For the last fifty years I have been studying the pharmacological effect of foods and food extracts, and how these can be used to reduce your chances of illness and to make you feel and function better. 

Professor Paul Clayton has a PhD in clinical pharmacology, is a former senior scientific advisor to the UK government committee on the Safety of Medicines and works as the Director of Science for LYMA. 

Why Doesn't the Medical World Focus On Preventative Health?

By the time a patient goes to a doctor, it's often too late. Rather like a fire engine arriving at a house long after the house is burnt three-quarters to the ground. By the time medics arrive on the scene, the tools that they have are to treat symptoms. For years, the pharmaceutical industry has been focused on treating symptoms, rather than preventing disease occurring in the first place. The bulk of the medical business is not in cure, but in treatment. This is because health services are largely focussed on the treatment of chronic degenerative disease, the diseases that are attacking the health span of the western world. These include diabetes, cancer, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's and osteoporosis. Doctors tend to come onto the scene to treat these diseases late in the day, as they burn long and slow under the surface in their preclinical phase. Most patients don't realise they are suffering, as it takes a long time for them to reach the point where so much healthy tissue has been destroyed, that the patient notices symptoms of pain or disability.

"We need to undo the problems that are creating the growing public health disaster. These tools are nutritional. This is where true prevention lies."

By Professor Paul Clayton PhD, Clinical Pharmacologist and LYMA Director of Science

What Can Be Done to Help Prevent Chronic Degenerative Disease? 

Pharmaco-nutritional tools act in a profound way so far as disease prevention is concerned. They reset the metabolic errors that drive chronic degenerative disease. I think that it's time to bring clarity and rigour to this sector because now that evidence-based nutrition is coming of age, we need to find a way to convey this information in simple, but honest ways, to consumers who can then use it to improve their own health. 

We Need Better Supplement Regulation 

The supplement industry could benefit from better regulation, with a vast amount of the products in the industry unproven. Meanwhile many proven, patented peer-reviewed ingredients aren't allowed to make any medical claims. Contents should match label claims, but these are not always rigorously checked, equally there is an issue with unstable ingredients that can’t survive manufacture and distribution.

The current regulatory system makes it impossible for the companies like LYMA who are formulating with validated nutritional ingredients to talk truthfully about what they have.

The advent of processed food has brought about wide scale dysnutriton. As a society we are eating too much, and much of that is empty calories, not providing us with the nutrition our bodies need. The evidence for the therapeutic effects of nutritional enhancement from epidemiological research, preclinical models and clinical trials is overwhelming and yet the regulatory system has not yet taken this into account. We desperately need a new regulatory system to look at the real, 21st century science that's being done in this sector, allowing responsible brands to speak about ingredients that have been shown repeatedly in a range of studies to exert benefits.

Your Questions Answered, By Professor Paul Clayton PhD

What to look for when selecting an effective supplement? 

The potential benefits of well-designed nutrition are real and very significant. Look out for brands, like LYMA, who formulate with patented, peer-reviewed ingredients.

These are extracts that have been intensively researched, and carefully sourced. This makes them expensive, so it beholds the company involved to patent their extracts. Look for products which contain trademarked compounds, where there is peer-reviewed literature behind them that proves their preclinical and clinical functionality. Go for transparency.

What does a peer-reviewed ingredient actually mean? 

Peer-reviewed ingredients are shown in preclinical and clinical trials to work. These are patented compounds or extracts which are backed by considerable financial investment and characterize molecules in a way no one else has done before. This category of nutrition is moving the framework of the supplement debate wider, providing assurance of demonstrable effects over and above standard nutrition.

Every brand says 'clinically tested' but what level of clinical research should I be looking for? 

Not all clinical trials are to be trusted. Just as you wouldn't trust a medicine that hasn't been peer-reviewed, so you shouldn't always trust ingredients that haven't been peer-reviewed either. To be peer-reviewed means that studies have been reviewed and approved by an independent team of experts, published in medical journals and can be fully trusted. I would choose a supplement which includes over eight peer-reviewed ingredients and offers the highest level of transparency and efficacy.

Is it best to go for all-natural organic supplements? 

You have to look at each ingredient on an individual basis. There are people who swear that everything has to be all natural all of the time. The reality is you can be a little more granular. There are some nutrients, such as vitamin C, where it really doesn't matter whether what you're taking is vitamin C cherry extract or a synthetic form, because the molecule is so simple that it's identical. There are some of the molecules which have what they call stereoisomerism; in other words, molecules which are either right or left-handed. They look the same, but they're not. This is true in the forms of vitamin E, where I would recommend using the natural rather than synthetic form. I'm afraid you have to be specific and look at these item by item. 

Also, when it comes to plant or herb extracts, organic isn't always a benchmark for efficacy. Organic doesn't assure you that the extract won't be killed off by the acid in your stomach, or be bioavailable, or stable. In many instances, organic supplements have to be adapted in order to provide benefits once ingested.

What makes LYMA stand out in the market?

LYMA sets the standard for the next generation of evidence-based nutrition. LYMA isn't a supplement, at least not in the old-fashioned sense. The key aspect of LYMA that I believe is a step in the right direction, is that it exclusively uses actives which have been validated. These aren't your standard run of the mill vitamins and minerals. These are food or herbal extracts which have been shown in peer-reviewed studies to have a specific effect. For the first time you have a generation of products, which do what they say on the can. Which have a substantial body of evidence behind them and set the standard for the next generation. This is evidence-based nutrition.