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If you haven’t heard of Nashville-based Premier Micronutrient Corp. (PMC), its Hearing Health supplement launched for public sale late last year just might change that. That’s the company’s newest product, and it and several others come with a seal approval from the United States military.

“This year is our coming out year, because we’ve spent the last four years doing all the work and the studies with the military,” David Newell, PMC chief executive officer, explained. “And the data has been coming back without fail in our camp, in our favor.” The company has several micronutrient formulations that have been tested and accepted for use by U.S. military forces. The supplements are designed to battle the free radicals that wreak havoc on human cells by causing oxidative damage. Free radicals are the result of stresses from noise to radiation, from dust to chemical exposure, from environmental toxins to even oxygen itself.

PMC was founded in 2000 based on research by Kedar N. Prasad, the company’s chief scientific officer who developed Sevak, a multivitamin that the company still sells. PMC was working to add more supplements to its offerings when a call came from an official of the U.S. Marine Corps, who had read a white paper by Prasad on the use of antioxidants as a mitigator against low-dose, ionizing radiation. Thus, the post-9/11 partnership between the military and PMC was formed to produce supplements to improve and protect the health of soldiers and first responders. PMC scientists worked with researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute, the U.S. Naval Health Research Center and other military entities. Their studies examined, for example, the effects of stresses on immune function and the ability of antioxidants to reduce damage caused by radiation or chemical agents.

PMC’s Hearing Health formulation was found to improve the neuro-vestibular recovery of Marines who returned from Iraq after concussive blast injuries. “They (the studies) showed that the Marines who were getting our formulation did a lot better on different standards of measurements in the balance and the vestibular area,” Newell said. “They did so much better on our protocol than with just standard therapy alone.” Prasad added that the results would be “much more dramatic” if the antioxidant therapy had begun immediately rather than seven days after the concussive event and continued after the 12-week study period.

PMC’s research with the military helped reveal the critical connection between the release of damaging free radicals and resulting inflammation. In the case of hearing, the free radicals and inflammation can damage the ear’s hair cells, which create the electrical signals to the brain. Prasad said the micronutrient antioxidants help repair that damage and slow inflammation, which can also result in tinnitus and even Meniere’s disease.

Hearing Health is the first micronutrient supplement accepted by the EAR Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to educating the public and medical professionals about hearing loss and diseases of the ear. Audiologist Ann B. Sitton, an EAR Foundation board member, said in a release, “We carefully researched this product, met with the scientists who developed it and reviewed their studies and client testimonials. We were consistently impressed and greatly encouraged by their findings. As an audiologist, I am excited with the potential relief that this supplement will provide to our patients with chronic tinnitus and other hearing and balance impairments.” In January, Suzanne Wyatt, former executive director of the EAR Foundation, joined PMC to run the company’s hearing division.

What’s next? More radiation research and related products are on the horizon for PMC, according to Prasad, who is one of the nation’s leading radiation biologists. NASA is closely following PMC’s progress, he said.

PMC sales to the public are limited to online orders at www.mypmcinside.com. The company offers a full line of preventive products that are age- and gender-based, as well as disease-specific. There are formulations for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cancer (one formulation is designed for patients undergoing treatment and another for after chemotherapy or radiation). One supplement specifically targets veterans.

PMC products are manufactured in the Northeast and packaged and distributed by PrePak Systems, a Cookeville company that handles mail-order pharmacy distribution for the U.S. Veterans Administration.



February 2008

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