By Meri Hellewell
Penny Reay was going blind. After being told she had only one year left before complete blindness, Reay was desperate for help.
Traditionally, her best option would have been dialysis, something she said is a “last-ditch effort,” but Reay found a positive alternative.
Diagnosed with diabetes in 1996, Reay searched for an effective treatment and said she found it in Metabolic Activation Therapy.
“It is phenomenal and I can vouch for what it”s doing for me,” Reay said.
MAT is an intravenous therapy similar to dialysis, but without many of the negative side effects.
“The principal of this is to activate the liver through pulsating insulin directly in the veins to go to the liver,” Reay said. “It activates the liver to use the enzymes that are necessary to process the sugars in your body. In doing so, it stops and retards and possibly reverses the complications of diabetes.”
Patients involved in MAT receive weekly treatments lasting about seven hours. While receiving the treatment, patients are free to read, work or simply relax. Mike Roberts, president of World Health Technologies, Inc., calls the treatments a lifestyle change.
“This is a little bit of a sacrifice for an incredible change in their lives, for an incredible return,” Roberts said.
World Health Technologies, Inc. is working to bring more clinics offering MAT to Utah. Nearly 40 separate findings have deemed MAT”s FDA approved pump, patented treatment and patented procedure safe, effective, not experimental or investigational.
“FDA approval means you can offer it as a real live medical treatment as opposed to a research treatment,” Roberts said.
Approved as a valid treatment for diabetes, Medicare and other insurance providers reimburse for MAT.
Mike Clarke, vice president of Access Health Solutions, said patients on MAT regain their ability to sense blood sugars and decrease the episodes of hypoglycemia by 98 percent.
There are 18.2 million people in the United States, or 6.3 percent of the population, who have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. While an estimated 13 million have been diagnosed, nearly one-third are unaware they have the disease.
“Diabetes just touches everybody in some regard, in some way,” Reay said.
On Thursday, Feb. 5, a free seminar on MAT, sponsored by World Health Technologies, will be at the Orem St. Friendship Center on 93 N. 400 E. in Orem. Everyone is welcome, including diabetics, doctors and anyone else who wants to learn more about the treatment.
