Today we will talk about Manapol, one of my favorite topics. And so, I will now share my screen with you. It should work, we should all see it. Here it is. I think so. Very well, for all of you. I want you to know that when I have my screen in full view, I won't be able to see the chat. So it's possible that you might write comments in the chat that I might not see, at least in real time. But I appreciate that you put your comments and they will be passed to me and I can then answer them. So let's talk about Manapol.
If we are going to talk to someone, a new contact for example, to say something like, are you interested in knowing a very important and very natural way to support your immune system and improve your gastrointestinal health and eventually also improve the absorption of nutrients and vitamins. If we want to absorb vitamins, it is very important that we use them correctly. There is a plant that has been known for thousands of years and is recognized in the literature for its healing properties. This species of plant grows on all continents. It is very well known and was very well known by our ancestors for its healing properties.
I love history, forgive me if I put some history notes here periodically in our conversation, but Alexander the Great, many people have heard of him, he had a supplement for his army, which was nothing more than aloe plants. He kept those aloe plants healthy for his army. And why? Medicine at that time wasn't as sophisticated, but his doctors noticed that aloe helped the soldiers recover more quickly if they took the aloe or applied aloe gel to their wounds. And so, for thousands of years, that was exactly how aloe was used, and that was practically the only use. And the way they saw that plant was great for a scratch or a small wound.
It wasn't until much later that deep scientific research really began to find out what the true benefits of aloe are and what makes it work the way it does. And we will talk about that function. But before we talk about its benefits, let's talk about the reality we live in today. I know many of you are regulars on my calls or have seen my videos and have heard about this subject before, but for those who haven't been to these calls yet, it is very important to know that there is a reason why we have to take dietary supplements in the 20th century. And this is mostly because nobody did it before the 20th century. And much of that has to do with the fact that we have more and more stress in our bodies.
Our body works like an organic machine. And why do I like this analogy of the organic machine? This is because the conventional person, to whom I talk about glycobiology or conventional biology, gets a very strange look and doesn't even know what we are talking about. So it is very important to talk to people using examples of things that make sense to them, that they can relate to. Everyone knows what a machine is and everyone knows the basics of a machine. Our body is like a machine. It was an organic machine, but it is a machine. And like all machines, it needs to be fueled. And so, that fuel is the food that we feed ourselves with, and it's everything we need to be healthy: amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and something else that is very important, which is glycans.
If you are not getting all these nutrients from your diet, and almost no one is today, then we have to pay close attention to supplementation. And I'm not going to focus this presentation on vitamins or minerals. It is very important for us to look at our body initially as a machine, as we've said, that needs fuel. Our ancestors lived in a completely different way. Today, one of the books I wrote was called 'How to Survive in a Toxic World.' In that book, I note that around 1930, synthetic chemicals began to appear. They did not exist on planet Earth before that date. When synthetics began to be created, there were some advantages we gained through these synthetics, but for all the positive issues, there are also negative issues. There are many problems with some synthetic chemicals that cause real stress on the immune system, the nervous system, and also on all the systems of our body. And that was after the 20th century, but it didn't happen after 1930.
I want you to think about driving your car, whatever your car is. And you know that when you drive your car on a level road for, for example, 5 km, we will burn a certain amount of fuel and, therefore, we will also have some wear and tear on our car and we know that we will need a certain amount of maintenance to eventually replace parts. But if we did that same journey in the same car with the same conditions, but if we drove it up a hill, we would need much more fuel, we would have much more wear and tear, we would do more maintenance and more often, and we would also replace parts sooner. And so, our ancestors used to have their lives on level ground, but we, in the 20th century, are climbing a very steep hill and it gets steeper every year, because the stress on our bodies is increasing and the nutrition from our food is not able to meet these challenges.
We need... Our body is something fantastic. The human body is able to get nutrients from one system and reinforce another system. That is fantastic, but it's a kind of emergency plan that our body resorts to. But eventually, there may be nothing left to take from one system to another. And that is why supplementation is so important, because in the 20th century, we are all climbing a ravine and things have stopped. Many of you know that most governments, most governments in the world, and all the governments I've dealt with in the world, all say that our food is great, our diet is great, and no one needs supplements. And that is what government agencies in various countries around the world tell you. But the truth is that 67 countries at this moment, which is a lot of countries as you can see, 67 countries have created laws, federal laws, that food companies of various types have to add vitamins and/or minerals to their foods before we consume them. And why would they make this a law? The answer is easy. It's because the food is not providing enough vitamins or minerals in quantity.
Most people in governments are not aware of the topic we will talk about later. I am a living witness to that. With those various countries, 67 countries. So, as you can see, it is very important for us to fortify our bread, our meat. And that's why when we buy many foods in supermarkets or grocery stores, we see the indication 'fortified with this' or 'fortified with that.' Many of them have synthetic vitamins and minerals. And so, these 67 countries impose this supplementation by law, this enrichment by law, because the diet is not providing what it used to provide previously, and the stress applied to our body is increasingly greater and we are driving in a ravine, as we said.
That new person who arrives at our organization and to whom we have to present our products, our company, might ask the question, but why Mannatech? There are countless companies, so why Mannatech? Firstly, and what is most important, at least for me, is that unlike other companies in the market, we are a science company. We spend tens of millions of US dollars. Translate that to any currency of any country you are in. Right now, we are talking about tens of millions of US dollars. We spend so many millions that I've even lost count a bit. We not only research equipment, but we also research studies. The studies are very extensive. Why do we study our products? Because we want to make sure that our products are safe. We want to be sure that they are effective. We do that through science. Most of the scientific studies we have at Mannatech are double-blind. They are double-blind placebo studies, and that is the gold standard of science. There is nothing better than these studies. In fact, when the doctor tells you about the science that supports your product and you respond with 'yes, we have double-blind, placebo-controlled human studies,' then the doctor will say, 'So, you have evidence to support your data.' And yes, we have that information.
So it is very important that you know this, and I usually bring this up because our competition, our competitors, do not bring this science to these products. I recently heard that there are close to 400 companies in this area and there are only maybe close to four that do a small level of science, but it is very important for us to do science and work on the science of our products. There might be someone with a website that says, 'Our magic product has an ingredient, the ingredient is scientifically tested and has clinical studies, and that's why our product is the best.' That is interesting and it's good. It's something positive, but let's be realistic, let's be grounded. And the science... Let me hold up my two fingers here, item A and item B. A has a function and B has another function. But when we combine item A and item B, perhaps they can have a completely different function, or maybe A cancels B or B cancels A. I hope you understand what I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that Mannatech wants to do its studies on our finished products, let's say, original science. Of course, we have ingredients that we find and that have good science that we use to improve our products, but we also do original science.
We are the only company in the industry that can say, we are the only company in the industry that can say that we are pioneers in the field of science and no other company can make this claim. We currently have more than 150 patents. Patents expire in 20 years. That happens in all countries and people say, 'The patents expired.' Ah, and that is not a concern. We have proprietary processes that can never be duplicated. So, although patents can expire, and they are fantastic because they prove what we say we have, the processes exist, even if those expire, even if they have, for example, 20 years. The exclusivity of the product is protected due to what we do with our natural ingredients and our processes which are also exclusive and legally recognized. And so, we are pioneers in the scientific domain of nutritional glycobiology. And no other company can say this: 'We are the science company.' And so, when someone tells you they were on a certain website and the website is prettier than yours, and there are many pretty ones out there, of course, the marketing material can eventually be better if there is good marketing or bad marketing, but science is science. We cannot argue with science. And that is why I am here talking to you today because of the science, because of the scientific evidence that Mannatech uses. Science is important. Pretty websites are very important, but we want to buy a product that really works. We want a product for which there is documentation that it works. And that is exactly what Mannatech does.
The first science of glycans was not yet a very sophisticated science, but it was an approach in 1857, which was important, and by 2010, more than 20,000 articles had been published in this area with the keyword glycoprotein. The last time I checked and did a keyword search for glycoprotein, more than 362,000 results had already appeared. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022... The technology that is present there could not have been known if it weren't for glycans, but that's for another different conference, another call. Five years ago, when I spoke in the scientific community about glycans, 'what is that?' And today there is no longer that doubt, there is much more interest. Literally, there is a function of the human body that cannot function without glycans. That would be another presentation we could have, but for now we are just in this more general area to talk about Manapol. We will talk next.
Manapol is a very interesting product, it was the second product from Mannatech and it is the product that defined our path for the rest of Mannatech's life. I hope it lasts longer than we are today. It has this name in the Bible and also in the Quran. Manna is referred to, the manna that fell from heaven and fed the Israelites. When they reached the promised land, it has that word manna. We have a polysaccharide called mannose. When we put the letters O-S in English at the end of each word, it identifies a saccharide or a sugar, as we would prefer. This is very important. We did a double-blind, placebo-controlled study with human blood to verify that the saccharides we use... I don't like to use the word sugar much, but it is correct to use the word sugar. When I talk about sugar, people think of table sugar, what makes us fat and is bad for our health. That is not what we do. There are many, many saccharides or sugars. There are monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, polysaccharides. Many of these, all these saccharides when combined create glycans. But that would be another conversation.
So where does Manapol come from? Where does the name Mannatech come from? The original name of our company was M-Price and we changed very quickly to Mannatech because of the manna that came from heaven given by God to the Israelites. All this gel around the mannose exists to keep the mannose safe, protected. The gel is practically dispensable for our health. It's the function it performs that is important. So we have monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, 3 to 10 monos linked in chains, polysaccharides with long chains of saccharides. And so, the world is only now beginning to catch up with this conversation or this science of glycans. But Mannatech was a pioneer in this area. We started all of this and all of our products, all of our products, we try to put some type or some level or some complex of glycans. And two of the ingredients, there are 10, by the way, but two of those are so crucial for the functioning of the body that one of those is Manapol.
Of course, Manapol is a special registered name for the mannose that is extracted from aloe vera gel using our proprietary process. And so it's not just any mannose, it's a mannose through our concept, through our proprietary process. I love history, as I've already told you. So let's look a little at the history of glycans so we can better understand. Many, many centuries ago there was talk of glycans, but they didn't know it. The Ming Dynasty had something that was called bird's nest soup. It was made with the saliva of a very special bird. And in that saliva, there were glycans that improved our immune health. But that would be a new presentation, one that I usually give to dentists to teach how glycans can work for overall health, especially for our teeth. And literally, there is no function of the human body that does not involve glycans, none. And so, vitamins and minerals are very important. Yes, of course they are, they are essential, but you must understand that if you have everything you need, but if you are deficient in a key glycan, your body will not function correctly. That is the truth.
I will make a presentation in the future to Mannatech Europe about Ambrotose and we will go into more detail about that at that time. As I told you, the first product was called Plus, it was a product that was quickly changed to Plus, which is the name of the product we have known for over 30 years. If you are tired or lethargic or unhappy, if things are not going well for you, or if you have some difficulties with the female reproductive system or there is some difficulty with the male reproductive system, of course, both exist, it's not just a product for ladies. Plus is a product that is so good. I used to tell people and I still do, that if we can't explain well how Plus works, just offer someone a bottle of Plus and after 30 days, they will certainly buy the product.
Our original Manapol was cultivated in Mexico. Currently, our Manapol is cultivated in Costa Rica. It is very important when we cultivate our aloe that we have certain soil conditions, a certain level of humidity that is around the plants and is consistent throughout the year, and if we can maintain that, whether we are in Costa Rica or Mexico or let's imagine in Salvador or as long as we are in this zone, these sun and climatic conditions. Then we can cultivate this aloe vera enriched with mannose. A key ingredient that is... there are nine other very important ingredients in Manapol as well, which come from four other important plants. And so, with this information, our proprietary method of extracting the mannose from aloe vera gel is very important.
All companies have aloe vera and I receive emails all the time from associates all over the world saying that company A, B, or C also has it. And that is fantastic. Aloe is very good. Even if it's aloe that isn't extracted correctly or processed correctly as we do, you still get benefits from that aloe vera. It's a fantastic product, but to get the level of efficacy of aloe vera the way we do it, it really has to be a Mannatech product. It's a Mannatech exclusive, it has more polysaccharides than the competition. It has been tested by third parties in clinical trials for safety and efficacy. I have had the privilege of verifying this many times in the growth and various stages of processing and cultivation of this plant. It is an absolutely fantastic plant, it is very resilient, but everything on this plant, everything that is on the outside of this rind of the plant, this rind that this plant has, is there exactly to protect the gel.
But we use what we discard. We only want to extract the true mannose. There are many companies, I'll use that word, but we have the true mannose. But when we extract the true mannose and discard the rest of the plant, we don't lose it, we continue to use it. And that seems very important to me, because what is not good for our body, mannose, we put in Manapol. It is very important as a fertilizer. It is important for fertilizing the soil. With that fertilization, we put it in the sun. Of course, new aloe plants grow healthier and more... We also have the highest polysaccharide content of any aloe product. The polysaccharide content tells you how much you have, and our products are tested by third parties, as we said, and this is very important, because if we don't trust our own products, our technology, to the point of handing them over to third parties and asking them to test them for us, then it's not worth it, right? It's not a true product, and this is something that Mannatech does. We ask companies to do these tests. There are many companies doing it, not many, many.
Our aloe is unique in many ways. One of the ways is the fact that we have a unique aloe-based pectin. Imagine a hexagonal shape and on the walls of that hexagon there is a material that is pectin. Pectins are all glycans and pectins are known as helpers for our body in detoxification, problems we have in the 20th century. And so, we have the benefit of pectin at the same time that we have the mannose, and so we put the pectin and the mannose in the same powder. And the heavier the pectin, the more effective it is. And the studies, you can see for yourselves. I challenge anyone to try to find a pectin heavier than ours, I challenge everyone. And so, we have that fantastic benefit from our aloe vera pectin, as well as the mannose that we process specifically through our proprietary process, which no one else in the world can do. It's just us.
We know that Manapol supports cellular communication if our body is invaded by something that is not good for us. And our body knows it has to activate its immune system to get rid of that threat. It is very important that communication happens. Only our body can create a hormone through cellular communication. It doesn't matter what we want to do, because function in the human body always results from cellular communication and is based on that cellular communication. It depends on glycans. And so, for me, what is most essential are the glycans. How can something be more important than a glycan? We also know that Manapol can specifically improve our immune response, but it can also improve cellular metabolism. And we know that it supports digestion by increasing the absorption of critical nutrients, like vitamin C, vitamin E, and that is also very important, many benefits.
Our mannose... The definition in the United States, the United States Pharmacopeia, the definition of our mannose is that the molecular weight must be between 1 and 2 million Daltons. The Dalton is a measure of weight. Another important measure is the amount of mannose, and it must be between 380,000 and 400,000 in molecular weight. Our mannose is very close to two million. It is practically impossible for any other company to present these results. The function of anything in biochemistry is due to its structure, and therefore, structure is fundamental to function. When we change the structure, we also change the function. Many of you won't remember all of this, but just to have some more notes. Our mannose has a formula that is presented on the first line, C6H12O6, and the mannose, the molecular structure of mannose has a different structure. Structure equals function. So, if we want the best, we want Manapol.
People will say mannose is something cheap, why is yours so expensive? And that is due to the fact that we are not putting any junk or any filler in our product to bulk it up. We use a very important and very expensive mannose. It takes about 415 kg of aloe leaves to create 1 kg of Manapol. And everything else, the other 414 kg, is put in a truck and new fertilizers are created to fertilize the aloe fields for our next harvest. So, think about it. All this effort and only 1 kg, which results from the 415 kg of leaves. It's a mountain of aloe vera leaves as they extract to get that specific percentage of gel. And we also separate the latex from the aloe. We have to do it by hand, because if we use machines, the machines don't have the precision and the care of a person doing it by hand with a special tool. And so, some products out there will have aloe latex. It's not just not good for our health, it's actually bad for our health.
And so, yes, it supports cellular communication, which is very important. We know that these are two of the most important saccharides for communication, and that means in all functions of our body, without exception. There are people who ask me, 'I have problem A, do you think I should take Manapol?' I answer yes. And another person comes to me, asks me, 'I have problem B, do you think I should use Manapol?' Yes. Why? For all functions. It doesn't matter if it's problem A, B, C, or D. I don't care what your problem is. If your cells are not communicating effectively, you cannot have effective functioning of your body. It's very, very simple. We know that our product is safe and natural in supporting the immune system throughout the year. People who question if the product might cause an adaptation or that it doesn't work. No, this product is safe throughout the year. It can be used 365 days a year.
If I had a quantum computer to put on a digital screen, the numbers would move so fast that our eyes wouldn't be able to see the numbers. It's at that speed that our body uses the saccharides. It is completely safe and natural in this support of the immune system throughout the year. It also helps promote gastrointestinal health. We discovered in our research, we were looking for, it was almost an accident. You know that sometimes we have some happy accidents, and so we discovered that our saccharides, our products and Manapol, the probiotic bacteria love this product. And so, when we use foods with these probiotics, they are called prebiotics, and as soon as they are fed, you know how it works. Think of yourselves. If you eat something that is healthy, you become healthier. If you eat something that is less healthy, you become less healthy. So, if you feed those prebiotic bacteria, they can become healthier, multiply more quickly, and can help support your colon more quickly.
You can also have improved absorption of essential nutrients, like vitamin A or vitamin C. They are very important for your body and it is important that you can effectively absorb your vitamins and minerals. There are many people who would say they would take a second product to help absorb your vitamins. And so, there it is. This was a very brief overview of Manapol, one of our most important products at Mannatech, a product that anyone can use throughout the year, a product that is made through an exclusive process that cannot be done by any other company, a product that is distinctively different from any other mannose product on the planet and that is exclusive to Mannatech. I hope this information has been very useful for all of you and I encourage you to find people who can see this video, who can learn more. One of the areas I have studied most in my life was the psychology of learning. And I know that many people don't learn very well the first time, but the more time and the more times they see a video, the more they learn. Many people say they don't remember having heard it. And so, it is very important to see it more than once. You can expand your intellectual capacity, expand your mind, expand your knowledge by watching the videos. Thank you very much.
