Fulvic Acid
History – how did we get in this mess?
Who is the chemical board?
Organic does not mean more healthy
Where did all the minerals go?
What is glyphosate?
How the liver detoxes – you guess it – you need minerals
What is fulvic acid?
Why Fulvic acid
Fulvic Acid Benefits
History
So how did we get to the point where everyone is sick and malnourished but fat all at the same time? The answer lies in understanding the history of farming and the petroleum industry. I will try and keep this as simple as possible and link to as many resources for further deep dives if that is your thing.
The chemical pesticide industry would have you believe that they are the only game in town and there was never any alternative to bugs on crops. Can you name any method that is better than spraying right now? Some of you can but most would say the alternatives to spraying are less affective. As it turned out there are new studies coming out all the time showing superior methods of chemical herbicides and pesticides that are as good if not better. There was an article published not long ago saying that installing bat boxes in and around fields will manage insect pests just as well as spraying.
At the turn of the century (1900) there was a group of people that specialized in a form of pest management called radionics. Using principles established by Tesla (Mr. Tesla not the car company) they were able to deploy their frequency machine to farms and keep pests away from the crops without any need for chemicals. This was a real problem for the newly established chemical companies like DOW and Dupont just to name a few. It turns out that their competing pesticides and herbicides were not as effective as the radionics. So as well all the best product always wins right!! Of course not don’t be naïve. What these chemical companies did was form a lobbying group called the chemical to, you guessed it, lobby congress to outlaw their competition. Since we all know that politicians are 99% (because nothing is 100%) corrupt they outlawed radionic in favor of petrol chemicals, herbicides, and pesticides. They did this to protect the farmers from the evil scammers that were the radionics groups. There is just one problem with this story. The radionics practitioners got paid at the end of the season and only if the farmer was satisfied with their performance. They always got paid. I have searched on and off over the years to learn how to perform radionics on my own garden but so far that information is lost to history. I’ll be sure to amend this section once it changes. I’m sure the information is out there. Information never truly dies. So now our farmers are forced to use chemicals on their fields but at least we are still using natural fertilizing methods right? Right?!
Fast forward to just after World War 2. The chemical lobbying group known as the Chemical board is now absorbed into the government and renamed the Food and Drug Administration or the FDA. You read that right a former lobbying agency dedicated to bringing its clients products to market is now directly in charge of telling you what is safe for you and what you can and cannot use on or put in your body. Mind blowing right! It is about this time that chemical companies that create low cost nitrate based explosives for the war now have tons of the raw nitrite material hanging around and they need to do something with them and losing money is not an option. What they found was that when they spread them over the fields (remember these were explosives so some where becoming unstable) the plants in those field grew huge and they grew much faster. They had discovered synthetic nitrate-based fertilizers. The quick summary is that farmers can now directly add Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potassium based fertilizers directly to the field without the need to rest the soil. There are few other minerals they put with it but the problem is they are no longer using compost and manure based fertilizers and they are no longer rotating or resting the fields so micro and trace minerals are declining at an alarming rate. We will talk about those later. The farmers are also starting to use more and more chemical pesticides and herbicides as well. This has the effect of sterilizing the soil. Farmers did not understand the complex relationship between the soil microbiome and the ability for the plants to take up minerals and trace minerals. If they did, they would have never used those chemicals as they were signing a soil death warrant which we are still dealing with.
So we have lobbying, chemicals, and industrialization. This leaves one last piece of the puzzle left – Economics. Earl Butz was the director of agriculture under President Nixon and he is the one responsible for fixing the crop prices through the farm support programs that pay farmers to grow certain crops over others. Most notably corn. There is a fantastic documentary on this subject called “King Corn”. I highly recommend watching it with the family to understand the impact these farm policies have on your life. Essentially these policies paved the way for cheap, nutrient depleted foods which make up all of the modern processed food industry. How can a tomato have all the same vitamins, trace minerals, antioxidants and vital life force if we are only supplying it with on average 10-15 chemical-based fertilizers that are only responsible for making it grow big and fast. I grow my veggies myself and my fertilizers recipe has 120 minerals and trace minerals of varying amounts. I never knew I liked vegetables until I started growing my own because mine have flavor. It turns out that flavor is nutrition but that’s another topic for another lesson. So now you know the big “why” of how we are in this mess. Lets explore several aspects in more detail.
Organic does not mean healthier.
I have a lot of Mennonite organic farmers that I see at the clinic and we discuss in great detail their frustrations with the current laws associated with “Organic Farming”. The summary is that they work extremely hard to put nutrients back into their soils so that they can produce a demonstrable better product which is awesome. Right? The problem is that as an organic farmer you don’t have to. You can cut corners and produce inferior products just like in any other industry. This is because the organic certification is a negative law in that it tells you what you can’t do not what you should do. So you can use pesticides and herbicides on your fields as long as they are labeled organic. I used those on my garden one year battling a white fly infestation. I had to use a lot more and I could taste it in my food. This means I was ingesting the poison. Now it was not a petroleum-based poison but it was a still a poison and I was eating it. Not healthy but totally legal and technically organic. There’s the problem. It’s technically organic. The organic label at the grocery store is marketing to you the consumer that this higher priced food is healthier but most of time it is not and they technically didn’t say that it was… you just thought it because you assume organic means healthier. They just didn’t correct your thinking. Once you read the laws regarding what is and is not considered organic you will understand it is essentially a marketing scam. This is why I tell people get to know your growers at the farmers market or the pick your own fields. A lot of times those people are not “organic” but they are far healthier than those that are.
Remember me talking about my hydroponics (growing without soil) nutrients and how I used 120 minerals instead of just the base 10-15? None of it would be considered organic based on current laws and definitions because some of the nutrients are synthetically derived. This does not mean the form is bad or unhealthy but it would not qualify. So in order to have the perception of health and vitality I would be required to use inferior methods and my produce would be less nutritious and this is the problem with the organic label.
Where did all the minerals go?
Part 1 – The glyphosate problem
One thing that always bothered me was when you look at the rate of minerals declining in the soils and foods, it does not account for the total deficiency we are seeing in people. There are still some 50-60% minerals in the soils from a baseline average taken in 1950s. The problem is that people have symptoms for much lower amounts, and testing shows much lower amounts. Poor diet alone cannot account for this. So what’s the deal?!
It turns out that there is a number of chemicals that either block directly or deplete the body of minerals at a rapid rate. Herbicides, pesticides, and heavy metals to name just few all block directly or deplete the body at a higher rate that can be achieved through normal diet.
The most popular herbicide on the market is a product called roundup. The active chemical is called glyphosate. So how do glyphosate work? The following block quote is taken from Wikipedia and not some other conspiracy website.
“Glyphosate was first synthesized in 1950 by Swiss chemist Henry Martin, who worked for the Swiss company Cilag. The work was never published. Stauffer Chemical patented the agent as a chemical chelator in 1964 as it binds and removes minerals such as calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, and zinc.
Somewhat later, glyphosate was independently discovered in the United States at Monsanto in 1970. Monsanto chemists had synthesized about 100 derivatives of aminomethylphosphonic acid as potential water-softening agents. Two were found to have weak herbicidal activity, and John E. Franz, a chemist at Monsanto, was asked to try to make analogs with stronger herbicidal activity. Glyphosate was the third analog he made. Franz received the National Medal of Technology of the United States in 1987 and the Perkin Medal for Applied Chemistry in 1990 for his discoveries.
Monsanto developed and patented the use of glyphosate to kill weeds in the early 1970s and first brought it to market in 1974, under the Roundup brand name. While its initial patent expired in 1991, Monsanto retained exclusive rights in the United States until its patent on the isopropylamine salt expired in September 2000.
In 2008, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Stephen O. Duke and Stephen B. Powles – an Australian weed expert – described glyphosate as a "virtually ideal" herbicide. In 2010 Powles stated: "glyphosate is a one in a 100-year discovery that is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease."
As of April 2017, the Canadian government stated that glyphosate was "the most widely used herbicide in Canada", at which date the product labels were revised to ensure a limit of 20% POEA by weight. Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency found no risk to humans or the environment at that 20% limit, and that all products registered in Canada at that time were at or below that limit.”
I included the entire block quote so you can see based on freely available information that glyphosates are a mineral chelator – that’s how water softeners work! They make the minerals in the water bind to the salt and not your faucets or pipes. The minerals are still there; they are just unavailable! The same thing is happening to you. Notice that nothing in the quote or the article, if you chose to read it, mentions long term health studies. So, a little bit of glyphosate every day won’t kill you outright but what happens if everything has a little bit in and you consume it everyday for your whole life? Now you have a lot just over a longer period of time. This is preventing you from using the minerals in the food. You are eating them but just like the water softener they are not available for you.
Part 2 – detoxification
So now we have established why you can’t absorb all the minerals you are taking in but that’s still not the whole picture. No one in their right minds would argue that our environments are clean and chemical free so how does the body actually detoxify itself? If you guessed minerals, you are correct. Let’s dive a little deeper into that, but before we do that let’s talk about what detox is not so you don’t hurt yourself.
Detox is not herbs, juices, cleanses, or enemas. All of the supplements and methods you have been taught are detoxing you are really just moving toxins not breaking them down. The body’s detox has approximately 3 stages (need my biochem readers to chill out because I know this is a gross simplification but you can email your grievances directly and I will note them).
1. Phase 1 is motivation or movement of toxins from their current location in the body to the liver for processing. The one notable exception is infrared sauna where toxins can leave directly through the skin but you still need minerals because you can’t sweat without minerals. So all your herbals, juices, cleanses are mostly super activating phase one pathways and dumping a lot of toxins into the liver for processing. With everyone promoting cleanses, the body must have a really hard time moving toxins around…right? Actually, no not at all. Unless you have a genetic phase one problem you are actually really good at moving toxins to the liver. You really don’t need help. So why didn’t the body already move the toxins from the tissues to the liver? Because the body is smart and knows that it does not have enough phase 2 materials to break down these toxins. So you doing your herbal cleanse are actually damaging your liver because you are forcing it to deal with poisons at a rate it cannot handle… so stop doing that!!
2. Phase 2 is where you need to concentrate your detox effort and it’s not all that sexy or fun. Phase 2 detox mainly consist of the master antioxidant in the body, which is glutathione, breaking down all 100,000 daily chemicals you are exposed to into something that is inert and that you can pass either through urine or stool (poop) that won’t harm you. This is done through the glutathione detox pathway.
(insert pic of minerals and glutathione detox)
3. Phase 3 is elimination either through the colon or through the kidneys. This why you need to stay hydrated. As it turned out, hydration is not water driven but mineral driven. If you are low on minerals, you can’t be hydrated no matter how much water you drink. Then if you have leaky gut you will resorb toxins back into the body. Glyphosate “sensitivity” (their words not mine) can cause the tight junction in your intestines to remain open causing immune reactions to food. Please see our lesson on leaky gut and how to fix it.
As you can clearly see you need minerals to detox effectively, and you need to not have leaky gut because you don’t want the toxins recirculating back into the body.
Fulvic acid
We have finally arrived at the whole point of this lesson which is fulvic acid. What is fulvic acid and how can it help with any of this?
Fulvic acid used to be very abundant in our soils which contain large amounts of fulvic and humate acids. These fulvic and humic acids create the dark brown, or black, loam type soils we see across the northern region of North America. This is in contrast to clay-based soils that are red clays or sandy desert soils which are low in fulvic and humates. Plants use both fulvic and humic acid to aid in the transport of nutrients into and out of the plants. The compounds can both transport minerals and bind to and remove toxins directly out of the organism, either plants or animals. If we remember just a few paragraphs ago we are over working our soils through artificial means, and these fulvic and humic acids are not able to regenerate themselves through the soil microbiome like in generations past. This means that each season we harvest from these soils there are fewer minerals in the plants because the transporters are not there. This also means there are fewer of the compounds in the plants that help us. In the case of industrial hydroponics, there are none of these.
Fortunately, fulvic acid rich deposits are found around the world in certain lignite coal beds. This allows us to mine and purify this mineral rich soil into the supplement that most people know as just “fulvic acid.” We use this at commercially very high doses of over 150mg per day to detoxify the body and gut from glyphosate poisoning specifically and close down the leaky gut so the body can finally heal itself.
Notice I said commercially high doses. What does that mean? Simply most fulvic acid products are scams. That’s a bold statement. So what do we mean. Most fulvic acid supplements are liquid. The manufacturers put just enough of the mineral powder into the solution to make it change color. They will say something to the effect of “150mg of fulvic acid solution”. Since you, the average consumer, do not understand labeling laws, you think you are getting 150mg of fulvic acid directly. This is not what they said but again you assumed and they didn’t correct. What they actually said on that label was you are getting 150mg of a solution that contains an undisclosed amount of fulvic acid that they diluted again to an unknown amount in the bottle. So you have literally no idea how much you are getting. I can turn a solution of 1 liter of water black with as little as 150mg and less if I make it a shade of brown that you can see through.
The problem as you can see is that you are essentially paying for extremely expensive water. But here is the insane part of this whole thing: people are still getting some relief from these miniscule amounts of fulvic found in these products!! This is where I started with fulvic acid. When I had severe leaky gut, I used a product that I got results from. The problem that I ran into was that I could not afford to take what I needed. It would have amounted to 4 of the brand’s largest bottle totals over $320 a month!! I couldn’t afford it at the time, and honestly, even now, that would be hard for me and many people. When I started my health clinic, my goal was to get real nutritional therapy into the hands of people at the most cost effective and affordable price I could. This led to finding the source of fulvic acid and importing it directly from the manufacturer. This allows us to get correct therapeutic amounts into your hands without costing you an extra car payment!
We import directly from the manufacturer in China 60% purity fulvic acid powder which is the highest naturally found. The other 40% is humic acid which is extremely beneficial as well. We provide them in convenient packs that you mix with purified water to create your own fulvic concentrate that is dosed at a therapeutic 150mg of fulvic acid by weight per ounce. No funny business. You can weigh the contents yourself and you will see it’s slightly over 150mg per serving which overcomes any variance in packaging.
Although fulvic acid by itself is fantastic to achieve, the more compete mineral supplement we recommend is the Ionic Trace Minerals as well. Please see our lesson function of minerals as well and why we chose ionic mineral salt over the more popular chelated minerals found in 99% of supplements on the market.
Benefits:
We have discussed the history and causes of low minerals and mineral block substances. We just covered what is fulvic acid, so now let’s cover all its benefits for the body. An important idea to remember is that fulvic was a part of the natural minerals found in all foods until recently. It’s some new jungle fruit juice that is being pushed to cure something. This maintaining basic body chemistry is much more powerful than any of the other fads out there.
Basic Benefits:
Fulvic acid activates the nutrients found in the soil allowing them to be utilized by plant cells.
Fulvic acid has a similarly beneficial effect in humans and can serve as a vehicle to better carry nutrients to the correct parts of the body.
It is considered so effective that it can carry over 60 minerals and other trace elements and transport them directly into the cells.
Fulvic acid is considered by many to be the ultimate nutrition booster as it helps the body to absorb not only minerals and vitamins but also probiotics, fatty acids, and antioxidants.
Fulvic acid is not one thing like vitamin C is thought of as ascorbic acid. Fulvic acid is found in the lignite layers of soil around coil deposits and is a natural compound consisting on average of 50% fulvic and 50% humic compound. Depending on where these deposits are and how the fulvic and humic substances are purified will result in the final % distribution.
100% fulvic acid is considered synthetic so buyer beware.
Due to the abundance of Polyanion electrolytes in Fulvic acid, it "recharges the battery of the cell" so to speak, and drastically improves overall endurance.
Fulvic acid is known for providing a good burst of energy, and it is far different from traditional stimulants that are commonly sold on the open market. A good example of those stimulants would be energy drinks or even a cup of coffee. The reason has to do with fulvic acid not providing unwanted issues, such as nervousness or shaking. This is a clean-cut stimulant and one that makes it a lot easier to do things when you see the rise in energy.
Reduce pain - As nutrients are replenished in the body by Fulvic acid, all of the body's systems begin to function better. With this improved metabolic function comes a natural reduction in inflammation, which reduces pain in general. A hospital that took the time to start using fulvic acid stated that there was a 95% success rate when it came to treating corneal ulcers. The fulvic acid injections did a wonderful job, and another hospital stated that there was a difference between ulcerative colon issues, hemorrhoids, and gastrointestinal bleeding. In China, people also saw improvements with age-related issues and the pain that comes along with them. It allows people to sleep better and have more energy during the day.
Help to Better absorb nutrients - It is crucial to remember that fulvic acid can be found organically, which makes it much easier for the body to absorb it. It is not heavy in terms of molecular weight, which makes it much easier for the fulvic acid to pass through the cells when moving minerals. This can be up to 60 times its weight at once. It is also capable of penetrating water. Fulvic acid offers 70 trace minerals, and these nutrients are good for both the human body and plants. It ensures that plants grow properly, and those minerals add a lot of value to humans, too. This includes a rise in hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Additional elements come into play, such as zinc, nitrogen, potassium, sulfur, phosphorus, and magnesium, to name a few.
Mineral Deficiency and Mineral balance - Two time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling stated: "You could trace every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency." Since Fulvic acid is Dibasic in nature it has immense potential for delivering many different kinds of nutrients, but it is a perfect delivery system for organic minerals. A good example is taking the time to pursue isolated magnesium. It will help with the magnesium in the body but is going to throw the sodium levels out of order. This is why getting the ratio right is just as important as anything else. With the help of fulvic acid, it is vital to make this happen and ensure that the body is as healthy as it needs to be at all times. If the body is getting these minerals in a well-rounded manner, it will maintain better balance.
INTESTINAL HEALTH AND IMMUNE FUNCTION
Fulvic acid is known for its ability to detox the body and one of the first places is does this is in the gut
Can detox and close tight junction in the villi from pesticide poisoning (roundup) and for this reason should be considered a frontline supplement in treating inflammatory or leaky gut.
Contains trace minerals
All of these nourish and balance gut microflora which is most often accompanied by leaky gut
Aides in the correction of SIBO and IBS
Boosts the absorption of nutrients
It helps make the cells permeable to allow them to absorb nutrients and expel waste
Detox Benefits
The antioxidant properties of fulvic acid makes it important for cellular health and also to detoxify the body’s organs and tissues from toxins and heavy metals.
Ingesting fulvic acid can help eliminate heavy metals and toxins from the body. An Australian study published in 2012 found that fish living in water containing fulvic acid had aluminum levels 6 times lower than fish who lived in water without fulvic acid.
A study published in 2011 found that supplementing with fulvic acid significantly improved symptoms in eczema patients and compared favorably with many traditional eczema treatments.
This research supports some of the traditional uses of fulvic acid as a remedy for rashes caused by poison ivy, insect bites and fungal infections such as athlete’s foot. There is evidence to suggest that fulvic acid has potent fungicidal properties, making it an excellent treatment for athlete’s foot and stubborn toenail fungus.
So now you know why you should include Fulvic Acid in your supplement regime. The best way to add minerals to your diet is Fulvic acid, Ionic Magnesium with trace minerals, and salt. Although many medical doctors will disagree, salt is extremely necessary for proper body function. We recommend reading the “The Salt Fix: Why Experts Got It All Wrong - and How Eating More Might Save Your Life” - Dr. J. DiNicolantonio as a great place to learn about salt.