Welcome to DrNashGlycoHealth

Scientifically proven natural iminosugars

Our Mission is to develop innovative pharmaceutical products utilising Glycobiology (sugar biology) and the Power of Plants. Our sources are natural plant extracts with iminosugar content.

Science is key to our product range. Sugars or carbohydrates are vital to health in many ways.

There are many sugars used in the body for important functions and they offer exciting new pharmaceutical targets. For over 30 years our researchers have led the way in identifying natural plant iminosugars in herbal products and healthy foods and in determining how they work. Many modern fruit and vegetable varieties lack the iminosugars as they have been blindly bred-out in favour of shelf-life and appearance, etc. Most food supplement products based on extracts also lack the natural iminosugars which are lost in the processing. We are now building a unique product range based on our research that ensure the natural iminosugars are present and measured.

What are Iminosugars?

The science of DrNashGlycoHealth is supported by our R&D company PhytoQuest Ltd with over 18 years of pharmaceutical discovery and development and over 200 refereed publications and patents. PhytoQuest are world leaders in the discovery of iminosugars and based on our research we believe them to be the elusive active components of many if not most herbal products. Iminosugars are natural, stable small carbohydrate analogues with the ring Oxygen replaced by Nitrogen. They are rarely noticed by other groups because they are difficult to detect and their effects on sugar biochemistry can be very subtle. They are reported to have a wide range of biological effects related to their ability to act as mimics of sugars.

Why Plants Produce Iminosugars

Plants use sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to produce sugars by photosynthesis. The sugars are the starting point for all molecules used for growth by plants and other organisms. Many plants protect these sugars by producing iminosugars that reduce the ability of other organisms to utilise the sugars efficiently. The iminosugars are present in almost all plants but have an enormous diversity of structures and biological activities. Sugars are important to human biochemistry not just for energy but also act as important signalling molecules on cells. The iminosugars can have very specific biological activities based on their resemblance to specific sugars. Some such as DNJ from Mulberry inhibit particular enzymes involved in sugar release from foods and their uptake into the blood stream. We are particularly interested in new types of iminosugars that have biological activities at very low concentrations without inhibiting glycosidase enzymes.

The detection of iminosugars in plants has been very slow in the scientific literature because the analysis is difficult and most laboratories still do not see or measure them. They are little explored except by the researchers behind DrNashGlycoHealth. Many commercial health supplements from plants contain no iminosugars even if the source plant did. It is, therefore, important to ensure the extraction process allows iminosugars to be extracted to give a more complete natural composition.

IminoSugar Certified

All products from DrNashGlycoHealth carry the Iminosugar Certified logo. This means the iminosugars of the plant have been retained, measured and the product quality controlled for their concentration.

Iminosugar Science Network (ISN)

The science of iminosugars is a specialised area with few groups able to isolate and identify them in plants and microbial material. DrNashGlycoHealth has an advisory group (ISN) of the major researchers in the field of natural iminosugar isolation, biology and chemistry.

Dr Robert Nash

Professor Nash has a strong academic background with over 200 refereed scientific publications and granted patents. His main focus is on the importance of sugars (‘the Glycome’) in health. Robert was awarded the 1st Pierre Fabre Prize by the Phytochemical Society of Europe in 2001 for his work on iminosugars. In 2022 he was made an honorary professor at University of Swansea Department of Science and Engineering.