The Path to ReVasca and GlycoCheck

If you haven’t heard of the glycocalyx and its importance to capillary, microvascular, and total vascular health, you’re not alone. Even many medical professionals aren’t aware of its importance to good health because glycocalyx research is a new, advanced, and emerging field of science. It’s now being introduced to medical schools and gradually shared with the general public.

The glycocalyx is a micro-thin protective gel layer that lines the inside of all blood vessels throughout your body, including capillaries in your kidneys, heart, and other vital organs. This protective layer plays a critical role in vascular, microvascular, and total vascular health, supporting the proper flow of blood, delivering nutrients, and removing waste from organs.

In this chapter, you’ll learn the history and back story of how the glycocalyx and its role in capillary, microvascular, and total vascular health were discovered, insights from scientific research studies conducted at more than 140 hospitals and research centers worldwide, and the solution that can improve glycocalyx, microvascular, and total vascular health.

The bottom-line news is this: a weakened glycocalyx and compromised microvascular and total vascular function begin a downward spiral that is linked to almost all medical conditions and diseases. Restoring this layer and its function is essential for overall health.

So how do you know if you have a weakened glycocalyx or impaired capillary, microvascular, and total vascular function? Your body could be sending early warning signals that you might attribute to normal aging. However, some healthcare practitioners offer a simple, non-invasive test where a video microscope camera measures blood flow in small blood vessels under the tongue. This test can reveal if you’re on the brink of health problems. A low score indicates a weakened glycocalyx, compromised capillary, microvascular, and total vascular health, and could suggest that your organs are already at risk and compromised.

Thankfully, this story is only beginning. There is hope for the future through a new, easy-to-take, all-natural dietary therapeutic—one that doesn’t require a doctor’s visit, a test, or a prescription.

 

A 5,000-Mile Journey

The journey to breakthroughs in glycocalyx, microvascular, and total vascular health research and the development of a new solution begins with two people, 5,000 miles apart, living on two separate continents.

Robert “Bob” Long is a successful businessman from Utah. His journey began in an unsettling way—with a health scare in 2009 when he was 54 years old, had Type 2 diabetes, and was 65 pounds overweight. The stresses of life on the road, constantly building an international company, and the pressure to always perform at his job as a top sales executive caught up with him. It all started when he noticed recurring tightness and pain in his chest.

Concerned, Bob went to his personal physician, who did a basic check-up and raised the alarm. His doctor was worried that Bob was at risk of a heart attack and referred him to a specialist. Within hours, Bob found himself at a regional medical center, undergoing tests to check his heart, kidneys, and other organ health.

What was supposed to be a one-hour morning appointment dragged into the evening. After performing multiple tests and confirming that Bob hadn’t experienced a heart attack, the specialist suspected Bob had a blockage in his heart arteries that was causing the tightness when he walked uphill. The solution? The doctor recommended an angiogram, with the intent to place stents in any blockages found.

 

Good News and Bad News

After the test, the doctor gathered Bob and his wife to discuss the results.

“I have good news, and I have bad news,” the specialist began.

“Give me the good news first,” Bob replied.

“The good news is that you haven’t had a heart attack, so there’s no damage, and there isn’t any major blockage requiring a stent.”

“So, what’s the bad news?” Bob asked.

“We don’t really know what’s causing your chest pain and tightness. All I can do is prescribe some medications, suggest you change your lifestyle, lose some weight, and start exercising. Come back in 30 days and we’ll do a follow-up.”

 

“Wow, I Should Have Paid More Attention to My Health”

Like many patients, Bob was left with a lingering feeling of guilt. He thought to himself, “Wow, I should have paid more attention to my health. You don’t have much time left, and even the doctors don’t know how to help you.”

The doctor started writing a stack of prescriptions. Bob, in his typical fashion, researched each medication. To his dismay, he found that every one of the prescribed drugs came with significant side effects—side effects that sounded worse than his fear of what was wrong with him. Bob then asked, “How long do I have to take these meds?” The answer: “The rest of your life.”

Since the doctors couldn’t tell him exactly what was wrong, Bob decided to figure it out himself. Determined to improve his health, he began by hiking up the hills and mountains near his home in Alpine, Utah. During these hikes, he could feel the impact of his symptoms—particularly the angina caused by his chest tightness and pain—but he was resolute. He later discovered that what wasn’t commonly known at the time was that his angina was likely due to the loss of capillaries that support the heart muscle, essential for delivering oxygen and nutrients directly to heart tissue. Bob kept thinking, “If this was my experience, how many thousands of people in the world are experiencing the same thing?”

He started by exercising regularly and losing weight. Thirty days later, Bob returned for a follow-up appointment with improved statistics. The doctor, pleased with the progress, reduced Bob’s medications and asked him to come back in a year for another check-up.

 

A Quest to Discover the “Why”

Then, as if guided by fate, a friend’s brother—a physician—introduced Bob to emerging research on the glycocalyx and its role in capillary, microvascular, and total vascular health. When Bob learned that the glycocalyx lines every artery, vein, and capillary in the body, and that it is composed of compounds similar to those found in certain types of seaweed, something clicked. Could it be that the health of his glycocalyx, capillaries, microvascular, and total vascular function was at the root of his problems? Could natural ingredients offer the solution?

He became determined to become a nutrition expert himself and set up Google alerts to receive notifications any time new research on the glycocalyx, capillary function, and total vascular health was published, including a wide range of natural ingredients. Bob became consumed by the volumes of information he found and read, diving into scientific literature, studies, and discussions surrounding the critical role of the glycocalyx in vascular health.

 

The Beginning of Research: Enter Dr. Hans Vink

As he absorbed more information, one name kept coming up repeatedly: Dr. Hans Vink, a pioneering researcher from the Netherlands who had been studying the glycocalyx, microvascular, and total vascular health since the 1980s. Dr. Vink was one of the first scientists to delve deeply into the structure and function of the glycocalyx, and his groundbreaking work had already caught the attention of the medical community with images that he and his student, Bernard Vandenburg, Ph.D., captured. These images revealed the endothelial glycocalyx sitting on top of the endothelial cells, a discovery that stunned the medical field. Until this breakthrough, no one had seen direct evidence of this protective layer, and it was widely believed that arteries, veins, and capillaries were simply tubes without any such lining.

By 2012, Dr. Vink had developed and patented GlycoCheck, an advanced imaging diagnostic tool, a video microscope camera and software system that could measure total vascular and microvascular health by assessing blood flow and red blood cell behavior in capillaries. His research had uncovered links between glycocalyx damage, capillary, microvascular, and total vascular health and conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease, and dysfunction in other vital organs.

 

An Unexpected Partnership and the Founding of Glycocalyx Research Institute

Bob was eager to learn more from Dr. Vink. However, he was hesitant to reach out, worried that without medical or scientific credentials, Dr. Vink might not take him seriously. Undeterred, Bob asked his biochemist colleague, who happened to be traveling to Europe for a science meeting, to reach out to Dr. Vink on his behalf.

The introduction worked. The biochemist met with Dr. Vink in the Netherlands, and soon after, Bob was on a plane to meet Dr. Vink in person. When they met, Bob deliberately didn’t reveal that he had been testing a therapeutic formula on himself. He was eager to see if his efforts to restore his glycocalyx, microvascular, and total vascular health would show in the test results from the GlycoCheck system.

When Dr. Vink measured Bob's glycocalyx health using GlycoCheck, he expected the worst. After all, Bob had been overweight, diabetic, and had previously exhibited symptoms of heart disease and compromised vascular health in other organs. But when the test results came back, they were surprising—even to Dr. Vink. Bob's score was not only good—it was better than Dr. Vink's own.

At this point, Bob shared his secret: “I’ve been developing and taking a therapeutic designed to support glycocalyx health,” he revealed. This breakthrough moment was the start of their partnership, and together, they refined the formula that would eventually become ReVasca—an all-natural dietary therapeutic that helps restore, rejuvenate, and protect the glycocalyx.

Hans was overcome with emotion and said, “Do you realize you might have discovered the ‘so what’?” He explained to Bob that in his quest to discover and prove the existence of the glycocalyx, he had been mocked and ridiculed by many scientists and researchers. “No one believed there was that protective lining until we got the pictures,” Hans said. “Then my quest was to find out why it was there and what its function was in the body.”

Hans went on to tell Bob how this quest led him to develop the GlycoCheck device and software. “After that, everyone kept asking the same question: ‘So what do we do about it?’ I knew eventually someone would figure out how to repair and restore the glycocalyx, but I always assumed it would be a drug. I had never considered that natural ingredients could be the solution.”

Bob then explained all he had learned and how the ingredients he had researched affected the glycocalyx, strengthening the foundation for what would soon become a breakthrough partnership.

 

From a Simple Research-Focused Tool to a Fully Developed Medical Device

In 2012, Bob and Hans began the quest to bring GlycoCheck to the world. Their first goal was to introduce GlycoCheck into major academic research hospitals around the globe. They sought third-party validation to confirm that a compromised glycocalyx leads to a reduction in microvascular capillaries and is at the root of the progression of many conditions and diseases. Through this global initiative, they aimed to establish GlycoCheck as a critical tool in advancing our understanding of microvascular health and its links to a wide range of health issues.

As they began placing GlycoCheck units at hospitals worldwide, more insights and discoveries emerged as data was gathered. The GlycoCheck system captured several key aspects of what was happening in the body. It demonstrated that the thickness of the glycocalyx could be correlated to the progression of various diseases. They also discovered that the most critical health information was occurring in the capillaries, which are 4-6 microns small. This led to an understanding of how blood flow dynamics impact vascular health and organ function.

From 2014 to 2016, these findings culminated in the development of a microvascular health score, a major advancement in assessing overall vascular health and predicting the onset of various diseases.

 

The Quest to Create a New Category of Medicine that is Advanced and Emerging

Bob and Dr. Vink’s journey went beyond developing a device and therapeutic. As they dove deeper into understanding the glycocalyx, they recognized that supporting and restoring this critical layer wasn’t just a new approach; it represented an entirely new category of medicine. Traditional approaches to health often focus on symptoms, but their research pointed to the glycocalyx as a primary influencer in maintaining vascular health and, by extension, overall health.

By focusing on the health of the glycocalyx, Bob and Dr. Vink could envision a shift in medical paradigms—where treating vascular health at the micro-level becomes a cornerstone of preventive and therapeutic health strategies. This new field has the potential to address underlying issues in countless conditions, offering a proactive approach to health that goes beyond symptom management. Their work in glycocalyx research and therapeutic solutions like ReVasca is leading the way in what they hope will become a widely recognized medical category, blending preventive and regenerative approaches to health.

 

The Birth of ReVasca

The discovery of ReVasca was not just a scientific achievement; it was the culmination of a personal journey for Bob and Dr. Vink—a 5,000-mile journey that connected two people across continents, united by a shared vision to improve health at its root cause.

ReVasca was formulated with natural ingredients that mimic the compounds found in the glycocalyx. These ingredients work synergistically to restore the glycocalyx’s protective structure, rejuvenate the body’s ability to produce more of the gel-like lining, and protect the glycocalyx from oxidative stress and damage. ReVasca is the third and latest improvement in formulas developed over the past many years. The first formula, Arterosil, laid the groundwork, and further research led to Endocalyx Pro in 2012. Twelve years of additional research and studies culminated in ReVasca—our most powerful formula to date, with added synergistic ingredients that enhance its efficacy.

ReVasca is now being investigated by multiple third-party research groups to confirm its mechanisms of action on several health conditions and diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, hypertension, kidney disease, and complications related to COVID-19, Long COVID, and emergency room scenarios. ReVasca is helping patients experience some of the best results they’ve ever seen with glycocalyx-supportive formulas.

Alongside ReVasca, GlycoCheck is now also being rolled out in health practitioners' offices and clinics across the US and around the world. Soon, individuals will be able to locate a nearby office offering GlycoCheck testing through the office locator on our website, providing greater access to vital glycocalyx health insights.

Dr. Hans Vink has since published or co-authored over 120 peer-reviewed research papers on the glycocalyx. Today, over 140 hospitals and research centers worldwide are using the GlycoCheck system to study the glycocalyx in various diseases and conditions, from heart disease to diabetes. His work and published papers have been cited over 16,600 times, as reported and tracked by Google Scholar.

 

Join the Movement to Improve Your Health and Longevity

Glycocalyx research is more than just a scientific endeavor; it’s a movement to fundamentally transform our understanding of health, aging, and disease prevention. With the pioneering work of Bob Long and Dr. Hans Vink, the world is closer than ever to achieving better health outcomes by addressing vascular health at the capillary and microvascular levels. This new frontier of medicine, focusing on the foundational layer of the vascular system, holds promise for millions of individuals worldwide.

If you are concerned about the state of your vascular health or simply wish to stay proactive in your healthcare journey, consider seeking out GlycoCheck testing or trying ReVasca. By supporting the health of your glycocalyx, capillaries, and microvascular system, you are investing in a foundational aspect of total health that could impact every organ in your body.

To learn more or find a GlycoCheck testing location near you, visit our website. Join us in the movement to prioritize and support microvascular health and experience the benefits of a stronger, healthier vascular system.