The Clues That Led to nuBound

Famously, Sherlock Holmes pieced together clues that had little meaning in isolation, but when brought together told a logical story.  The origin of nuBound is a detective story itself.

Two large outbreaks of infectious diseases occurred in the first decade of this century. In 2002-03 a new flu-like disease called SARS (for severe acute respiratory syndrome) burst out in southern China. It was quickly contained with fewer than 10,000 infections.

Over the following four years, 2003-07, a second disease known as “bird flu” (designated the H5N1 flu) broke out around Asia in China, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. It was not highly infectious and was similarly contained without a wide outbreak.

Our founder, Mark Connell, was working with a pharmaceutical firm based in southeast Asia during the bird flu outbreak. Given the health concerns, he began a search for ingredients to include in an immune boosting nutritional supplement.

There were obvious candidates, things like antioxidants and vitamin C, that were traditionally identified as supporting immune function. After a broad review of the scientific literature there was a novel substance that suggested benefits despite having been overlooked in the past, nucleotides.

The role of nucleotides in a healthy diet had traditionally been ignored because scientists knew that your body is capable of creating them. That view began to change in the 1980s and 1990s as multiple studies showed that newborn infants needed the nucleotides they got from mother’s milk and that hospital patients fed nucleotides developed fewer infections.

These clues sparked Mark’s interest. Things shifted to a new gear with the publication of two studies in 2006-07 by Lars McNaughton, a researcher in the UK. Lars showed that endurance athletes taking a nucleotide supplement had stronger immune system function and a lower stress response compared to a control group. In other words, better recovery.

As a middle-aged athlete, who had run multiple marathons and was an early-adopter of CrossFit, Mark appreciated the importance of recovery to his training. When a search for existing nucleotide supplements came up empty, Mark realized that there was an unmet need among athletes. Everyone could use a simple nutritional tweak that improved recovery and enhanced performance.

The result of this detective work is nuBound, the first nucleotide supplement designed for the needs of athletes.