By LESLIE MANNING
The Spotlight
A presentation titled Putting Science Behind the Tradition will be free to the public at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8 in the Southeast of Saline Theatre, 5056 E. K-4 Highway.
According to Jason West, CEO of Hyatt Life Sciences and son of Dr. Gene Zaid, back in 2005 his father returned to Jerusalem to visit his father, and was reintroduced to a plant that grows wild in the Middle East. The plant, Arum Palaestinum, or commonly called Solomon’s Lilly, is a Calla Lilly with deep purple colored flowers.
“They use this plant a lot for medicinal purposes,” West said. “They chop it up and brew it as a tea. This thing has been in use in that part of the world for as long as anybody can remember.”
Dr. Zaid received his bachelors in chemistry for Kansas Wesleyan University and a masters in chemical engineering from Wichita State University. He started Genzada Pharmaceuticals, analyzing the plant, breaking it down into its molecular components. He then started extracting the specific molecules he thought was causing this plant to work.
In addition, Dr. Zaid started making the tea, and sharing it with friends and neighbors in Sterling.
“We started doing a lot of our research by creating the tea,” West said. “Pretty soon, there were folks around town in Sterling with breast cancer or prostate cancer who would call up and request some tea. This thing started to snowball and we were pushing out about 40 gallons of tea a week. It finally dawned on us that there was a real desire for this product to be commercially available.”
Dr. Zaid started Hyatt Life Sciences in 2016, after taking the plant through testing and sending the results to the FDA. As a supplement, the products offered by Hyatt Life Sciences are not FDA approved, however, when Dr. Zaid did not receive any word that the product was bad, he went live in 2018.
“From our standpoint as a company, because the product is not tested clinically for cancer or other illnesses, we can’t market the product as medicine,” West said. “At these events, we simply talk about our research and what we are doing specifically on the drug side of the business.”
Other speakers during the event will include Karen Eck, Dee and Vaughn Juhnke, Dr. Jeff Gust and Dan Schweizer. These speakers will share their testimony of using the supplement while treating a cancer diagnosis.
The town hall style presentation is coordinated by Kelsey Loader.
“Three years ago, after my dad finished his treatment for prostate cancer, my best friend’s father-in-law mentioned Afaya Plus to my mom,” Loader said. “Thanksgiving 2022, my sister was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. My mom remembered the information she received about Afaya Plus by Hyatt Life Science.”
Loader’s sister, Kendra Ryser, will be present during the town hall style presentation, and will share her experience with Afaya Plus. According to Loader, her sister’s PET scan in January 2023 showed cancer in her liver, lungs and lymph nodes. Two weeks before her sister started chemotherapy treatments, a trip was made to Hutchinson to consult with Dr. Gene Zaid at Hyatt Life Science.
“Kendra immediately started on their supplements for cancer, and started her chemo as scheduled,” Loader said. “My sister’s PET scan in April showed no cancer in her lungs or lymph nodes and the cancer in her liver had greatly decreased.”