 or $15 a kilo.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: Fortunately, coenzyme Q10 has been coming down in price, but it's still a very expensive ingredient at over $1,000 a kilogram.
Adams: What other ingredients do you have in here that are worth pointing out?
Kunin: Well, I think the big thing that really stands out in our product is that we're providing the strategic amino acids like trimethoglycine. That word methyl keeps coming back. TMG is what you get when you eat beets. It's also known as betaine, and it has a significant role in, again, offering methyl donation so that your methyl chemistry can work better and the methyl pathways of your body work better. So your brain works better, your heart works better, your spleen ... the whole body works better when it's methylating properly.
Adams: You have a new line for kids, correct?
Kunin: Well, we are excited about that. So many kids are winding up getting these vitamin pills that they have to chew that destroy the teeth. They don't provide a lot of nutrient support. Again, my dad has done a lot of work, especially in the arena of ADD, ADHD and autism, and getting nutrient support in the children is a struggle. So we produced a line that is providing key ingredients very similar to what you'll find in the energy product, but we've removed the coenzyme Q10 -- which, in large measure, is lost on kids -- and also made it more affordable at the same time. So it's about half the cost of our current high-end multivitamin energy product.
Adams: I see. And yet the taste, again, is easy for kids to comply with.
Kunin: It had to be good enough for my son. At age 11, he had to approve the taste before we could package it.
Adams: I see. Well, I'm glad to know that he's involved in the formulation process because it has to meet the requirements of genuine kids.
Kunin: Well, what I've learned is that it sometimes is a struggle to get them to eat, and sometimes it can be a struggle to get them to eat real food. And they're out and about, they're growing, and there are tremendous demands on their brain development, on their body development. They're all trying to do sports activities. They've got educational demands that are placed on them, and I wanted to have something we could give my son and all the other kids out there as a means of support.
Adams: That's wonderful. Nutrition with children is so important for the things you mentioned.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: ADHD, behavioral disorders, learning disabilities -- in the research I've done, those things vanish when you get good nutrition.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: And stop feeding toxins to kids.
Kunin: Whenever you turn on a television set in America, it seems every time a commercial comes on, you see at least one or two ads, sometimes three -- for another medication. And I think that before we start drugging up America and the rest of the world, we have an opportunity and obligation to provide basic nutrient support. I mean, let's face it; we're all eating to satisfy individual biochemical needs.
Adams: Right.
Kunin: Each one of us is different based on two factors: Lifestyle and genetics. Without one vitamin physically in your body, life ceases to exist.
Adams: Let's talk about the cost of this product and the relative cost in terms of prevention, versus the cost of being sick. But first, what's the retail price of your product?
Kunin: Suggested retail price of our energy multivitamin product is $32.95.
Adams: That's for a whole box.
Kunin: That's for a whole box of 30, a month's supply. The bone joint is a little cheaper at $29.95. But this is unusual. You take a look at bone joint products today, and they're typically two, three, maybe four ingredients. This is really the whole gamut of bone joint support -- glucosamine, carnitine, taurine, ginger, gotu kola, vanadium, calcium, magnesium, myoinositol -- so we got things in there.
Adams: Oh, I love it.
Kunin: To get these 30 ingredients you would normally have to get about five different products. These all work synergistically. To give you another perspective about the concept behind Ola Loa and the thought process that goes into it -- glucosamine is a sugar. People can take glucosamine in high doses and wind up getting into a pre-diabetic state.
Adams: Wow. I didn't know that.
Kunin: So we've got glycine in there and vanadium to protect you. And to manage your blood sugars. All too often we want one magic bullet.
Adams: Yes.
Kunin: You're made up of an incredible array of chemical transactions, and it's those transactions that are the gift of life itself. You need to get all the keys. And that's what we're providing in the whole synergistic group of nutrients in all the products that we do.
Adams: Well, that's the conventional mindset, the Western mindset: "There must be one chemical that can solve my problem." But as you were saying, it's really not. It's really the supportive synergistic effect of these gifts from nature, and all of these that you and your father have observed, discovered, refined and combined are really from nature, and that's what really works the supportive synergy.
Kunin: Well, the goal for us is to make it easy -- to make it easy and to make it pleasurable. And the neat thing is, if you try the product, you'll feel the difference.
Adams: No kidding. Nutritional transfusion is my nickname for this product. And I'll tell you why. I talk to a lot of people in, say, the raw food movement, and I'm mostly a raw foodist myself, except when I travel. But the thing about raw foods is it only works if you have really great digestion.
Kunin: Absolutely.
Adams: You must have hydrochloric acid production that's right on the money in order to extract the nutrients from raw foods. So a lot of people try raw foods, hoping to get that beneficial effect, and all they get is gas and bloating. I say give yourself the nutritional transfusion. You get Ola Loa into your system, and you'll have the support to start getting better hydrochloric acid production so that you can go into and experiment with another diet and benefit from it.
Kunin: Absolutely. You will feel the difference. All body systems will be affected. That's the neat thing because we're providing so much nutrient support in this and on a regular basis, consistently. You have an opportunity to get that kind of support into your body. Your whole body will start to change. I recently heard from somebody who had not seen his friend for about five years, and when they all of a sudden saw each other, they were in shock. This guy couldn't believe how good his friend looked, and he asked him, "What are you doing?" and he said, "Well, I started to drink my vitamins, and I'm taking this Ola Loa product."
Adams: Excellent.
Kunin: And again, it's so wonderful to hear positive experiences from people.
Adams: Where can people find these products right now?
Kunin: Typically you'll find us in the better health food stores -- places like Whole Foods market, Wild Oats market, The Vitamin Shoppe, the mom-and-pop stores. The interesting thing is we're going into a lot of other interesting avenues where you typically wouldn't see vitamins. We're going into hotel rooms -- in the mini-bars.
Adams: No kidding?
Kunin: The traveling public is demanding something beyond alcohol and sugar.
Adams: It's about time.
Kunin: And we hear from travelers every day who were at a hotel, got our product in the mini-bar, and they said it made their trip.
Adams: Wow. That is very interesting.
Kunin: People are looking at some of the other products that are out there that are pretty much limited to vitamin C, and some herbs, but if you start traveling, there's an amazing low that's put on the body.
Adams: I think that's a wonderful idea. If I were on the airplane, and they gave me this instead of that garbage food that you get served on an airplane, I would applaud. This is a great idea for travel stress.
Kunin: We've had some very interesting people who are using the products. We've been very big in the entertainment industry, and recently we've been doing a lot of work with rock bands. It's interesting -- the number of musicians who are using the product and performers around the world who have found our product. It's giving them the energy to be able to go through a grueling tour schedule and to get on stage and perform.
Adams: And it is so portable, too. Because it's in this physical format, it's easy to take with you. It's not like a big, round vitamin bottle, and it's still a serving.
Kunin: The pre-standing liquids are oftentimes loaded with benzoate and preservatives. And they've already oxidized. This is absolutely protected. It's fresh up until that very moment. There's no oxidation occurring until you add the water and you drink it down. You'll feel it go into your body almost immediately.
Adams: Absolutely. I second that. Now, Greg, what's next for Ola Loa? You always have something on the drawing board.
Kunin: We're working in some interesting areas right now. We're in the process of developing an omega-3 essential fatty acids powder that is going to really be our brain formula. My dad has done a lot of work in the area of phosphatidylserine and DMAE. So some interesting things are going to be happening there. We have a super immune formula that would be a natural antibiotic, and it'll be designed for use over about a five-day period at those times when you have those critical experiences in life, like maybe you've gotten hit by a big, big bug.
Adams: Or even post-surgery recovery.
Kunin: Oh, absolutely. And we're also looking into the possibility of even doing a real drink.
Adams: What do you mean?
Kunin: This is very closely related to the beverage industry. Unfortunately, most of the beverages that kids like to gravitate toward -- even my son sometimes gravitates toward -- are these sugary, chemical drinks. And most of the so-called "health drinks" that I'm starting to see out there are really soft drinks in disguise.
Adams: Oh, yes.
Kunin: So I'm even toying with the idea of how we could maybe do something of substance that would really provide great nutrient support and really be a different type of product for the marketplace.
Adams: Well, I sure hope to see that happen. We need the right company to make that happen. Please keep me posted on that because our readers want to know the cutting edge nutritional information without censorship, without bias. They already know we don't have a financial arrangement here. There's no charge for me to do this. I cover your company because I love your product.
Kunin: Well, thank you. If any of your readers are interested, we have a very liberal policy. I'm happy to give them free samples if they want to try the product. You can go to the website at DrinkYourVitamins.com, or if you'd like to call us up, we're at (800) 800-9550, and we'd be happy to send you out samples so you can try it for yourself and experience the Ola Loa feeling.
Adams: That's an offer you can't refuse, folks -- free samples from Ola Loa! You've got to try this product. You'll feel the difference. I feel it, my friends feel it -- that's why I keep recommending this product. Greg, I thank you for your time and I wish you tremendous success.
Kunin: Well, thank you.
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