
The Sportron Difference
What is FoodMatrix®?
The core strength of the Sportron organization is the sophistication of its nutritional supplements, which
harness a unique technology known as FoodMatrix®. No other company in the United States (and only a handful in the rest of the world) has been granted a license to use this groundbreaking delivery technology by its USA-based developers.
FoodMatrix® is based on the work of Hungarian scientist, Andrew Szalay, who developed proprietary processes to concentrate micronutrients into food complexes. The technology is supported by recent research, including work by Nobel Prize winner, Dr Günter Blobel.
FoodMatrix® Nutrients: Just like real food
FoodMatrix® technology has positioned our products way ahead of any other nutritional supplement range on the market today. Their advantage is based on the fact that they are food complexes and as such, are recognized, absorbed and utilized just like real food. FoodMatrix® nutrients are up to 12 times more bioavailable and retained up to 16 times longer by the body. The bioavailability is so efficient that they need only be taken in conservative amounts.
FoodMatrix® Nutrients are:
- up to 12 times more bioavailable
- retained up to 16 times longer by the body
The bioavailability is so efficient that they need only be taken in conservative amounts.
Where did it all begin?
The discovery of Vitamin C in 1927 by the Hungarian scientist Albert Szent Györgyi was a significant step forward in the understanding of the role that nutrients play in the maintenance of health in the human body. Szent Györgyi used paprika and orange to isolate the white crystalline powder that we know today as ascorbic acid or vitamin C. These fruits had been used to miraculously treat and cure the incidence of scurvy.
In the process of synthesizing the active substance, Szent Györgyi used a progressively more and more concentrated form to treat scurvy patients, and found that the more concentrated the substance, the shorter the recovery time. This was an exciting discovery, but he was devastated when in his final stage of purification, when the isolated ascorbic acid was finally synthesized, the patients showed a poor response. Szent Györgyi realized that Vitamin C needs to be combined with other food substances for optimal utility in the human body.
Szent Györgyi received the Nobel prize for his work, but only much later, in 1955, discovered one of the group of substances that enhance the uptake of Vitamin C in the body. He called it Vitamin P. Today we recognize these substances as bioflavonoids and we are aware of the assistance they provide in the effective utilization of Vitamin C in the body.
Szent Györgyi's work intrigued a young student at the University of Hungary, where Szent Györgyi was a professor. That student, Andrew Szalay, after receiving his Masters in Pharmacology, moved to the United States in the late 30's and was distressed to see that ascorbic acid was being sold very widely as a chemical isolate for supplemental purposes. He also observed that other vitamins and minerals were also being sold as chemical isolates.
He knew that the human body was designed to process foods and to extract nutrients from these whole foods. In nature there are no isolated chemicals as source material for human nutrition. Andrew Szalay set out to find a way of providing concentrated nutrients in a food form where the nutrients are embedded to other elements including protein, carbohydrates and lipids. This endeavor took many years but culminated in a new, unique and innovative way of providing whole food nutrients as supplemental products.
Andrew Szalay developed a range of technologies that take concentrated nutrients in isolated chemical form and embed them to their essential food elements. An example would be where calcium carbonate is introduced under very specific conditions to a reactor containing live yeast. The calcium carbonate is integrated into the yeast plant to form part of the whole-food matrix. Once this process is completed, the outer membrane of the yeast cells are removed by enzymatic action, with no live yeast remaining.
Andrew Szalay has produced something most remarkable for mankind. We can now take concentrated nutrients in a food matrix form rather than as chemical isolates. Absorption, bioavailability and utilization are dramatically increased.
[ more ]