Tersus Pharmaceuticals is a Cleveland, Ohio-based Biopharmaceuticals company, the mission of which is to to discover, develop and commercialize “nutrients for living” that help people live healthier, happier lives.
Tersus Life Sciences ~ Business Facts:
- Founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 2010.
- Recipient of Therapeutic Discovery Grant for Ground Breaking Medical Research in 2010.
- Cleveland Clnic Research Trials in 2010 ~ Provinal™ Omega 7 Fatty Acids clinically shown to increase HDL cholesterol levels and to attack metabolic syndrome (triad of cholesterol/inflammation, insulin resistance, and obesity)
- Provinal™ achieved GRAS Certification in December 2011. Securing the services of the reputable AIBMR Life Sciences, Inc. group to certify that purified palmitoleic acid as Generally Recognized As Safe.
More Background Information:
How do perfectly healthy people get heart attacks? How is that that so many seemingly healthy people, in the prime of life and peak of health, and unexpectedly die of heart disease before reaching age 50? People are dying at a staggering rate; in fact, American Heart Association data show that approximately every 30 minutes, someone in America dies of heart disease.
Gaining a Better Understanding of Inflammation AND Cholesterol
We need to come up with a strategy to combat the perfect storm of (1) low HDLs (2) high LDLs, and (3) arterial inflammation.
With so much focus on cholesterol, it’s easy to forget that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease, a silent killer, that strikes young and old, male, and female, fit and unfit, in the prime of life and peak of health.
To truly understand their heart health, people who are at risk need to do more than a simple stress test or an EKG. There is a need for a blood test get a fuller measure of the lipid profile as sell as the inflammatory markers, specifically measuring: HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol , and C-Reactive Protein (measures inflammation in the arteries).
To better understand their heart health, people need more than a simple stress test, EKG, or lipid profile…. it’s important to look at the inflammatory markers as well, specifically measuring: HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol , and C-Rreactive Protein (measures inflammation in the arteries).
Bad cholesterol builds up inside the arterial walls
When many people think of atherosclerosis, they think of bad cholesterol accumulating to form plaque on the walls of the arteries themselves. But your arteries are a porous membrane, and if there is inflammation (which can be caused by saturated fats, particularly palmitic acid, which is a favorite of the food industry because it’s inexpensive, tasty, and stable), the low-density lipoproteins (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) are able to enter inside the arterial membranes themselves, and build up inside the arterial walls.
Many people think of plaque building on walls of the arteries themselves. Yet your arteries are a porous membrane, and this video shows how low-density lipoproteins (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) build up inside the arterial walls themselves. Watch this video to gain a better understanding of the role of C-reactive protein and inflammation in coronary heart disease.
CRP is measureable inflammatory marker
Doctors can test your blood for CRP. The body produces CRP during the general process of inflammation. Therefore, CRP is a “marker” for inflammation, meaning its presence indicates an increased state of inflammation in the body.
Thrombosis or “Hardening of the Arteries”
If plaque builds up long enough you start to get blockage, and then thrombosis. When a hardened artery wall ruptures, you get bleeding, resulting in blood clots, and a heart attack or stroke. Without a doubt, it’s inflammation, not just cholesterol, that is one of the major contributing factors of coronary heart disease.
“If you have the perfect storm of high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, low HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and high inflammatory markers, it should set off alarm bells. “
With all the baby boomers walking around with their ‘ticking time bombs’, unless we do something fast, it’s a very real possibility we could start to have an increasing number of strokes and heart attacks, and it could bankrupt our country, as well as deprive us of people who could otherwise lead long, healthy lives.
You need more of the good and less of the bad
Eat less fast food and more real food: fruits and vegetables, lots of them in every color. Preferably from your own garden. Avoid foods that are high in saturated fats, like red meat, and replace them with real foods that are high in monounsaturated fats, like avocadoes. Drink plenty of water. I for one, am a big fan of the Mediterranean diet.
It’s important that we come to an understanding about the direct link between diet and nutrition, because heart disease is the #1 killer in the US. It is also one of the biggest contributors to the meteoric rise in health care costs.
It’s an issue of strategic national importance.
Your Lipid Profile
The lipid profile measures cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C, “good” cholesterol), and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, “bad” cholesterol). Triglycerides are the major form of fat found in the body and their function is to provide energy for the cells. Below are the desirable ranges for the components of the lipid profile:
- Cholesterol < 200 mg/dL (5.18 mmol/L)
- HDL-cholesterol > 40 mg/dL (1.04 mmol/L)
- LDL-cholesterol <100 mg/dL* (2.59 mmol/L)
- Triglycerides <150 mg/dL (1.70 mmol/L)
* optimal levels will depend on the number and type of risk factors present and why testing is being done
If any or all of your results are significantly outside these ranges, your risk of a cardiac event is increased. Diet, exercise, and/or medication may reduce levels, thereby reducing your risk.
Your C-reactive Protein (Inflammatory markers)
- Low risk: less than 1.0 mg/L
- Average risk: 1.0 to 3.0 mg/L
- High risk: above 3.0 mg/L
These values are only a part of the total evaluation process for cardiovascular diseases. Additional risk factors to be considered are elevated levels of cholesterol, LDL-C, triglycerides, and glucose. In addition, smoking, having high blood pressure (hypertension), and being diabetic also increase the risk level.
Provinal™ Research:
Provinal™ Boosts HDL Cholesterol Levels by 85%
Caption: The mice that were fed a high cholesterol diet with Omega 7 had noticeably less cholesterol deposits. The right panel shows the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque (cholesterol deposition in red).
The study featured ApoE mice (considered the “gold standard” in modeling human atherosclerosis) and was modeled after similar studies conducted for major pharmaceutical drugs. The mice with a diet supplemented with palmitoleic acid showed an increase in HDL cholesterol levels of 85% while 100% of these mice exhibited a consistent anti-atherogenic effect (as measured by the aortic root lesion area).
Additional studies are warranted, however based on these results, palmitoleic acid could provide a greater boost to HDL cholesterol levels than any other known natural product, including niacin – without flushing or other negative side effects.
Palmitoleic Acid Research is Extensive
Tersus Pharmaceutical’s palmitoleic acid research is exciting, but many other clinical studies conducted by Harvard, the Rockefeller Institute and others have identified Omega 7 derivatives as being extremely valuable to human health. Specifically, Rockefeller researchers found that palmitoleic acid inhibited the role of SCD1.
Flipping the weight loss “switch”
Caption: The lean mouse, with no SCD-1, ate until it was full (satiety effect). Its increased metabolism burned fat helping it to lose weight. The fat mouse, with active SCD-1, didn’t know when it was full and kept eating.
A team of researchers led by Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey Friedman, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, have shown that an enzyme called SCD-1 is a “switch” that determines whether fat is stored or burned in mice. Above, an obese mouse that lacks the hormone leptin (bottom) and a lean, double-mutant mouse that lacks both leptin and SCD-1 (top). The double mutant mouse lost weight despite continuing to overeat.
“The researchers found that removing SCD-1 markedly reduces the weight of the obese mouse —at 16 weeks of age, weight was reduced by 29 percent in females and 34 percent in males. The reduced weight of these animals could be accounted for by a dramatic increase in energy expenditure”.
Despite consuming a diet identical to that of the control group, mice that consumed palmitoleic acid as part of their diet were leaner and less fat than their counterparts. This finding of “less fat deposition” parallels the work of the Harvard group which also noted decreased hepatic steatosis or fatty liver generation.
Websites:
Tersus Life Sciences
https://tersuslifesciences.com/