MultiV-PRO: Premium Immune System Health for Athletes

Year-round support for performance, recovery, and staying healthy.

By Luke R. Bucci, PhD CCN CNS 

When we redesigned MultiV-PRO, we also used a no-holds-barred mindset to pack in more benefits than merely ensuring superior delivery of essential vitamins & minerals. We also wanted to make a difference in your health to keep you performing at your best, so we focused on specific immune support nutrients.

To find out way more than anyone would want to know about MultiV-PRO, please check out the Research Packet in the MultiV-PRO webpages; for the highlight reel on immune support, scroll on!

Top 10 Immune System Facts You Need to Know When You Exercise Intensely:

• Extreme exercise slows blood, oxygen and nutritional supply to the gut, and most of your immune system is located there – that’s a big signaling event to mobilize the immune system;
• Your immune system initiates and orchestrates muscle recovery post-exercise;
• Your immune system communicates with itself and other cells via pro- and anti-inflammatory signaling;
• Your immune system clears damaged cells and proteins to build them back into stronger cells, tissues and metabolic processes – this pro-inflammatory process is molecularly messy but absolutely necessary for recovery;
• Anti-inflammatory signals from your immune system follow closely on the heels of clearing molecular/cellular damage, restoring structure and function of musculoskeletal systems, accounting for training adaptation;
• Recovery from exercise has distinct, overlapping phases mediated by immune system signaling;
• These signals are the same for countering microbial invasions – so are the symptoms you feel;
• URTIs are now called URTSs (Upper Respiratory Tract Symptoms), which is not an illness;
• URTSs are a normal immune system response to exhausting exercise;
• Nutritional status is a major factor for keeping your immune system working smoothly to return muscle function back to normal as quickly as possible – you don’t want first responders running on empty or overstimulated doing more harm than good.

Immune-Specific Balance of Antioxidant Nutrients

Nutritional immune support from essential vitamins and minerals is dependent on balance – nothing deficient, nothing megadosed, and every change, inclusion, or omission supported by clinical research.

We tweaked the Vitamin C downwards compared to MultiV, and we continue to use food-identical molecular structures from Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Beta Carotene (Vitamin A), Selenium (L-Selenomethionine), Spectra® Total ORAC5 Blend, Green Tea and Ginkgo biloba extracts – all at intakes with supportive human evidence to maintain exercise performance and recovery. These intakes let your immune system do what it wants to do – keeping you strong and resilient.

PC: Paul Nelson @trailjunkiephotos

Immune-Specific Upgrades for MultiV-PRO

While those antioxidant nutrients are critical in ensuring your immune system can turn the corner during recovery, research shows us that there are other nutrients that supercharge the process while also keeping your immune system well-trained and on high alert for non-exercise bugs and invaders.

Immulink® MBG Beta Glucan

Beta Glucan supplementation from yeast extracts have reproducibly shown benefits for athletes. When introduced to your gut, beta glucan essentially primes your immune system to look for threats – and eliminate them.

Digging into the molecular mechanisms of how oral beta glucans trigger your gut immune system to go systemic led us to choose a more powerful type of 1,3/1,6 Beta-D-Glucan – from cultured Reishi mushroom mycelia (not the hard fruiting body). Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) mycelia are mostly beta glucans, but with a more complicated molecular structure than yeast beta glucan, meaning a more powerful response from your immune system. GRAS status and successful human clinical studies on antistress and immune findings clinched using this particular Super Beta Glucan extract (Chang 2012; Chen 2013, 2023);

Levagen®+

The key differentiator for MultiV-PRO is Levagen®+, a standardized source of PEA, which is the strongest link in the chain of your built-in, antistress endocannabinoid system (ECS). When you exercise intensely, especially endurance exercise of long durations, injured cells make PEA. PEA causes two effects. The first is helping you experience the “runner’s high” feeling, so you perform better. But more than that, PEA is a link between your immune system and exercise recovery, telling those cells where to go and when to start recovery (Bucci 2023; Matei 2023; Rezende 2023).

This process was shown to work by a human study on Levagen®+ and exercise recovery that used a lower dose than MultiV-PRO has, and also a non-endurance exercise, which had less whole-body stress, and still found decreases in myoglobin (a marker for muscle damage) in the important first few hours after exercise (Mallard 2020). PEA auto-amplifies recovery, making it an unsung hero for activating normal repair processes as soon as possible, where and when needed most.

Iron and Immune Support

Iron intake, status and deficiencies are real-world issues with elite endurance athletes. Iron is also vital for proper immune function when kept in balance (not too little, not too much) (Beard 2011; Bonilla 2023). With adequate iron, lymphocyte and macrophage immune cells that participate in the post-exercise recovery process are able to drive recovery.

MultiV-PRO maintains that balance with 27 mg Iron from Ferrochel®, a chelated form of iron that has balanced uptake into the body. That means your body grabs iron only as needed – again, not too little, not too much (Bucci 2023). Ferrochel® prevents iron deficiency and iron overload, keeping iron available for immune system cells.

MultiV-PRO Immune Overview Summary

MultiV-PRO follows recent advances in nutrition science by combining sufficient vitamins, minerals, and additional ingredients to benefit immune support for serious endurance athletes. MultiV-PRO maximizes forms and amounts specifically chosen for intense endurance athletes like you. There is nothing like MultiV-PRO – much more than a Multi. 

References

Beard JL. Iron biology in immune function, muscle metabolism and neuronal functioning. J Nutr. 2011 Feb;131(2S-2):568S-80S.

Bonilla DA, Moreno Y, Petro JL, Forero DA, Vargas-Molina S, Odriozola-Martínez A, Orozco CA, Stout JR, Rawson ES, Kreider RB. A bioinformatics-assisted review on iron metabolism and immune system to identify potential biomarkers of exercise stress-induced immunosuppression. Biomedicines. 2022 Mar21;10(3):724.

Bucci LR. MultiV-PRO Endurance Multivitamin. Research Packet. (found in MultiV-PRO webpages at First Endurance: www.firstendurance.com

Chang et al. Immulink MBG reduced health challenges in high physical and psychological stress subjects – a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical study. Super Beta Glucan, Inc., Unpublished manuscript, 2012. 

Chen SN, Nan FH, Liu MW, Yang MF, Chang YC, Chen S. Evaluation of immune modulation by Beta-1,3;1,6 D- 

Glucan derived from Ganoderma lucidum in healthy adult volunteers. Foods. 2023;12:659. 

Chen SW. Mushroom β-glucan supplement reduces upper respiratory infections and improves quality of life in healthy volunteers with high lifestyle stress. Super Beta Glucan, Inc., Unpublished manuscript, 2013. 

FDA. Beta glucans derived from Ganoderma lucidum mycelium. GRN 413, 2012 Jan12. (https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/index.cfm?set=GRASNotices&id=413)

Mallard A, Briskey D, Richards A, Mills D, Rao A. The effect of orally dosed Levagen+™ (palmitoylethanolamide) on exercise recovery in healthy males – a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. Nutrients. 2020 Feb25;12(3):596.

Matei D, Trofin D, Iordan DA, Onu I, Condurache I, Ionite C, Buculei I. The endocannabinoid system and physical exercise. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jan19;24(3):1989. 

Rezende B, Alencar AKN, de Bem GF, Fontes-Danats FL, Montes GC. Endocannabinoid system: chemical characteristics and biological activity. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2023 Jan19;16(2):148.