Lara Pizzorno - Seattle, Washington
Hi my name is Lara Pizzorno and I wanted to do a testimonial for AlgaeCal because it's been such a big help to me.
I discovered AlgaeCal because I'm a medical writer and editor of a medical journal and I recently wrote a book on bone health called 'Love Your Bones', so I'm constantly looking at the research on bone health and I came across a number of studies that got me interested in AlgaeCal.
I saw 2 laboratory, in vitro, cell cultures studies in which AlgaeCal significantly outperformed the other forms of calcium: calcium carbonate and calcium citrate in bone cells; in osteoblasts.
And then I saw several new studies in which AlgaeCal was very effective in building bone. And so I contacted them and ended up going on AlgaeCal myself. I was real impressed with the research I read, so I started taking AlgaeCal.
Let's see- it was the summer of 2011. And when I had my next DEXA run, my bone density had gone up hugely. My T scores in my spine went from a -1.9 T score to -1.5. Actually it was -1.7 to -1.5 and my femur went from -1.9 to -1.5.
So it was a really huge positive change. And I had been doing everything right for my bones- I know a lot about bone health. And I had been doing all the other things that I know about eating properly; taking all the nutrients and getting lots of weight-bearing exercise- and the only thing I changed in my bone-building regimen was switching to AlgaeCal as my source of calcium. So I'm sure it's made a big difference in me.
So after I finished doing this I was thinking about why this form of calcium was so effective for me; why was it doing so much better of a job on the osteoblast cells in the studies, and the women who were using it in the clinical trials? And what I believe is going on is AlgaeCal is not just calcium. It is calcium in the matrix of all the other trace minerals that the sea algae uses to form itself. And the interaction amongst the nutrients is synergistic. And I think there may be trace minerals in AlgaeCal that were missing from my diet- and are probably missing in a lot of peoples' diets that are in just the right proportions to be effective.
I know it's been a huge help to me and I will continue to be using it.
I'd also like to add that I had been writing some blogs for AlgaeCal about the scientific research and I'm not doing that anymore- so I'm definitely not being paid to provide this testimonial for AlgaeCal.
I want you to know I'm doing it because I think the product is effective and I hope you'll give it a try.
2015 Update:
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Hello, my name's Lara Pizzorno. I'm the author of "Your Bones" and I'm here to share some information with you that I hope will help you and will encourage you to have healthier bones. In this series of videos, I'm sharing my personal story about why I became involved, why I wrote "Your Bones," what motivates me. Because several people wrote in and asked that I do so. So I hope this will be useful for you.
As I mentioned in the last video in this series, I just had my latest DEXA run last week. And I have to tell you, I was nervous about it because of all that has happened to me since my DEXA was run in 2012. And I haven't had one done since then. In August 2012, my Smart Car was rear-ended by a person who gunned it to get through a red light as it was changing. And my little car was totally destroyed. I was hit so hard that I was thrown under the car in front of me and both the front and back ends were completely crushed. Besides lots of bruising, I broke a tooth.
Over the next year, I had several jaw infections, I lost the tooth, I had to have a dental implant. And over the next eight months, my back began to hurt and it began to hurt more and more. What was happening, which we didn't understand yet, was that I was developing a fluid-filled cyst between two of my lumbar vertebra and until we figured that out, which took more than a year, the pain kept getting worse and worse because the cyst was growing and pressing on nerves coming from my spine. Finally, when I could no longer sit or stand or sleep because of the pain, my doctor referred me to an orthopedic specialist who ran an MRI. And a week later, this was in February 2014, I had back surgery to remove the cyst and I began to heal.
But I had also suffered damage to my left elbow and my abdominal wall. So 11 months after the back surgery, just this past January, I underwent more surgery to repair my arm and my abdominal wall. And then four days after that surgery, I caught the flu and I was really sick for more than two weeks. 10 weeks after all of this, just this past week, I had my most recent DEXA run. And as I said, I was nervous about it because chronic inflammation triggers the activation of the specialized cells that remove bone, our osteoclasts. So chronic inflammation promotes bone loss. And let me tell ya, I had a lot of chronic inflammation these past couple of years.
As I've said before, I'm also genetically at very high risk in great part because I have a vitamin D receptor, polymorphism that I inherited from my family that makes it very hard for me to absorb vitamin D. Plus I also have other vitamin, they're called SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphism, they're genetic polymorphisms that increase my risk for bone loss. I have a parathyroid hormone polymorphism that translates to my having an overactive parathyroid. So I'm more likely to produce too much parathyroid hormone and parathyroid hormone in excess promotes bone loss when it's chronically elevated. I have a polymorphism in my body's projection of immune cells. So I tend to have a stronger and a longer-lasting inflammatory response than most people. And thus, I have a tendency to be chronically inflamed.
I knew that I was doing everything that I knew how to do to make up for this. I was eating the bone-building diet I talked about in "Your Bones." I was getting extra weight-bearing exercise as often as I could. And I was being very good about taking my AlgaeCal Plus and the extra vitamin D and extra vitamin K2 that I personally need because of my faulty genetics. But I didn't know if it would be enough.
I was quite worried but in short, yes, my DEXA results were just wonderful. I am now well within the completely normal range. And given all that has happened to me since my prior DEXA, that's just amazing. As you know, a T-score between one, +1.0 and -1.0 is what is considered normal or healthy. While my T-score is now -0.2, which is well within healthy range and a huge improvement despite all of the above from what it was in 2012. My Z-score is also better than healthy normal, which is zero. Mine is 0.6. And my overall age match score is better than perfect. Perfect is 100% and I'm now clocking in at 106%. Plus, since 2012, my body fat dropped 3.4% from 26.5% to 23.1%.
If you've listened to some of my other videos, the ones on how calcium helps us burn more fat, excrete more fat and not feel hungry for longer, I can tell you personally these studies are not kidding. It's really true. I haven't changed my already healthy diet. I just made a real effort to consume calcium-rich foods, along with my AlgaeCal Plus to make sure that I'm getting at least 1,200 milligrams of calcium every day.
And if you saw the videos in which I explain that AlgaeCal Plus is not just calcium but contains four different kinds of plant-derived calcium plus at least 70 trace minerals that the sea algae use to build its bony structure plus vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 and magnesium and vitamin C and boron, and if you've tuned in for any of the videos on all the really great things that boron does for our bones, you understand that it really takes a nutrient village to build healthy bones. A whole team of nutrients that AlgaeCal Plus supplies for us.
So that's my story. Today, despite my unhappy genetics, just by car accidents and surgeries and living in Seattle where the rain festival runs from September through August, I am the proud possessor of strong, healthy bones. Thanks for tuning in and I hope this information was helpful to you.
