All living creatures depend on nature and natures products (plants, animals and minerals) for basic sustenance and Nopalea is one such product. For centuries, man has depended on the products of nature not only for basic sustenance, but also as sources of treatment for bodily injury, illness and the myriad maladies that can affect the human body system.
Nopalea A Natural Product
Even today, given vast advances in science and technology, virtually all (if not all) health and medicinal products consumed by man are derived, in some shape or form, from natures products. Penicillin, for example, comes from plant mold.
Today man is again turning to nature and the scientific community, to find products from nature that possess the power to sustain, heal and manage the human body system in a way that promotes better living and freedom from conditions that can debilitate the human body and spirit. This is for several reasons:
First, today, people throughout the world are increasingly concerned about their health and the positive and negative effects of their food and beverage consumption (i.e. dietary intake of cholesterol, sugar, fats, especially saturated fats, sodium, etc.).
Second, there is increased consumer interest in natural products (i.e. whole foods and beverages without high levels of preservatives, produce grown organically, health supplements from natures plants that provide nutrients that have been lost in todays fast food, prepared and processed food, eat-on-the-run culture, etc.). By way of scientific explanation, Dr. C. Leigh Broadhurst, a geochemist who works as a visiting scientist for a government nutrition research laboratory and heads 22nd Century Nutrition, a nutrition/scientific consulting company, stated in a 1998 article published in Nutrition Science News regarding essential BLOOM BLOOM phytochemicals that are found in natural fruits and vegetables that:
Third, in many counties, the United States in particular, there is increasing concern about the rising costs of health care. Furthermore, increased longevity and the increased likelihood of health disorders associated with aging are of growing concern. The high cost of health care is least affordable among the elderly.
Fourth, in some cases, unwanted and/or undesirable side effects are associated with prescription pharmaceuticals and their positive effects may by short lasting as against natural products that basically work from within, to help the human body maintain and strengthen itself.
In short, there is a significant and growing market throughout the world, for natural products that have special nutritional, health maintenance and medicinal benefits. Nopalea can provide such benefits. Among the primary areas of market opportunity are consumer concerns about:
Heart conditions (which have been associated with high levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, saturated fats and sodium),
Obesity (which been associated with diets high in calories, sugar and saturated fats),
Immune system efficiency (Cancer, pathogen control, resistance to disease, etc.),
Digestive system efficiency (which requires dietary intake of fiber, particularly soluble fiber, pectins, mucilage and gums that aid in digestion and in reducing the effects of saturated fat and toxic substance intake) and
Nopalea Health Disorders
Certain health disorders to which certain segments of the population are or have become more susceptible. One example is Adult On-set (Type II) Diabetes, the incidence of which is rapidly increasing (particularly among Hispanics, Asians, Blacks and native American Indians).
Scientists in the United States and in other countries have in the past studied many plants and herbs in order to determine their nutritional content and to ascertain their medicinal properties and health benefits. Only recently, however, have scientists begun to focus on some of natures plants that were, prior to modern times, used for centuries both as a source of food and for their medicinal benefits. Nopalea fits this category.