Our Story
Genesis BioHealth was founded, and the Cross’s began sharing their passion for the science of nutrition after several combinations of events led them to begin evolving their dietary practices. Ironically, during the year 2002, when the Dr. was researching an experimental chemotherapy agent, the Cross’s daughter, Katherine, was born with a rare, deadly, and inoperable brain tumor of a type called “Diffuse Pontine Glioma”. The Cross’s, including their 4-year-old son Nathaniel, underwent a long ordeal of chemotherapy, radiation, and steroids to try and save Katherine’s life. Unfortunately, she lost her battle to cancer at age 2, dying in her mother’s arms in 2004. It was during this time that Dr. Cross’s first doubts began to emerge surrounding the use of pharmaceuticals to battle non-communicable diseases as opposed to the use of nutrition to strengthen the immune system. It would not be till years later, however, when these first doubts began to solidify and bear fruit.
Toward the end of their desperate battle, Mrs. Cross brought forward many medical papers about the use of low carb dieting to reduce and block cancer cell growth. Dr. Cross, who was deep in mechanistic drug design studies for a class of chemotherapy drugs now called “gene therapy”, had never studiously considered the most fundamental causes of cancer, or how the body was meant to stop and/or reverse its development. He found the peer-reviewed studies around the use of nutrition to stop cancer very solid with a strong scientific basis. Katherine’s Doctor, on the other hand, and the entire extended oncological team, dismissed these papers without even considering them, calling Mrs. Cross an “internet mother” at one point.
It was during their battle with cancer, and the grieving time that followed, when the Cross’s also began to develop their own health problems. To save time during the struggle, they had begun eating quick easy food and had become sedentary, trying to balance the physical, financial, and emotional struggles they were forced to deal with. Ultimately these lifestyle changes sowed the seeds of their later health decline. Pushing into their late 30’s and dealing with the aftermath of their daughter’s ordeal, their eating habits deteriorated and they ceased most extracurricular activities in their grief. As a result, both rapidly gained 30-50 lbs. and drove themselves into disease modes. Mrs. Cross was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, while Dr. Cross was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease. They did not realize at that time that they had also developed the beginnings of osteoporosis, now know to be a related disorder.
Both began seeing endocrinologists and taking prescription medications under their care. Over the next 3-5 years, the Cross’s conditions worsened. Mrs. Cross developed a large group of nodules on her thyroid, while Dr. Cross battled higher blood sugar, triglycerides, and blood pressure, entering the highest-risk category for stroke and heart attack. It was then that the Cross’s made the decision to get “healthy” again. Unfortunately, they did not realize that the path would be much longer, more convoluted, and costly to their health and bank accounts than they initially believed.
To “get healthy”, they began reading about and practicing what is now called “paleo” and “ketogenic” dieting, both somewhat similar and related types of low carbohydrate high-fat dieting. They also began exercising heavily in a range of activities. Both the Cross’s became very fit and lost the bulk of their excess weight. They changed their nutritional lifestyles to what they believed was clean and healthy. As a result, Dr. Cross’s diabetes and lipid panel numbers improved greatly as did Mrs. Cross’s thyroid numbers. However, they still struggled to get off medication and the nodules on Mrs. Cross’s thyroid continued to grow. Both were hungry all the time, they thought then it was due to the heavy exercise. They snacked frequently on “healthy” low carb snacks and controlled their weight by exercise as many are taught to do. Ultimately, however, their health slowly decreased in ways that weren’t apparent even as their fitness increased. This contradictory situation didn’t become obvious until they reached their late 40’s. By that time, Dr. Cross developed tendonitis in his joints, gum disease, and chronic sinusitis, forcing him to stop rock climbing and biking. Mrs. Cross began to battle anemia and a range of severe pre-menopausal symptoms later resulting in surgery and a severe complication due to infection which nearly ended her life. Even when things were “normal” and they were feeling good they had virtually no excess energy. Both were exhausted each day, always pushing to get through their busy work weeks until the weekend came, and they could rest. They got sick several times each year and would then take antibiotics just to stay on their feet and keep working at their professions. They did not realize that these were important signs of metabolic distress.
All this time, the Cross’s had diligently followed the directions of their doctors. They had adopted the most current healthy dietary recommendations. They had increased their exercise and fitness greatly and lost their excess weight. While they were as fit as they had ever been, and their outward health appeared good according to their weight, blood chemistry, and medical testing, their state had ultimately come at the cost of their immune, energy, endocrine, and skeletal systems, which told different unobserved, tales.
Mrs. Cross had begun to experience ischemic migraines and Dr. Cross, in addition to his chronic aches and pains, needed multiple outpatient sinus surgeries to keep his sinus’ from continually becoming impacted with fungus. His chronic pains included: neck, back, hip, knee, and rotator cuff issues. Around age 50, they begin to wonder if they could make it to their retirement or even enjoy it if they did.
This was when Dr. Cross realized he needed to take their health into his own hands. He began to investigate the most modern learnings surrounding the biochemical and nutritional roots of non-communicable disease and its connection to the immune system. After spending more than 12 years under the care of physicians and low carb dieting, only to see their quality of life continue to decline, he gave up on the ability of modern pharmaceutical medicine to reverse their conditions and restore health.
His questions were simple at first. He turned to the mainstream literature on the internet, “could arterial plaque be reversed”, “Why did he get sinusitis all the time”, “why were they tired all the time”, “why did all his joints ache constantly”, “why was his blood pressure normal one day and high the next”, “why did Mrs. Cross have calcemic spots on her brain from a series of ischemic migraines that seeming came at random”, “was this related to her thyroid”, how were anemia and pre-menopause involved”? When he looked around, these symptoms were common in many others he interviewed. Many of his co-workers and neighbors had the same, or similar stories. Was it just because they were approaching 50? It seemed more than that.
Strangely, when he searched for the answers to these questions, all he found on the internet and in the medical literature was contradictory information. Surely modern medicine must have answers to these common questions? His search went deeper. He went to the biochemical literature, digging deep into epigenetics, cellular signaling, cellular biology, microbiology, the immune, endocrine, nervous, and GI, systems. His studies unexpectedly were then led farther back. Back to older discoveries surrounding the initial biochemistry of vitamins, the basic minerals, and their impact on the chemical signaling controlling the body and its organs. He began to study the diets and physical anthropology of ancient cultures, their mummified remains, their hunting, cooking, and childbearing rituals. What he ultimately found was simple. The body needed many more nutrients than gotten easily from common foods today, even for those eating “healthy” diets. Instead of nutrients, most common foods had toxins in them, had been genetically modified, were nutrient-deprived themselves, and weren’t the same foods they had once been. Many of these foods could actually block the usage of the minerals and vitamins the body did take in. Forcing a type of “starvation in the midst of plenty”.
Both he and Diana, over the years, had developed a set of conditions causing their cellular regulation and communication systems to drift off-course and/or be blocked. A slow simmer of unchecked inflammation was slowly eroding their body’s most core systems. Their doctors’ pills couldn’t fix that, they could only target individual symptoms and make the small tables of connected numbers on their lipid and thyroid test panels shift around. These measurements did not take into account the multitudes of connected effects causing disruption to the signals issued by the brain and being received by tissue cells so they could properly cooperate. He realized that all types of cells in the body needed a lot of cross-talk to work effectively and without it, they could not share resources or coordinate actions properly. After these learnings, the problem was that there was no roadmap forward. Only a maze of contradictory food advertisements and medical claims for drugs, treatments, and surgeries.
Ultimately, Dr. Cross developed a system of targeted supplementation and a specialized but satisfying diet which reversed both their conditions, thereby restoring quality and vitality to their lives and allowing them to stop medications. At the beginning of his dietary studies, and after struggling to find commercially available supplements with the right quality and potency to most effectively help to reverse their health decline, Dr. Cross began to make his own formulas. Because of his initial rapid, visible, and measurable health improvements, friends and family took notice. Many who were first skeptical began to use his unique dietary and lifestyle tactics and gained a variety of tremendous successes. Shortly afterward, by word of mouth alone, more people began asking for dietary advice and samples of the limited production supplement capsules. Due to increasing demand, Dr. Cross scaled up his operations. From there, in 2014, Genesis BioHealth was born and is now a growing family-owned business supporting dedicated clients all over the world. We welcome questions from anyone interested in learning more, or who are interested in our products. Please contact us with any questions here, learn more about our company here, or browse for our supplements here.
