資料來源
http://mannatech.com/DMNews_14Articles.asp
標題
Destined to Rise Above (8/2/2006)
副題
Mannatech had the right product at the right time
In 1994, after years of controversy among lawmakers, nutrition experts, manufacturers and consumers, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement
Health & Education Act, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that for the first time gave “dietary supplement” a legal definition.
For manufacturers in general, this meant official validation of the public’s surging interest in supplements. For Mannatech, a company that had just been launched in suburban Dallas, the act meant a green
light just as its to revolutionary discovery of glyconutrients came
to fruition.
“Prior to 1994, if you wanted to associate a health claim with a
product, you had to develop it as a drug,” says Stephen Boyd, M.D., Ph.D., Mannatech’s senior medical director. “The new law instead allowed companies to use their science as educational material in support of a nutritional supplement.”
In Mannatech’s case, the science in question was glycobiology, at the time an obscure field devoted to the study of carbohydrates. At several companies, researchers who later joined Mannatech had been studying the function of these sugar molecules inside the body, with a growing
focus on the aloe vera plant. Mannose sugar (acemannan) had been pinpointed as a primary factor in aloe’s beneficial properties.
“Our researchers hypothesized that certain sugars represented a new category of nutrients, just like vitamins, minerals and amino acids,” says Sam Caster, chairman, founder and CEO of Mannatech. “We were the first to recognize that, while these sugars are essential to the proper
structure and function of every human cell, they are deficient or
missing in modern diets.”
In 1994, Mr. Caster secured a license to distribute Manapol, a compound derived from aloe vera. The patented process for stabilizing this
beneficial molecule was the key technology that he used to launch Mannatech. Other advances quickly followed, culminating in the introduction of Ambrotose, a unique, patented complex of multiple glyconutrients.
Since then, Mannatech’s success has been nothing less than astounding. “I would say 90 percent of it was due to the effectiveness of this new product,” Mr. Caster says. “We knew very early on that we were going to be successful, because we saw such an incredible response from our customers.”
Mannatech is today a worldwide hit, with nearly 30 products aimed at health, nutrition, weight management, sports performance and skin care sold in numerous countries. Hundreds of thousands of independent associates are glad to share the benefits of Mannatech’s products with others, and many of them find even greater satisfaction in the company’s extensive charitable efforts to help medically fragile children in more than 75 countries.
Though much has been accomplished, the best may be yet to come, Mannatech’s leaders say, as glycobiology moves from the footnotes of science textbooks to the front pages of prestigious journals. More than 20,000 peer-reviewed articles have now been published on the biological functions of these sugars, a great vindication in light of the skepticism that once greeted the topic.
“Glycobiology has caught the eye of mainstream medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, and it has become a very hot area of research,” says Robert Sinnott, M.N.S., Ph.D., Mannatech’s chief science officer. “We were one of the first players in glyconutrients, and the first to do it right as a supplement.”
