Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw

Life Extension Scientists and Designer Food™ Formulators

Durk Pearson — “Everything that happens in your brain … every memory … every thought … every emotion … every innovation … every “wow, that’s great!” … is a result of the release of neurotransmitters.

Neurotransmitters are not drugs; they are natural substances made by nerve cells in your brain that transmit messages from one nerve cell to another across the synapse that divides them. That’s why they are called neurotransmitters. They are made from the nutrients in your diet, but there is a very good chance that even if you have a good diet, you’re not getting the optimum amount of the raw materials that your brain can use to make neurotransmitters.The three most important neurotransmitters have been known for a long time: acetylcholine, noradrenaline, and dopamine. Acetylcholine is involved in memory and organization—the way you order things in your mind, the way you retrieve them in an orderly manner. It’s also involved in focus and concentration. A good example of what happens if you don’t have enough cholinergic activity can be found in a person who has taken the psychoactive drug atropine or any other anticholinergic drug. In many respects, they resemble someone with Alzheimer’s disease.The latter are people who have suffered extensive damage to their cholinergic nervous system: they lose their memories, lose their focus, and lose their ability to concentrate.What do you do to improve your cholinergic memory? Take choline and Vitamin B5. The vitamin B5 (also known as pantothenate) acts to convert the choline to acetylcholine more efficiently. Now there’s a very good reason to take choline as you get older, because as you get older the ability of your blood-brain-barrier to actively transport choline from your bloodstream into your brain drops dramatically. By the time you’re in your 60’s most people have perhaps 20 or 30 percent of their young adult capability of transporting choline from the blood stream into your brain.”

Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw are independent experts in anti-aging research and brain biochemistry. Since 1968, they have been pioneers in the life extension field. The publication of their runaway-bestseller Life Extension, A Practical Scientific Approach in 1982 was a benchmark in the history of nutritional science and created a whole new biomedical paradigm. Among other best sellers, Durk & Sandy are the authors of Freedom of Informed Choice: FDA Versus Nutrient Supplements, a book that discusses constitutional and scientific issues relating to the FDA’s regulation of the dissemination of scientific information.

Durk graduated from MIT in 1965 with a triple major in Physics, Biology, and Psychology, and a triple minor in electrical engineering, computer science, and chemistry. Durk has patents in the areas of oil shale recovery, laser, holography, and functional food.  He worked on all the manned aerospace programs from Gemini to the Shuttle and won numerous awards, including an award from the International Society for Testing and Failure Analysis (a professional organization), for his penetrating quality control and safety analyses.  He wrote much of the original safety manual for the Materials Processing Laboratory on the Shuttle.

Sandy Shaw received her B.S. degree in chemistry form U.C.L.A. in 1966 with a double major in chemistry and zoology and a minor in mathematics.  She has a patent on a functional food product.  Her work in the food industry has included supervision of quality control of all food production at a major canned food company.  In the late 1960s, she designed and implemented the first computerized quality control system to be used at the company, doing all the computer programming herself.

Pearson and Shaw have also been very politically-active over the years with regard to protecting people’s rights in America to access nutritional supplements, and to easily obtain available accurate information about the supplements which may benefit their health. To this effect, they wrote the book Freedom of Informed Choice: FDA Versus Nutritional Supplements (Common Sense Press, 1993), and won a landmark lawsuit against the FDA–Pearson v. Shalala–charging the government agency with unconstitutionally restricting manufacturers from distributing truthful health information (which was viewed as a violation of the constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech) that could save many people’s lives. This was a landmark achievement for the dietary supplement industry and for the availability of truthful scientific information to consumers.

Together, the two design dietary supplements and functional foods and license them to select manufacturers. Pearson and Shaw have written three best-selling books on the aging process, health maintenance, weight loss, and nutrition, as well as a book on FDA public policy: Life Extension, a Practical Scientific Approach, The Life Extension Companion, The Life Extension Weight Loss Program, and Freedom of Informed Choice: FDA v. Nutrient Supplements. They are the proud recipients of many awards including the Award for Excellence in Health & Education from the Association for Holistic Health, and the American Aging Association’s Paul F. Glenn Award for “individuals who have made special contributions to biomedical aging research.”

Life Priority is proud to offer the scientifically formulated Designer Food™ Formulas created by Durk and Sandy for their own personal use. We love them and hope you will too! ……….To Your Health! Life Priority Inc.

Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw – The Scientists Behind Life Priority