Eugene Young’s knees hurt him for nine months.

“I thought I was headed for a knee replacement,” the Paget resident said.

Then he tried Wild Apan Super Daily, a dietary supplement made with mushrooms, peppermint, cinnamon bark, frankincense and cumin.

He says the pain cleared up within ten days.

He was so impressed he shared it with colleagues at the grocery store where he worked as a manager.

“One of my merchandisers said I can’t even raise my arm any more,” he said. “I have to do it so gingerly.”

She came back a few days after trying the product and said she could raise her arm again, and the supplements had helped her with other health issues.

“I started to go around to more staff,” Mr Young said. “I had another guy who had severe gout. It hurt him to turn a door knob. I gave him the product and he said the situation was a lot better. I thought what the heck is in this bottle?”

In May, he left his grocery store job to form his own wellness company ES Marketing. He is now the distributor for Wild Apan products, made by Siahus, an American company.

“It wasn’t scary to go out on my own, because I have done it before,” he said.

He worked for 20 years in Barbados selling Kirby vacuum cleaners.

“I probably sold thousands,” he said.

He returned to Bermuda in 2006.

He said it felt great to be running his own business again.

“At the end of the day, if it is to be, it’s up to me,” he said. “I get up and decide what I am going to do and who I am going to call. I enjoy the freedom it gives me. It is very liberating to set your own destiny.”

He is selling about 400 bottles of Wild Apan supplements a month.

“The challenge right now is just making sure I have the stock,” he said. “I have a couple of independent sales people who will buy it from me and resell it. I have five or six people doing that.”

He also sells a version for pets.

“I don’t know anything on the market that is working like this,” he said. “People come to me when the doctor can not help.”

But he is quick to say he is not advising people to stop taking their medication or not see a doctor. He said he simply offers a natural food product that can assist the body in healing itself.

Mr Young wants to take the product worldwide.

“I have people trying it out in Africa and the Philippines to see if they want to sell it there,” he said. “We are looking for distributors. I have been authorised by the parent company to do this. They said Eugene, as long as we are not there already, you can go in and start the market.”

Mr Young said it is considered a natural food supplement, so does not have to go through any regulatory agencies in Bermuda.

“If you use too much of it, you can experience symptoms such as a mild headache, and stomach looseness, but nothing really bad will happen to you,” he said. “Some people double the dose if they think it will make them get healthier faster. I have not had any one really complain of any bad side effects.”

Things are going so well at ES Marketing, Mr Young is now branching out into other products. He now stocks WellisAir air purifiers which use plasma wave technology to kill bacteria and viruses and cleanse the air of bad smells. He is also looking at healthy cookware.

“The whole environment we are in today made me want to sell these products,” he said. “There are bacteria, viruses and diseases and all kinds of things going on in the environment today. There is no air purifier out there that does this. Most air purifiers operate off of a filtration. They suck the dirt in through a filter and take out the particles. This sends out OH radicals, attaches itself to the bacteria or virus, neutralises or destroys them and disinfects.”

To learn more about Mr Young’s products telephone 599-1632.