In the early part of the new millennium, as I worked in and learned the practice of Functional Medicine, I began informal study with a Chinese Medicine practitioner, who introduced me to Wu Jin San®, which in Chinese means black gold medicine, a recognition over 3000 years ago of the healing power of the "yellow fraction" of soil.

 

At about the same time, I had a patient in his mid 40’s with severe ulcerative colitis. He was losing weight, unable to eat and having multiple bloody stools on a daily basis, despite high dose steroids and maximal medical therapy.  Because I knew, in my limited research at the time, that Wu Jin San® had been used to stop rectal bleeding in ulcerative colitis, I recommended the addition of Wu Jin San® to his therapy and within weeks, the bloody bowel movements had stopped and he started to gain weight.  He remains on Wu Jin San® to this day.  With this dramatic result, I wanted to know more about fulvic acid, so that I could serve as a better educator and better advocate for my patients.

​

While I can only touch the surface of knowledge taken lifetimes for soil scientists to accumulate, fulvic acids are a component of the soil, which have a low molecular weight (meaning small) and found in fresh water, broad-leafed, fossilized plant material.  The low molecular weight of the fulvic fraction of soil makes it the only part able to cross through a human cell membrane.  Fulvic acids act as a “bridge” in the transfer of nutrients from the soil to the plant to the animal to the human who eats either the animal or the plant.  Nutrients do not get into you and waste does not get out of you without the "gold stuff" in the soil. 

 

Fulvic acids are required for life in a human body. Fulvic acids play a role in every single biochemical reaction in the body.  Fulvic acids, as both proton donors and a proton receivers.  This means fulvic acids support electricity.  Fulvic acids are "Nature's antioxidant". There is NO supplement more powerful.  Fulvic acids are chelating agents, which participate in both anabolic (building) and catabolic (recycling, repair, waste disposal) functions of daily life and in binding heavy metals.  Fulvic acids also support turning minerals into ions (electricity), which is critical to creating and maintaining energy in your body. Fulvic acids have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic properties.  Fulvic acids are critical in nourishment of the intestinal microbiome.

 

Soil must lie fallow for at least three years for adequate amounts of fulvic acids  to accumulate, which does not happen with current crop production practice, whether commercial OR organic.  And, with few exceptions, neither commercial nor organic farmers in the US are amending soil with humic and fulvic substances, both of which are needed to support healthy crop yields. Without adequate amounts of humic and fulvic substances in the soil, land is not arable. Countless civilizations have learned this lesson the hard way.  From the Incan, to the Mayan, to the Native American Mound communities along the Mississippi River, to the European settlers, populations either died out or were forced to move because of an inability to grow enough food in soil inadequately renewed with fulvic acids.   

​

Depletion of fulvic substances in the soil is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT reason that the modern food chain is compromised. The food chain IS NOT compromised because of inadequate amounts of minerals in the soil.  Soil is minerals.  The soil is not depleted of minerals!

​

Obtaining adequate amounts of fulvic acids in today's world requires amending “human” soil, even you do not feel an obvious benefit.  Supplementing with fulvic acids is often very subtle, although countless patients in the last twelve years have noted sustained improvement in energy, better growth of hair and nails and control of cravings.  Supplementing with fulvic acids is like watering a plant.  With consistent use, you may not notice dramatic, day-to-day benefits, but absent water, the plant will die.  So too, without adequate amounts of fulvic substances on a daily basis, your body and your cells with not function optimally, leading to dysfunction and disease.  Without adequate amounts of fulvic acid, nutritional supplements cannot be transported to where they work in the cells, essentially preventing any intended benefit.

​

Supplementing with fulvic acid on a daily basis is a fundamental, foundational requirement for optimal health.  

​

Thinking soil minerals to be the missing link many companies have jumped on the "fulvic acid" bandwagon and are selling products for human consumption, which contain both humic and fulvic acids, which is where soil minerals are found.  The problem with this thinking, however, is that the missing link for human beings is the fulvic fraction of the soil, not the minerals. 

 

You are not a plant!  Levels of sodium, chloride, potassium, nitrogen, phosphorous and other minerals, including heavy metals in the soil sustain plant life, not human life.  Plants use heavy metals in the soil to create an upright structure and to provide a moisture barrier for the root, the stem and the seed, not for your body.  Human beings are designed to get minerals from the structure of the plant, not directly from the soil!

 

In addition, do you know that when you are eating whole foods, especially raw foods that are crunchy or even food cooked "al dente", foods with the skin, foods with a seed coat or a bran coat such as whole grains or sprouted grains, that you are ingesting heavy metals?  Heavy metals act as a barrier to water in the "covering" of seeds, stems & roots of plants.
 

Human beings do not use heavy minerals.  Minerals for a human being should never come directly from the soil. Minerals used in the human body have to be modified in the plant by fulvic acids.  It is the fulvic fraction alone that has value in the human body.  

 

Please, avoid heavy metals by not ingesting them in the first place!  If you are using a "humic and fulvic" product marketed for the mineral benefit, whether in liquid, "ionic", or powder form, you are consuming heavy metals and concentrations of sodium, chloride, lithium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, nitrogen phosphorous, manganese, sulfur, zirconium, tungsten, nickel, zinc, copper and other mineral salts that are WAY too high and TOXIC to your cells, whether the manufacturer will tell you this or not.  

 

Ask the company from whom you are buying a "humic and fulvic" mineral product to provide you with an analysis.  I have found that most companies will not provide this information or say the product is a "proprietary blend" and/or "proprietary information".  If the information is provided, look for yourself and see the laundry list of heavy metals in the product, like zirconium, tungsten, nickel, lead, barium, bismuth, cesium, arsenic, cadmium and aluminum.  These metals/minerals have no business in your body.  

​

Mana Life Laboratory is the only company in the United States producing pure Wu Jin San® (the gold stuff).  (See the Wu Jin San® product label here.)  Robert Faust, PhD, a soil scientist with over 40 years of experience in the field of humic and fulvic research, produces pure fulvic substances using a natural extraction process, as perfected by the Chinese thousands of years ago. There is no "chemical" processing or "chemical" manipulation of pH as used by other companies.  Wu Jin San® is the only product certified by HPTA (Humic Products Trade Association) test methods, the gold standard for certifying fulvic and humic acid content in any given product.

​

If the product you are using does not have the HPTA label, BUYER BEWARE!  

 

For more information on Wu Jin San® and soil science, please navigate to www.manalifelab.com or shop the Mana Life Laboratory product store on this site.  In addition, please watch the video on this page by Dr. Faust or follow the underlined link here to my article entitled "Fulvic Acid - An Essential Nutrient".

 

(Disclaimer:  I am a consultant to Mana Life Laboratory, but I receive no compensation for this association.  I have recommended and sold Wu Jin San® in my practice for over fifteen years.  I have done extensive research on the science of humates and have researched many different products touting the benefits of "humic and fulvid acid". I recommend only Wu Jin San® and personally use nothing else.)