Kathy Ireland: Welcome to Modern Living, I'm Kathy Ireland. A trending topic today is the utilization of supplements and medical care research seems to show that mental wellness could potentially be impacted with the use of multi-ingredient micronutrient therapy. At the forefront of this research is Hardy Nutritionals®.

Founder and formulator David Hardy is here to tell us more about what he's learned. David, welcome to modern living

David Hardy: Thank You Kathy, it’s a real privilege to be on your show.

Kathy Ireland: Thank you. Now David, were often taught that our body’s nutritional requirements can be met through food, why do you think we need to rethink this?

David Hardy: Well, the reason is that there's no real scientific evidence anymore that will support that it. It used to be so, but it isn't anymore. So, clear evidence shows that we are not getting what we need out of our foods even if they're carefully selected.

Kathy Ireland:  And can you please share why it's critical that people supplement with vitamins and minerals.

David Hardy:  That's an excellent question and the answer is really critical. I really believe that we found the reason for a lot of chronic illness. There has to be a reason why mental illness has increased dramatically from 1972 for instance—about 6.2 percent of the population to today and nearly twenty-five percent of the population. Autism has increased from one in 10,000 in the population to 1 in 64. Why? There's got to be some reasons and I think that our research is actually pointing to some of those reasons, and it’s kind of significant. It's showing that deficiencies of these essential elements in the body do nasty things like kill brain cells. That’s scientifically proven for at least seven elements. And they degenerate neurons—another thing that's really serious. And Dr. Bruce Ames, the most studied researcher in human nutrition on earth has determined that other elements actually break chromosomes like radiation and chemicals, causing mutations. So all of those reasons make it such that deficiencies of these elements are the most likely and logical cause of a lot of the illness that we that we see and the increasing illness that we see each year in North America and around the world.

Kathy Ireland:  In this modern living field report we will take an intimate look at how Hardy Nutritionals® is making an impact on people's lives.

Nan (Dr. Cormier’s Patient): Prior to my taking Hardy’s products I was being treated for a mood disorder, OCD, and some remaining PTSD from my childhood that gave me symptoms of hypomania, episodes of spending out of control, and bulimia—very difficult for me. And this was 9 years of therapy when finally one of my wonderful therapists who tried for nine years to commit me to go take regular medications—which I refused. She heard of a woman whose child was helped by Hardy and I called Hardy and started on the product.

Using Hardy Nutritionals® supplements has helped me immensely to reduce the symptoms that I had of several mental illnesses that I lived with. And it did so by actually calming down...having fewer acting-out experiences in my life…and also with no side effects.

Kathy Ireland:  Could you please explain what your micronutrient formula is and why are people choosing to use it?

David Hardy:  Our micronutrient formula is just the essential elements of life—those things that the body can't manufacture—they have to be in our diet or we don't get them. So that's very critical. It makes it so that the most powerful priority, I guess as it is in our diet, really needs to ensure that we get these essential elements of life because they're a part of every metabolic pathway in the body and without them most pathways breakdown, don't produce what our bodies need, and cause problems.

Kathy Ireland:  Can you please specify how your formula is impacting people's lives?

David Hardy:  Well, our formula is impacting people's lives in many ways. First of all it's giving a lot of relief to people with mental illness. Some who have not had relieved through medications have found the complete relief. There are several published studies* for instance it that show people who have been on medications for years and years and in just a matter of months we've been able to change them around and give them their life back. That's amazing kinds of things. Never-before-seen results that are really significant and we're excited about that.

Kathy Ireland:  And so it enables someone to go off antidepressants?

David Hardy:  Absolutely. Without the side effects. You know this this offers an alternative without the severe side effects of the medications. The only side effects to taking nutrients is that you're healthier, you feel better.

Kathy Ireland: David, may I ask, is there scientific evidence to prove that you're micronutrient formula is effective?

David Hardy:  Well, absolutely. I've been involved in human nutrition, I was involved with animal nutrition for 20 years and now human nutrition for about the same number of years, and in those years we've accumulated approximately thirty medical journal publishings* including some double-blind studies that show absolutely that this works. And there are doctors who have been using medications like Charles Popper from Harvard University for instance who uses our product and finds better success with it than any combination of medications that he can throw at these patients. And he's the world's expert on medications. So it's amazing.

Kathy Ireland: And can you please describe the performance of your micronutrient formulation compared to over-the-counter vitamins?

David Hardy: Well, there's not a lot of comparison. You know, none of the over-the-counter formulations have produced these kinds of results. And there are a number of reasons for that. A lot of formulations are, I wouldn't say necessarily poorly formulated, but they have low levels—much lower levels than we include in our product—different balances, (balances of the essential elements are really significant), and the bioavailability of most of them is not the same. For instance, the minerals which are all-natural products from the earth, the rock form of those elements, the body doesn't utilize very well…and that's what's in most over-the-counter supplements. It's cheap to put them in there but you don't have a lot of benefit. What we have done in our supplement is combine the essential minerals with organic molecules so it's a plant-like offering to the body. And, it makes the mineral about a hundred times more soluble and way more bioavailable.

Dr. Lawrence Cormier: Working with broad-spectrum micronutrient treatments, many of the assumptions we've had as pharmacologists or psychopharmacologists in our field come into question. For instance, some of the patients who are most responsive to the broad-spectrum treatment are those who are treatment-naïve—those who are more severely disturbed, particularly if they have a condition characterized by unstable or irritable moods or bipolar illness. Particularly those who have not had years of treatment respond the quickest and most dramatically.

Dr. Scott Shannon: Here at Wholeness Center, in terms of broad-spectrum micronutrients for mood disorders, the Daily Essential Nutrients are the products that we carry. I do a lot of teaching in the integrative medicine, integrative psychiatry world and I share my experience and background and the literature with these physicians…I think my peers realize that our psychiatric treatments have limited efficacy and very significant risk issues and side effects. So for example, in the step-bipolar study, half of people relapse within two years and that’s the best we can do in modern conventional psychiatry, and I think I see better results with fewer side effects with Daily Essential Nutrients.”

Kathy Ireland: Before we close David, could you please tell us what is on the horizon for Hardy Nutritionals®?

David Hardy:  Well, that's a good question. We hope to stay at the forefront of evidence-based nutrition on earth. But we need help, we can't do this alone. Our company can’t provide all the help that the world needs in this so we hope that competitors start to learn about this and get on board…now that's interesting isn't it that I'm saying this…we need competitors to help us…but we do. And, we need people with money and influence—we need people with money to provide funding for more research that can legitimize this more quickly. We need to get this out fast because the increasing ill health that we see just is not sustainable.

We need people with influence that can help us spread the word. It's kind of an alarming thing when you understand that deficiencies do the things that I talk about. You know, kill brain cells and degenerate nerves and create mutations. Those are serious kinds of things. And, we've thought in the past that those things only happened because of environmental toxins and other insults, which are there. But I believe that the biggest insult to the body are really these deficiencies—that’s what we're seeing and that's what science is slowly starting to come out with and prove. And so we’ve got to get on it.

Kathy Ireland: David, for those touched by mental illness and other debilitating disorders it seems like Hardy Nutritionals® could be the life-changing alternative that they've been hoping for.

David Hardy:  Well, I think that's true. I think a lot of people who have been on medications would like something without the side effects. So this is a viable alternative. There are doctors that say that no one should go on medications before they do this, before they give this a try. And, I agree with that.

Kathy Ireland: David, thank you so much for joining us. I wish you continued success. Thank you.

David Hardy:  Thank you very much Kathy.

Kathy Ireland: For Modern Living, I'm Kathy Ireland. Thank you for watching.

For more information visit www.GetHardy.com.

*Includes pre-2013 versions of EMPowerplus, co-formulated by David Hardy.