Vitaligen International: Company and Product Information

Vitaligen International currently has two unique products available: SOBERMAX and PREV-ARD.

SOBERMAX: It mimics the activity of alcohol dehydrogenase and rapidly decreases blood alcohol level while people are drinking alcoholic beverages.

PREV-ARD: It prevents brain inflammation by alcoholic beverages by increasing the activity of enzyme involved in conversion of alcohol to a metabolite responsible for ‘hangover effect’. Chronic continuous use of this product will contribute heavily toward prevention of Alcohol Related Dementia (ARD).

 

1. About the Founder: Education and Research Background

Vitaligen International was founded by Dr. Steve Whang in 1997. Dr. Whang received degree of Doctor of Pharmacy from University of the Pacific in 1988.

Dr. Whang’s research in alcohol metabolism and nutraceuticals began during his internship at VA Palo Alto, and continued as he began working as a visiting clinical pharmacist at the Stanford University’s medical center and University of California at San Francisco in California.

For the past 7 years, Dr. Whang has been teaching as a clinical faculty member at the Loma Linda University’s School of Pharmacy while carrying on his own research at his private firm.

During his 30 year-long research, Dr. Whang has concentrated his effort in developing preventive nutraceutical agents in many different fields. One particular field of preventing alcoholic dementia is based on his ground breaking discovery of alcohol’s effect on brain cell inflammation and death due to one particular metabolite known as glutamate. Dr. Whang’s Alcoholic Dementia Prevention Formula, also known as PREV-ARD, is based on this particular research.

2. Newly discovered alcohol metabolism pathway by Dr. Steve Whang

During the first decade of his research on alcohol metabolism, Dr. Whang discovered a different pathway of alcohol metabolism for chronic alcoholic beverage drinkers versus infrequent drinkers. And he discovered the fact that chronic drinkers are much more susceptible to brain cell inflammation and neuron death due to one particular reason—depletion of certain alcohol metabolic enzyme.

It has been known that alcohol metabolism involves activities of numerous enzymes after drinking.  As people become chronic or frequent drinkers, their enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism gets depleted without getting replenished in time, forcing their metabolism to take a different pathway, resulting in production of one toxic metabolite known as glutamate to cause brain cell inflammation and eventually cell death if no protective measure is taken.

It was this discovery that forced Dr. Whang to spend next two decades finding a nutraceutical formula which can protect brain cell inflammation from the toxic metabolite that is known to cause brain cell death and eventually dementia over a period of time.

3. Alcohol consumption and brain cell inflammation

In general, most drinkers have experienced brain cell inflammation via after effects of alcohol consumption the following day. This particular condition, commonly known as ‘Hangover effect’ is known to cause severe headaches and nausea the next day. Until Dr. Whang’s discovery of an alcoholic metabolite that is responsible for this miserable effect felt the next day, no one really knew the cause of such misery.

Such ‘Hangover effect’ has been a mystery to many alcohol metabolism researchers throughout the world. Because no one understood exactly which metabolite was the cause of this ‘Hangover effect’, no one was able to create a product that can effectively prevent accumulation of the particular metabolite responsible for such misery….that is, until Dr. Whang’s discovery was announced.

What is more important is the fact the chronic inflammation caused by this particular metabolite is also the cause of alcoholic dementia due to brain cell death, which starts after an average duration of 20 years, unless protective measure is taken while drinking.

This complicated chemical process of protecting brain cells from inflammation and dementia will be discussed in detail in another time, but the typical symptoms of after effect of alcohol including queasy stomach, severe headaches, nausea, and vomiting  are the exactly the type of symptoms people will experience after consuming heavy amount of MSG, in which 80% of it is Glutamate.

Dr, Whang was able to prove the fact that excessive or chronic drinking can deplete one particular enzyme involved in alcohol metabolism, which in turn will shift alcoholic metabolite to enter different pathway where it first converts to Glutarate, followed by its conversion to Glutamate. The important enzyme involved in this path of alcohol metabolism is called alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase.

This over production of Glutamate from excessive or chronic drinking is the cause of the brain inflammation, end result being same as the toxicity of Glutamate: queasy stomach, severe headache, nausea, and vomiting.

Glutamate has been indicated as the cause of one severe form of dementia known as Alzheimer’s disease. This particular subject was heavily  discussed and proven in the September 2016 issue of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

4. Activity of PREV-ARD: Prevention of Alcoholic Dementia

In simple language, the main activity of PREV-ARD is increasing the activity of one particular enzyme that can be depleted in chronic or excessive drinkers. By increasing the activity of enzyme called alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase, PREV-ARD prevents the formation of Glutamate, known to cause brain inflammation which drinkers notice as severe headaches and nausea the following day after drinking. Chronic brain cell inflammation will lead to cell death, which in turn leads to symptoms of Alcohol Related Dementia over time.

Another special activity of PREV-ARD is anti-inflammatory effect of different nutraceuticals aimed at other alcoholic metabolites, thus completely preventing any type of inflammation from direct effect of alcohol. This complete inhibition of inflammatory alcoholic metabolites guarantees prevention of alcoholic dementia over time when PRE-ARD is taken during each drinking session.

5. Immediate and long-term effect of PREV-ARD has been extensively tested through clinical studies done in the United States and Japan.

One benefit people who took PREV-ARDafter drinking noticed was that they did not feel any severe headaches or nausea the following morning. This was due to the effectiveness of PREV-ARD in preventing any type of brain inflammation by completely blocking the formation of a toxic alcoholic metabolite. This is possible because the active ingredients in PREV-ARD increases the activity of alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase, an enzyme which effectively prevents the formation of toxic metabolite called Glutamate.

By completely inhibiting inflammatory activity of a toxic metabolite known to cause brain cell death over time, PREV-ARD effectively prevents dementia from starting whenever drinkers take protective measures by taking PREV-ARD right after drinking.

Without an effective protective measures, symptoms of dementia is known to show up in about, on an average, 20 years after the first sign of brain inflammation and cell death.  Thus it is extremely important to prevent dementia before its symptoms start. And the best way to prevent alcohol related dementia is to take PREV-ARD right after drinking.

6.PREV-ARD:  Ingredients and Suggested Use

PREV-ARD is composed of different types of nutraceuticals, proprietary culinary herbal and vegetable extracts, vitamins, and minerals. Different components are responsible for different activities discussed in previous chapters. All the ingredients has been labeled ‘Safe” under USFDA guidelines, and thus PREV-ARD is qualified under ‘GRAS’ class.

Because PREV-ARD is all natural, it has absolutely no side effects, the following guidelines are recommended for PREV-ARD users:

-Frequent drinkers: Take two capsules every day.

-Social drinkers: Take two capsules right after drinking.

*Special note to wine lovers:

-Even though there are many beneficial chemicals in red wine, the wine lovers must  realize the fact red wine contains substantial amount of alcohol, and such amount can still cause inflammation of brain cells and eventual neuron death, potentially making every wine lover a target for alcohol related dementia (ARD).

It is highly recommended that wine drinkers take two capsules of PREV-ARD after drinking.

7. Dr. Whang’s discovery of alternate alcohol metabolism

Dr. Whang began his alternate route to alcohol metabolism during the time when it was believed Acetaldehyde was the main metabolite responsible for toxic after-effects of alcohol, also known as ‘Hangover’ effects.

However, Dr. Whang knew Acetaldehyde couldn’t be the metabolite responsible for hangover symptoms because the average half-life of Acetaldehyde was only 90 seconds; whereas the hangover symptoms usually occur several hours later, usually the next day. Thus Dr. Whang concluded Acetaldehyde could not be the metabolite responsible for hangover symptoms—due to its half-life of less than 2 minutes. Because typical hangover symptoms appear much later time, usually several hours later.

With this solid fact about Acetaldehyde and its ultra-short half life, Dr. Whang started searching for the actual metabolite responsible for the toxic inflammatory effect of alcohol which usually occurs several hours later.

After a decade of research, Dr. Whang discovered the fact one certain enzyme gets depleted in chronic frequent drinkers, and this particular enzyme doesn’t get replenished or reproduced in time to do prevent one particular toxic metabolite from increasing its concentration.

This enzyme is alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase. During alcohol metabolism, this enzyme’s function is to decrease the formation of alpha-keto-glutarate from alcohol and keep its concentration as low as possible.  When activity of this enzyme decreases, glutarate concentration increases as more and more alcohol gets metabolized.

The problem with increase in glutarate concentration is the fact it rapidly converts to a toxic metabolite called GLUTAMATE!

Glutamate, also known as an ‘excitotoxin’ is the main component of MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate), which has been known to cause type of dementia called Alzheimer’s disease. MSG is becoming so notorious as neurotoxin that in 2017, European Food Safety Authority announced the fact that it is not safe for adults to consume over 3 gram of MSG per day.

8. Glutamate production from alcoholic metabolite: Stopped by PREV-ARD.

When Dr. Whang announced his discovery, it absolutely shocked the alcohol metabolism research community.

This was a shocking discovery because Glutamate is a well known component of Mono Sodium Glutamte (MSG), an ‘excitotoxin’ known cause brain inflammation and  dementia.

But then all the researchers realized it all made sense why people often suffered from severe headache and nausea after heavy drinking—these were typical symptoms of glutamate toxicity. Many people who had eaten food with too much MSG had similar symptoms such as severe nausea and headaches.

After making this discovery of relationship between alcohol and glutamate, Dr. Whang spent next two decades researching for a natural agent to prevent conversion of alcoholic metabolites to glutamate, and ultimately succeeded in formulating an agent that increases the concentration of enzymatic activity of alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase during alcohol metabolism process. Increase in activity of this enzyme effectively blocked formation of Glutamate by effectively blocking formation of glutarate first.

By increasing the concentration of enzymatic activity of alpha-keto-glutarate dehydrogenase, PREV-ARD  decreases the production of glutarate. With low concentration of glutarate, it can’t be converted to glutamate. This lack of glutamate concentration means no inflammation will occur in our brain cells, thus totally preventing any possibility of dementia over time.

9. Memantine: Proof of Glutamate as cause of Dementia

Memantine has been the drug of choice of treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease for the past two decades.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common and severest type of dementia known to mankind.  During the clinical trials, different patient groups were either given Memantine and placebo. After repeating several similar trials, it was shown that group treated with Memantine were showing define improvement in dementia symptoms, and thus was approved for marketing by USFDA about two decades ago.

What is shocking is that only and main function of Memantine is to block the effect of Glutamate from our brain cells. By preventing inflammatory effect of Glutamate from the receptors in our brain cells, Memantine is able to slow down the symptoms of dementia.

Past use of Memantine over two decades has proven the fact that it is possible to block the progression of dementia by blocking the effect of Glutamate. In fact, the drug information pamphlet included with Memantine package describes Glutamate activity as follows: “Persistent activation of central nervous system receptors by the excitatory amino acid Glutamate has been hypothesized to contribute to the symptomatology Alzheimer’s Disease.”

We have to remember this particular drug information was written two decades ago.

Since then, hundreds research papers claiming the dangers of Glutamate’s activity on our brain cells due to its inflammatory activities which will lead to dementia over time.

In fact, it became so apparent that in 2017 European Food Safety Authority announced the fact it is not safe to consume more than 1.5 gram of MSG for 50kg adult or 3.0 gram of MSG for 100kg adult.

It is a matter of time EFSA will make new announcement alerting the dangers arising from inflammatory activities of Glutamate on our brain cell, causing dementia over time.

Final Message from Vitaligen International

Chronic drinking of alcoholic beverages is no different than consuming heavy amount of Glutamate each time, which no doubt will cause chronic inflammation and dementia during our lifetime. This will have devastating effect on the lives of those who will end up with alcohol related dementia and their families.

To prevent such tragedy, Vitaligen International has spent past 3 decades developing PREV-ARD to prevent formation of Glutamate from alcohol consumption to protect chronic drinkers from inevitable dementia.

And now Vitaligen International is ready to market PREV-ARD to the world population who are genuinely concerned about alcohol related dementia.

We believe PREV-ARD will save millions of families from this sadness and tragic circumstances in the future years to come.

*Besides PREV-ARD and SOBERMAX, Vitaligen International currently has several unique nutraceutical products in our pipeline. We have plans to export these products to importers in each territory based on their qualifications. Please inquire with your territory’s agent if you have questions regarding our products.