For Immediate
Release: FOR
MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
January 11, 2001
Ron Sonntag
Ron Sonntag Public Relations, Inc.
9406 N. 107th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53224
414-354-0200, Ext. 102
email: ron@rspr.com
Rhea Magic at Grand Cypress Ranch
Protein Extract
Soothes Breeder’s Aches and Pains
Donna Fezler
swapped a pine swamp in south Louisiana for a rhea farm in central
Illinois.
Along the way, she
came up with a thriving business that has eliminated her family’s
health problems. Add to that earning two patents, helping to save
the rhea (a threatened species of ostrich-like birds) from
extinction, and establishing a probable cause and possible solution
to a group of painful disorders affecting one out of every five
Americans.
Donna Fezler has been
one busy woman!
Having a degree in
bacteriology, the dogged determination of a born researcher, and a
fervid zeal to eliminate a worldwide epidemic killing rhea chicks
helped her to succeed. Today, she holds two U.S. patents — one for
nutraceutical products derived from rhea and ostrich protein, and
the other for soothing rhea oil.
Behind this success
story is a six-acre farmette populated with rheas, 60 to 80-pound
flightless South American birds that are related to the ostrich.
Faced with a high fatality rate among rhea chicks, the breeder
diagnosed their deaths as caused by autoimmune disorders resulting
from environmental poisons. In seeking a remedy for this condition
affecting rhea populations around the world, she established a
biochemical connection between environmental poisons and the 80
autoimmune disorders, such as fibromyalgia and allergies, that cause
painful reactions among millions of humans.
From this intensive
research, she has concluded, "The popular notion with
autoimmune disorders that the body is attacking itself is incorrect
and without scientific foundation."
As one who formerly
suffered from fibromyalgia, she explains that rhea muscle and bone
produce a high-energy protein that, when put into capsules and taken
as a dietary supplement, can play a role in detoxifying the body
from various chemical poisons. This cleaning, in turn, can help rid
or reduce the pain experienced by people with such toxin-induced
conditions as allergies, fibromyalgia, arthritis, Crohn’s disease,
muscular dystrophy, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
"It all really
happened by accident," Donna Fezler explains her discovery
simply.
A New Yorker, she
worked several years in her field of studies before moving south to
be a supervisor in a plant that produced vegetable oil. It was there
she met and later married Oklahoma native Tripp Fezler. They have
two children, a daughter born at home in 1982, and a son born in
South Korea where Tripp worked as a petroleum engineer from 1985 to
1988, before returning to company headquarters in New Orleans.
In August of 1990,
Donna attended a seminar to learn about using pine needles from
their swamp acreage as gardening mulch. Another portion of the
seminar dealt with raising ostriches for their meat — then a
lucrative item on upscale restaurant menus. Although the potential
return was substantial, getting started as breeders was expensive,
with an adult pair costing up to $30,000, she noted.
Two years later,
Tripp’s career move brought the Fezlers to central Illinois, near
Springfield. They bought a six-acre property and Donna decided to
experiment with rheas, smaller and more manageable than an ostrich
and available for approximately $3,000 per pair of mature birds.
"Although they’re
native to South America, the rheas are amazingly hardy and tolerant
of Midwestern winters," Donna said. "They graze in the
field, have a lifespan of more than 20 years, and produce from 20 to
50 eggs during a breeding season that is mid-spring to early
August."
The summer of ‘93
was the first hatching season for Grand Cypress Ranch, the Fezler’s
rhea farm. The birds construct large nests of leaves, rocks and
sticks, nearly six-feet across. The yellow-colored rhea eggs are
about the size of a soft drink can. Growth is rapid — from a
weight of 12
ounces at birth to
three pounds at one month, and 40 pounds by four months. A major
problem, though, is a high mortality rate for chicks.
"About that
time, breeders of ostriches and rheas around the world were
experiencing the same high losses," Donna recalled.
Although she had a
science background but no medical education, Donna became the
chairman of research for the North American Rhea Association. In
addition to her own extensive studies, she fielded dozens of calls
daily from breeders across the country and kept track of their
experiences.
After three years of
intensively studying medicine and biochemistry, she felt it was
apparent that the ostrich and rhea chicks, members of the ratite
family along with emus, were extremely sensitive to chemical poisons
— whether in the air, soil, or water. In an attempt to cleanse
their systems, the chicks tapped their body fat and the protein-rich
amino acids found first in muscles and connective tissue. Slowly
wasting away, the chicks died in great numbers.
Testing pollution
sources, Donna found trace farm chemicals in the ranch’s water
supply and suspected that chemical fertilizers and pesticides
were floating over
from neighboring farms. She theorized that since rhea oil produced
anti-inflammatory activity in people, that rhea fat was part of the
chicks’ immune system. Donna injected oil from adult rhea body fat
into the chicks. The
procedure helped, it was the basis for her first patent, but the
process wasn’t viable on a commercial scale.
By 1994, the market
for exotic ostrich and rhea meat was dwindling, and the Fezlers were
dining on rhea. Having taken scores of allergy medications since
childhood, Tripp had experienced almost continuous allergy symptoms
and upper respiratory infections, and their adolescent son and young
daughter both had allergies.
Although they
continued selling rhea meat and hides, the Fezlers had a surplus of
necks which Donna turned into soup. And more soup. Soon, she was no
longer feeling her chronic backaches, and Tripp was allergy
reaction-free, decreasing his medications to zero. The kids also
noticed their symptoms to be gone. Eventually, Donna traced the
source of their improved health to a steady diet of rhea neck soup.
At her husband’s
request, she spent months determining how to enhance the formulation
and put the product into capsules. At the same time, she was using
the experimental substance to save the rhea chicks. Then thousands
of capsules were distributed to see if there would be similar
effects on other people. Soon, the responses came in — people with
fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue were thanking her when they found
relief from their symptoms.
So it was back to the
drawing board for Donna to figure out how rhea protein might have
helped combat the effects of autoimmune disorders. Donna knew that
amino acids from rhea muscle and bone are rich in the factors that
generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP). She also knew that muscle
proteins bind some toxins. She then set out to prove that ATP, a
natural dietary supplement, helps the human body rid itself of the
toxins that inflame a wide range of autoimmune disorders.
It was at this point
she concluded that, in the process of detoxifying ingested
environmental toxins, the body was using up its ATP energy stores
and interfering with the work of rebuilding itself. The painful and
tiring symptoms of autoimmune disorders were the result, she
theorized. From this conclusion evolved the human nutraceutical
products developed by Grand Cypress Ranch, and Donna’s zeal to
help people rid themselves of chemical poisons that led to pain and
other unpleasant symptoms.
. "The medical
community was of no assistance," she recalled resolutely.
"I had to do this on my own — through trial and error, plus
extensive computer searches of scientific materials and clinical
studies."
Using the principles
of Darwinian or evolutionary medicine, her years of research led to
the conclusion that autoimmune disorders are not the human body
attacking itself. Rather, in an attempt to cleanse itself of toxins
caused by environmental contaminants and food additives, the body
depletes itself of valuable adenosine triphosphate, and pain is the
result. Replacing the ATP through a nutritional supplement rich in
ATP, she theorized, should alleviate pain and allergic reactions,
and improve energy levels.
"If the ATP
Boost product is going to work for someone, allergy reactions should
vanish in two to three hours. Depending on a number of
circumstances, including a wholehearted effort to remove the worst
toxins from diet and environment, people with fibromyalgia can
experience significant relief within a few weeks," Donna noted.
All the Grand Cypress Ranch products include a 30-day money- back
guarantee.
Today, Donna, Tripp,
and the couple’s teenage son and daughter are all involved in
breeding the birds, managing the business, and distributing the
dietary supplement through the Grand Cypress Ranch Web site at
www.rhealiving.com. Besides ATP Boost, GCR sells other rhea and
ostrich nutritional supplements and topical creams for massaging
into painful areas.
"I caution
people that these products must be combined with a healthy diet —
eating all-natural foods, and avoiding bad fats and the use of some
chemical products, especially those with chlorine," Donna
emphasized.
"One of the
problems I’ve seen is that many women, after relishing being
pain-free and full of new energy, start a wild housecleaning
binge," she laughed. "This often means using cleaning
supplies that contain chlorine and other harmful chemicals — which
just reintroduces the poisons into their systems. I tell them to let
the cleaning go — or use natural products!"
###
News Release January 2001
The
Discovery Story
Darwinian
Medicine Explanation
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