Presentation of Parabolic

Parabolic Biologicals was created in 1996 by Mrs Hilda Vansteenkiste together with her husband Doctor Roland Maes (virologist who worked on rabies, polio, rubella, foot and mouth disease, afterwards he worked on cancer at the St Jude Hospital in Memphis USA to finally be interested in tuberculosis). The company is managed by their daughter Dominique Maes who has a master in business (MBA) from Henley in Great-Britain. She also has a degree in art history, gemmology and is an herbalist. She wrote with her father a book: “le Bien-être au Naturel - L’aventure de la phytothérapie” published at the Editions de Paris. With her brother Doctor Hubert Maes (Doctor in medical sciences and director of PBC Maes in France), they developed the unique concept of Parabolic Biologicals.

The concept of Parabolic Biologicals

Parabolic Biologicals was created under the impulse of various therapists who could not find products containing plant extracts that were powerful enough and efficient enough to help their patients afflicted by serious and sometimes chronic illnesses. To solve this problem Dr. Maes and his children worked together with a team of specialists in various areas (chemists, biologists, physicians and herbalists) to create a unique concept based on the quantity of active ingredients supplied, and not on the quantity of plants present in a cap.  

Their sense of innovation associated with a rigorous sense of ethics allows them to propose a whole top range of products that are strongly dosed, reliable and three times more efficient than the classical products found on the market. These products are standardized on the quantity of active ingredients present and not on the quantity of plants included within a cap. Rare are the companies that do so. Moreover, the products are assimilated at a 100% rate and are elaborated in respect of the environment and of the plant, for the well-being of all.

The philosophy of Parabolic Biologicals

Parabolic Biologicals established very precise criteria for their productions and its contact with therapists and customers.

The products must be of a very high quality, cannot be irradiated, and should be without pesticides, chemical products and GMO. They also should contain no alcohol or animal products so as to allow their use by all.

The production methods should be clearly defined. You will find them in the chapter dedicated to this purpose.

Transparency is also important. It is because of this that Parabolic Biologicals does not use as standard of measure the quantity of plants or the percentage of active ingredients present in the caps, but well the precise amount of active ingredients. Percentages can give to the customers a wrong impression of the real quantity of active ingredients available. Indeed, producers give in general only the total weight of the capsule and say that they have X % of active ingredients of that, but omit to mention that 80% of the weight of the cap is made of excipients. This presentation makes it impossible for the customer to calculate the real content in active ingredients he has purchased! This is one of the reasons our products are so efficient. From one cap to the other, from one production to the other, you always have the same quality. For more information on our production process, please refer to the chapter “production methods”.

Parabolic Biologicals must be there for its customers and listen to them as they have sometimes very serious health problems. To be able to serve them best, we have a friendly and professional staff.

Quality Chart of Parabolic Biologicals

In the area of herbalism and food supplements, there is often a lack of information and seriousness.  Parabolic Biologicals wanted their production units to be ISO 9002 and also GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices). These two standards of production are done according to European and American precepts which regulate the pharmaceutical industry. This is a guarantee of quality that few producers of food supplements offer.

Our products are guaranteed without pesticides, chemical products and GMO. They are made by pharmacists in the utmost care and respect for plant and human being. They are controlled as if they were pharmaceutical products and are therefore in fully concordance with European regulations.

Production method

Parabolic Biologicals quickly realized that it is not the quantity of plant that makes a product efficient but the quantity of active ingredients present.  These active principles are sometimes unfortunately found in very little quantity and you often need an important amount of plant to get a satisfying result. This generates two problems. Firstly, the quantity needed to reach efficiency is too important to place in a capsule. Secondly, as it is the case for green tea, certain plants contain undesirable active principles such as caffeine, theophyllin, theobromin, theanin that are used in sliming products but, when highly concentrated, they can have negative results and not be of very much use in herbalism. However to obtain a green tea sufficiently powerful in flavonoids (a powerful antioxidant), it is vital to eliminate these undesirable substances. The extraction method that we use will be therefore very important to avoid undesirable secondary effects.  

In nature, the active principles are embedded into cellulose. However to be useful for your body, they have to be freed from it. We distinguish two major categories of active principles. The “Water Solubles” are those that are soluble in water. We extract them through teas and decoctions (traditional methods). The “Fat-Solubles” are soluble in alcohol. We extract them in alcohol-based tinctures. Each method used individually represents a loss in active principles. The method based on alcohol represents another major disadvantage in that it cannot be used by some people (children, pregnant and lactating women, people having liver problems, people anxious not to consume alcohol, etc.). 

To avoid such problems, powders have been developed. Traditionally, the plants were either dried or roasted before being crushed into a powder, so as to give the totality of the active ingredients.  Then the drying at very low temperature and then crushing of the plant, and also the freeze-drying (freeze at very low temperature, dry and then crushing of the plant) were developed. These methods were simple and very economic and generated substantial profits but were not without major drawbacks for the consumers. Firstly, only 20% to 50% of the active ingredients are taken up in our body because the fibres found in the plant are still there and do not permit our organism to assimilate all of the active principles. Secondly, the plant may contain products that are toxic and that will not be eliminated with such methods. Finally by roasting and drying you lose many active principles and, certainly by roasting, you can create new toxins. Caffeine is a good example thereof: green, the plant does not contain much trigonelline and acrylamide but roasted it contains much more.

It was therefore utmost important to present the plants in a form that be non toxic, highly purified and of which 100% of the active principles would be assimilated by our organism. The hydro-alcoholic technique combined with microbeads gave us a suitable solution.

1. HYDRO-ALCOHOLIC EXTRACTION

The parabolic Biologicals team and its partners discovered that by using water and alcohol extraction together, most of the active principles were obtained while the problem with the fibres not letting the active principles free was solved.

This hydro-alcoholic extraction is more difficult to realize that just an extraction based either on water or alcohol but this is the best way to extract most active principles from the plant.

Instead of keeping the extraction liquid, which contains alcohol, we evaporate slowly the liquid. Of course we can use a faster method by boiling it but then you run the risk of damaging the most thermo-sensible active principles. We therefore prefer to proceed slowly so as eliminate all the water and alcohol smoothly from our extract. This procedure is of course costly but it is the only way to guarantee that there are no toxic elements that developed due to the degradation of the products and that all the active principles requested are present. This method yields a highly concentrated paste.

Based on experience and on the most advanced research in this area of expertise, we have then determined what the best concentration is for each plant so as to get the best result. It is sometimes also interesting to combine different plants as they work in synergy and the results are even better. It is for this reason that we indicate the exact quantity of active principles and not a percentage of active principles, because it is nearly impossible for the general public to calculate the exact amount found in a cap as the information they usually get is biased (they mention either a % of the total weight of the cap which is often composed of 80 % of excipients – or their extraction is so feeble that there is nearly no active ingredients in it)

It was still necessary to present our product in a form that would give the products a maximum efficiency. The microbeads offered us a solution.

2. VEGETABLE MICROBEADS

With the mild evaporation applied to the hydro-alcoholic extract, we obtain a paste, which is used to coat vegetal microbeads. The active principles are on the surface of the microbeads, easily accessible. The interest of this last step is that, if the powdered form of plants generally used liberates only 30 to 50% of the active ingredients, the microbeads liberate the totality of the active ingredients; they are therefore 100% bio-available. Our caps are therefore two times more efficient than the traditional caps. For a slightly increased cost, we furnish a product that is twice better performing.

Studies show that the microbeads liberate the totality of the active elements within half an hour after being taken, while for a normal cap it is necessary to wait over an hour to find the active principles in the bloodstream (see graphics below).  This is twice faster than the uptake of principles provided in traditional caps. The methods under which our plant extracts are presented provide two substantial benefits well worth the slightly increased cost of these products. Another advantage of microbeads is that we have a product that is very stable in time.

3. DELAYED RELEASE

The manner in which the products are taken up in our body is important. Small molecules are often rapidly eliminated in the urines, -within two to three hours-, and their effect is thus therefore only transient. This fast disappearance is not desirable. If it is interesting to have a fast delivery of the active principles to the body thanks to the micro beads, their presence during a prolonged time is beneficial too. This phenomenon is well known in the drug industry that developed methods of delayed release for those drugs that are easily eliminated.

We have applied a new method that was revolutionary in the herbal extracts’ industry but well known since decades by industrial pharmacists, who combine micro beads with a natural element so as to give a delayed released effect. This prolongs the activity of the active principles in a significant way and has a beneficial effect on the patient’s health. By coating half of the microbeads with a special harmless product that resists the acidity of our stomach and that only dissolves two hours later in our intestines, we increase the duration of presence of the active ingredients in our body and therefore increase its potency.

Another advantage of this last point is that there is no need to take six caps per day to have the desired effect but only three.

The Parabolic Biologicals team

The success of Parabolic Biologicals rests mainly on teamwork based on knowledge, the constant search for new ingredients, trust, exchange of information and conviviality.

 Mrs. Maes Dominique, herbalist and chief executive is assisted by a scientific committee made of two biologists and a pharmacist who elaborate the formulas by following the latest scientific data.

This committee lends a scientific caution to the products of Parabolic Biologicals. Always attentive to evolutions in the health sector, it brings its experience and rigor in the renewing of the catalog of Parabolic Biologicals in order to adequately meet the needs of patients as well as those of therapists.

A certified pharmacist is in charge of the control of the fabrication of the catalog of Parabolic Biologicalsfor the application of current Good Manufacturing Practices while an independent laboratory controls the finished products.

A competent team takes care of the administrative and commercial tasks (orders, dispatch, counseling, reception, etc.) and works closely with all other members of the company to be informed of the latest progresses and always offer an optimal service to our customers.