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The Healing Power of Pollen

Chapter Ten: Pollen Power for Athletes

"You’re on the right track." – Plautus 200 B.C.

Pollen has an amazing and well-proved effect upon athletic performance. Pollen power is not just a headline – it is a fact. Men and women undergoing the rigors of athletic training notice the slightest differences in their fitness, differences which we ordinary mortals could not possibly imagine. For a great race the perfectly prepared athlete is as finely tuned as a Stradivarius violin. Even ordinary school and club athletes record substantial benefits after taking pollen – it helps them all, the perfectly fit and the week-end sportsman.

When I gave a lecture to the Scottish National Athletic Coaches at the Meadowbank Conference in Glasgow in 1974 entitled ‘Nutrition and Optimal Performance’ I was already able to point to much research work that had been done on pollen, and during the discussion period which followed my talk many of the distinguished coaches and international athletes in the audience spoke to me of the very positive results that they had experienced following regular supplementation with pollen.

I look upon pollen as being part of the ideal athlete’s diet. I define such a diet as that diet pattern which produces the maximum performance when it is required and has no long-term harmful side effects. It is tragic that the increased use of harmful drugs such as anabolic steroids and pep pills – drugs that can destroy the athlete’s health and in the case of the steroids sometimes cause cancer and loss of potency in men – are taken in the name of success when they should be taking a diet composed of entirely natural and beneficial products and supplements which also produce magnificent results but have none of the harmful dangers.

Everything that goes into your mouth, or even in certain cases through the skin, is part of the diet that has nutritional consequences. Your body is being continually renewed and the average half-life (which is the time taken for half to be replaced) of protein, for example, in the body is eight days. But the time differs with different tissues. Blood serum, heart, liver and kidneys are all ten days, while bone, skin and muscle are 158 days. The other constituents of your body are, for the most part, also replaced continually by what you consume.

For this reason it is vitally important that an athlete’s diet is always soundly based. It is simply not good enough to eat correctly for part of the year only – it is the quantity that needs to be altered at times of lesser or greater activity (not the quality). However, several research workers have demonstrated that an increase in the consumption of fructose (fruit sugar) before an event helps to build up reserves of energy when this is done in controlled form.

Pollen Tests on Sportsmen

Cernelle organized major symposia on the effect of pollen for athletes in 1972 in Sweden and in 1973 in London. The Swedish meeting was notable for a report on Pollitabs used by nine doctors attached to nine important Italian football teams. The teams were divided between professional, semi-professional and amateur footballers and they set out to test whether Pollitabs given for thirty days produced any real immediate benefit and whether they had lasting good effects in both the short and medium term.

The doctors recorded changes in the players’ physical condition, condition of breathing and physical resistance. This was also related to the number of days of training and play. Conclusions were that in almost all the cases the general state of health was improved and together with substantial improvements in the players’ breathing and their physical resistance to sporting fatigue. One exception was the team called Mantova where at the start of the experiment the state of fitness of the players’ was so perfect that no improvement was measurable!

The effect of the pollen consumption was progressive. The greatest percentage change takes place between the second and third ten-day periods. They also confirmed that the Pollitabs did not cause any undesirable side-effects whatsoever. Dr. Coronelli considered the validity of the test to be beyond question.

Other researchers related the extraordinary effects of pollen to the micro-nutrients present. This view was much supported by new information at the Trace Element Conference held in Aberdeen between 27 and 29 June, 1978. Dr. Neil T. Davies, of the Rowett Research Institute viewed the current situation on chromium, tin, vanadium, fluorine, silicon and nickel which are essential for animals. He said that with the exception of silicon, these elements are required at dietary concentrations of one part per million or less. Tin, for example, has a beneficial effect on the growth rate.

The extraordinary richness of pollen in these microelements cannot be stressed too much. We just cannot be sure that normal diet produces enough in an available form so the persorption properties of pollen allow the trace elements to be incorporated into the body’s structure without excessive loss.

Pollen at the Olympics

The bees helped back Britain in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Geoff Capes the Shot Putter, Andrea Lynch and Donna Murray the sprinters and Bill Hartley the hurdler are just four of the star athletes who found that pollen, which bees collected from flowers, helped maintain peak fitness. The Glasgow Herald reported that Tom McNab the National Athletics Coach was among those convinced that daily pollen tablets build strength and energy as well as warding off colds and other infections which can interrupt an athlete’s training or affect his performance.

McNab was especially impressed, says the Herald, by the experience of the Finns who managed to put only one runner among the top hundred in the last but one Olympics but with the help of Pollitabs boosted that score to a remarkable thirty-nine at Munich in 1972. The British athletes were all reported to be using Pollen-B. Pollitabs were also used in very many cases.

When the Finns were reporting the results of their experiments with pollen they said that they believed that the lack of trace elements in today’s average diet, which made pollen such a necessity, was due to intensive farming, big crops, strong fertilizers, use of cattle manure, altered soil factors, absence of equilibrium between macro and micro-nutrients, processed products used as cattle feed, and finally the poor preparation and conservation of foodstuffs.

It was clear that the Finns believed that pollen was a key factor in protecting man from the modern environment in which he is forced to live. To conquer the diseases of western civilization it now looks as if we do not just need plenty of wholemeal bread but would do well to combine that with regular courses of pollen.

Early US Trials

One of the earliest trials was done way back in 1961 in Florida by Dr. Noyes who reported that during the previous two years he had used Pollitabs in his practice for many diverse complaints and syndromes. Certain results, he said, occurred predominantly regardless of the purpose for which the tablet was prescribed. Foremost among these have been increased appetite, weight gain, increased vigour and sense of wellbeing and decreased susceptibility to infection. Therefore it was thought that a football team would make a good preliminary controlled study to determine these factors in an objective manner, i.e. weight gain and resistance to infection.

He therefore selected a local high school football team, consisting of thirty active players, and divided them into two groups, those receiving Pollitabs and those receiving a standard multi-vitamin preparation. The study covered a period of fifteen weeks in which for the first three neither product was used. It was during this initial three-week period that each player lost excessive weight, in most cases representing excess fat.

At the end of the third week fifteen players were started on two Pollitabs a day and the control group on the multi-vitamins daily. All medication was administered daily and individually by the coach. The group taking Pollitabs regained their pre-season weight after taking the tablets for 7 ½ weeks, 4 ½ weeks later at the end of the season the Pollitabs group actually showed a 5 ½lb (2 ½ kilo) average increase in weight over their pre-season level.

The group taking the multi-vitamins remained generally constant from the third to fifteenth week showing no further loss or gain. The opinion was expressed by impartial former professional players that it is almost unheard of for a football player to weigh more at the end of a season than he did before practice started.

Infections were also dramatically reduced. During the whole season the Pollitabs group of fifteen boys lost between them five playing days because of ‘flu and one playing day because of colds. The boys who took the multi-vitamins lost 16 playing days because of colds 18 because of ‘flu.

Athletes’ Experiences with Pollen

Here are extracts from some letters from a cross-section of athletes just a few of the hundreds, which I have seen. I have changed the initials to preserve privacy.

L.R. of Northumberland

I am writing to congratulate you on the amazing effects Pollen-B has had on my athletic career.

I am forty years old and a first year veteran athlete. I read about your tablets and rather suspiciously decided to have a go. I have been taking them now for exactly five months and in that time I have won four Northern Counties titles, three Scottish Championships followed by the 400 and 800-metre Over Forty British Championship titles. Added to that I also broke the world’s 800-metre record in June.

All this is not a coincidence as my times now are as good as they were ten years ago and I find my recovery is more rapid in comparison to what it was before. My training is the same as it has always been; therefore Pollen-B is the only logical answer to my improvement.

Also I am competing in open meetings against young men and I am holding my own with them, which was unthinkable two years ago.

Incidentally, my young son aged thirteen who is a county champion has also started to take the tablets as well as my two brothers-in-law who are also runners. As you can see I am really thrilled at my running these last four months. I place the reason for this solely on pollen-B.

S.T. of Newark

I took Pollen-B tablets from January 1977 up to the World Veteran Championships in Sweden. When I started taking the tablets I had just had a lay-off from running for twelve months. I found that I got fit much faster than I ever dreamed of and put up some of my fastest times since I became a veteran seven years ago. I also used to be troubled with ‘stitch’ regularly, but since taking the tablets I have not had a ‘stitch’.

R.R. of Hertfordshire wrote about his wife:

My wife started a comeback to athletics during summer and started taking Pollen-B tablets while competing in cross-country events. She improved throughout the season and ended with the top British athlete home position in the World Championships.

What compelling personal evidence from those who thought their athletic days were over.

In the observer of 13 August 1978, Christopher Brasher reported that Alan Wells, that magnificently balanced world-class sprinter, had confessed that he was now taking so many tablets (vitamin C, vitamin B12 and Pollen-B) that he thought that people could hear him rattle. He did not know whether these tablets were doing him any good but runners from other nations were taking them so he might as well, just in case!

T.N. of Bershire

Pollitabs helped me in no small way in succeeding in gaining the gold medal in the long jump at the Commonwealth Games. I am very grateful – many thanks.

A.S. of Yorkshire

Pollitabs really helped me in my recovery from the Commonwealth Games Marathon as I now feel quite enthusiastic about my training having gone through a very hard patch.

‘Ali’s Magic Potion’

Britain’s four million copy circulation Sunday newspaper, The Sunday Mirror, blazed the ‘Ali’s Magic Potion’ banner headline across the front page as the main news item on page 24 September 1978. ‘Now it can be told,’ they said.’ Mohammed Ali swallowed a secret potion before he won the world heavy weight championship for a record third time.

‘Ali, 36, astounded the world by his vitality and staying power and outclassed 25-year-old Leon Spinks in New Orleans nine days ago.

‘The potion – a kind of vitamin cocktail – was invented by Dr. Alvenia Fulton, a Chicago nutrition expert who although she is 70 is still trim enough to wear a bikini on the beach.’ Philip Finn, the Mirror’s New York reporter went on to give details of her special formula which included vitamin E, magnesium, bee pollen tablets, folic acid, lecithin, vitamin B6 together with honey, all crushed and mixed with orange juice which also contains vitamin C.

Ali had spoken about the potion after his fight in New Orleans and again when he returned home to Chicago. He said: ‘It was a great mixture and I danced and danced and tired Spinks out.’ Ali took the potion on the advice of his friend, comedian Dick Gregory, who has known Dr. Fulton for years. Dr. Fulton, who runs a health food centre in Chicago, said: ‘Dick contacted me on the afternoon of the fight to check what was best to give Ali. I recommended the mixture. Vitamins plus particularly the magnesium put more oxygen into the bloodstream to give extra wind and stamina. Anyone who saw Mohammed fight must have noticed how he got stronger and stronger. He could have gone on dancing and fighting all night. He defied all the so-called experts who said he was too old at 36. I am convinced that if Ali continues to follow my advice he will go on fighting – and winning – for another 5 years.’

The fantastic performance came after Mohammed Ali had lost to Spinks in Las Vegas the previous February. Those who saw him were amazed at his condition and fitness for this return fight. What is more he broke no rules by taking the vitamin and pollen cocktail. As Dr. Adrian Whiteson, who is the Chief Medical Adviser to the British Boxing Board of Control said: ‘Vitamins are not drugs. They are not stimulants – and there would be nothing to stop any boxer taking them before a fight. But they would not be allowed in the boxer’s corner.’

So the secret of the World Champion’s amazing comeback had bee pollen tablets as a key ingredient.

Swedish Courts Support Pollen for Sportsmen

Advertising laws covering any product which makes a claim for health or fitness vary from country to country and even from place to place, and are a jungle. It is often very difficult to tell the consumers the truth about a natural food supplement which is in any way out of the natural food supplement which is any way out of the normal run of things. Pollen for sportsmen certainly is in that category.

A Swedish court, in the summer of 1976, had to settle a case when an advertisement in one of the largest Swedish daily papers, The Dagbladet, appeared almost by mistake when a secretary accidentally confirmed a cancelled order. The advertisement said: ‘Do as the Finns, increase your performance capacity by taking Cernelle pollen tablets.’ The consumer information bureaucrats called it ‘inappropriate marketing’ and demanded prohibition under penalty of a fine for Cernelle because they used this text. So Cernelle took the case to court.

Many expert witnesses spoke in defense of the Cernelle process which had been developed more than a quarter of a century before in which, as Professor Olov Lindahl said: ‘The essence is manufactured from the very core substance of the pollen grains and contains in small quantities all known vitamins, all trace minerals, some albumen, and all known amino acids.’

These substances may indeed have a good effect on the human body, but probably it is other unidentified parts of the pollen core that have the effect observed. Professor Lindahl’s opinion was that the pollen preparations are healing and have a medical effect, however, in this case, it was not a question of the registration of the pollen tablets as pharmaceutical preparations, but of pollen as a food supplement.

The officials were also upset with the picture of three runners that appeared with the advertisement because it featured the Finn, Lasse Viren’s, famous run at the Munich Olympics in which he stumbled and fell but picked himself up again to win the 10,000 metre gold medal.

Viren, like 70 percent of the Finnish runners, uses pollen when training. Pollen has the proven ability of really increasing the performance capacity, the perseverance and the power. A pollen runner can train up to 50 kilometers a day instead of the normal 30 kilometers and he does not need the 5,00 daily calories that a top sportsman usually consumes. These are all important factors when you are running against the best in the world.

Pollen is not a drug like the anabolic steroids used with personal danger by so many athletes, it is not against any rules or regulations and indeed it is not a miraculous medicine, it is just a valuable and natural product. That is why there is great interest among sports people in the increased use of pollen supplements.

In support of their case against Cernelle the authorities said that they had rejected registration of all natural medicines because the scientific material handed over was not sufficient to prove the effect of the product. It was pointed out that they were not claiming pollen to be a medicine but the authorities said the same arguments stood – the claims were misleading and inappropriate.

Cernelle showed them the many important clinical trials that had taken place on pollen which you will find elsewhere in this book. It was calculated that the results obtained by Professor DuBrisay in improving the condition of old people were statistically phenomenal.

In social or psychological science one star significance is enough as a proof of the effect, that is to say the chance that an accidentally good result has occurred is five in a hundred. In medicine they are satisfied with two star proof where the chance is one in a thousand. A medicine can often be registered on this basis.

In French examination of forty-eight patients the chance that they could have got better independently of the pollen preparation was only one chance in one million. In medical terms that means that the significance has eleven stars and is an extraordinary proof of the pollen preparations.

Professor Lindahl in his summary concluded that pollen in his summary concluded that pollen preparations can be used to treat diseases, improve sports performances, increase working capacity and diminish tiredness in people. His opinion was supported by the statisticians Lars Lindwall and Arne Sandstorm.

The authorities did not give up. They found a doctor who had the opposite opinion! An argument ensued between Lindahl and Dr. Hellstrom and the fight went on. The medical authorities in Sweden even tried to cast doubt on the very high qualifications and ability of Professor DuBrisay, DuBrisay was a professor in experimental medicine with an examination qualification much higher than most of those examinations which are the basis for being entitled to investigate pharmaceutical preparations in Sweden.

Lindahl once again drew attention to a place in the French report where it showed that one of the patients who had a very slow-healing fracture healed with remarkable speed as soon as pollen therapy was tried. In fact, the cases of the 265 French patients who had been given pollen therapy had not been critically examined at all by the Swedish Welfare Board who had simply ignored the important French clinical trial.

The courts summary filled forty sheets of closely argued conclusions with the result that Cernelle were given permission to advertise as they had done before and were fully supported by the court. The important and far reaching result of this case is that in January 1978 far greater freedom was given for the production, sale and advertising of natural medicines in Sweden than has been the case there for very many years. It seems that pollen does not just help cure people it changes the minds of Governments!

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