By Dr. Tim O’Shea
This will be a short chapter, but after you’re finished with it, you will
know more about vitamins than 95% of clinical nutritionists, doctors,
supplement sales force, or bodybuilders. If that sounds arrogant or
overstated, it really isn’t my fault. I’m just a messenger; a purveyor of
information. Either I’m right or the 95% are right; can’t be both.
Without further ado, here’s the kernel: ascorbic acid is not vitamin C.
Alpha tocopherol is not vitamin E. Retinoic acid is not vitamin A. And so on
through the other vitamins. Vast sums of money have been expended to make
these myths part of Conventional Wisdom. If you have several college degrees
and all this is news to you, don’t feel bad. Unless you think your education
ended at Commencement. Which is generally true.
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
Vitamins are not individual molecular compounds. Vitamins are biological
complexes. They are multi-step biochemical interactions whose action is
dependent upon a number of variables within the biological terrain. Vitamin
activity only takes place when all conditions are met within that
environ-ment, and when all co-factors and components of the entire vitamin
complex are present and working together. Vitamin activity is even more than
the sum of all those parts; it also involves timing.
Vitamins cannot be isolated from their complexes and still perform their
specific life functions within the cells. When isolated into artificial
commercial forms, like ascorbic acid, these purified synthetics act as drugs
in the body. They are no longer vitamins, and to call them such is
inaccurate.
A vitamin is: “… a working process consisting of the nutrient, enzymes,
coenzymes, antioxidants, and trace minerals activators.”
– Royal Lee “What Is a Vitamin?” Applied Trophology, Aug. 1956
FORGOTTEN TRAILBLAZER
Dr. Royal Lee was the pioneer researcher in the field of whole food
vitamins. For decades he documented the basic facts summarized in this
chapter. His work has never been scientifically refuted. Anyone who
seriously undertakes the study of vitamins today corroborates Lee’s work.
His story is a fascinating study in itself, a study of indomitable
perseverance in the pursuit of true principles. Jensen tells us that Royal
Lee’s work will not be appreciated until the next century.
Hasn’t happened yet.
Lee felt the full weight of organized drugs/medicine bearing down on him.
Reading like something out of Schindler’s List, we learn that the FDA not
only persecuted Lee for challenging the economics of synthetic vitamins,
produced by giant drug companies, but that he was actually ordered by a
court to burn all his research of the past 20 years! Burn his research! When
has that ever happened in this country? They didn’t even do that to Larry
Flynt.
Going off on a tangent, ever wondered how the FDA attained its present
position as attack dog for the drug companies and food manufacturers? It’s
another whole story in itself. The precursor of the FDA was the Bureau of
Chemistry. Up until 1912 the Bureau of Chemistry was headed up by a man
named Dr. Harvey W. Wiley.
Here’s a quote from Dr. Wiley that illustrates where his interests lay:
“No food product in our country would have any trace of benzoic acid,
sulfurous acid or sulfites or any alum or saccharin, save for medical
purposes. No soft drink would contain caffeine or theobromine. No bleached
flour would enter interstate commerce. Our foods and drugs would be wholly
without any form of adulteration and misbranding. The health of our people
would be vastly improved and the life greatly extended. The manufacturers of
our food supply, and especially the millers, would devote their energies to
improving the public health and promoting happiness in every home by the
production of whole ground, unbolted cereal flours and meals.”
– The History of a Crime Against the Pure Food Law, 1912
Now obviously we can’t have a dangerous lunatic like this in charge of the
public nutrition, can we? Dr. Wiley actually filed suit against the
Coca-Cola company in an attempt to keep their artificial product out of
interstate commerce, and off the market. Fortunately Wiley was eventually
replaced by a saner individual, more attuned to the real nutritional needs
of the American people, as determined by the experts who knew what was best
for us: the food manufacturers. This was Dr. Elmer Nelson, and in his words
we get an idea of the change in philosophy that marked the transformation of
the Bureau of Chemistry into the FDA:
‘It is wholly unscientific to state that a well-fed body is more able to
resist disease than a poorly-fed body. My overall opinion is that there
hasn’t been enough experimentation to prove that dietary deficiencies make
one susceptible to disease.”
– Elmer Nelson MD, Washington Post 26 Oct 49
Bernard Jensen illustrates how the tobacco industry and the food giants like
Coke were indirectly behind the legal persecution of Royal Lee. Cigarette
ads in the 40s and 50s showed medical doctors promoting the digestive
benefits of smoking Camels. Or the advertising of Coke and other refined
sugar foods stating that “science has shown how sugar can help keep your
appetite and weight under control.” (Empty Harvest)
During this same period, Royal Lee was kept in courts for years, fighting to
keep the right to advertise his vitamin products, because he was a threat to
the food manufacturers. Lee knew they were poisoning the American public. He
proved that refined sugars and devitalized, bleached flours were destroying
the arteries and the digestive system, causing heart disease and cancer.
WHOLE VS. FRACTIONATED
OK, natural vs. synthetic. Let’s start with Vitamin C. Most sources equate
vitamin C with ascorbic acid, as though they were the same thing. They’re
not. Ascorbic acid is an isolate, a fraction, a distillate of naturally
occurring vitamin C. In addition to ascorbic acid, vitamin C must include
rutin, bioflavonoids, Factor K, Factor J, Factor P, Tyrosinase,
Ascorbinogen, and other components as shown in the figure below:
____________ __A s c o r b i c A c i d ____________ __
ascorbinogen
bioflavonoids
rutin
tyrosinase
Factor J
Factor K
Factor P
In addition, mineral co-factors must be available in proper amounts.
If any of these parts are missing, there is no vitamin C, no vitamin
activity. When some of them are present, the body will draw on its own
stores to make up the differences, so that the whole vitamin may be present.
Only then will vitamin activity take place, provided that all other
conditions and co-factors are present. Ascorbic acid is described merely as
the “antioxidant wrapper” portion of vitamin C; ascorbic acid protects the
functional parts of the vitamin from rapid oxidation or breakdown. (Somer p
58 “Vitamin C: A Lesson in Keeping An Open Mind” The Nutrition Report)
Over 90% of ascorbic acid in this country is manufactured at a facility in
Nutley, New Jersey, owned by Hoffman-LaRoche, one of the world’s biggest
drug manufacturers (1 800 526 0189). Here ascorbic acid is made from a
process involving cornstarch and volatile acids. Most U.S. vitamin companies
then buy the bulk ascorbic acid from this single facility. After that,
marketing takes over. Each company makes its own labels, its own claims, and
its own formulations, each one claiming to have the superior form of vitamin
C, even though it all came from the same place, and it’s really not vitamin
C at all.
FRACTIONATED = SYNTHETIC = CRYSTALLINE = FAKE
The word synthetic means two things:
– manmade
– occurs nowhere in nature
From the outset, it is crucial to understand the difference between vitamins
and vitamin activity. The vitamin is the biochemical complex. Vitamin
activity means the actual biological and cellular changes that take place
when the stage is set for the vitamin complex to act.
Think of it like gas and a car. Pumping the gas into the tank doesn’t
necessarily mean the car is going anywhere. Other conditions and factors
must be also present, in order for Activity to occur. The gas line to the
carburetor must be clear, the carburetor jets must be set, there must be an
exact mixture of air flow, the ignition must be turned on, the spark plugs
must be clean, the exact amount of gas must reach each spark plug right
before it fires, no gas must be left over in the cylinder after the plug
fires. Getting the idea? If any of this stuff is missing, there’s no
Activity: the car doesn’t run, or at least not very well.
Amazing as it may sound if you’re hearing this for the first time, vitamins
are more than the synthetic fractions we are commonly taught they are. The
ascorbic acid you buy at the grocery store every few weeks, thinking you are
buying Vitamin C, is just a chemical copy of naturally occurring ascorbic
acid, which itself is still only a fraction of the actual Vitamin C. Real
vitamin C is part of something living, and as such, can impart life.
Your synthetic, fractionated chemical ascorbic acid never grew in the
ground, never saw the light of day, never was alive or part of anything
alive. It’s a chemical, a cornstarch derivative, a sulfuric acid by-product.
In your body it’s just another drug. Synthetic vitamins have toxic effects
from mega-doses and actually can increase the white blood cell count.
Vitamins are only necessary in minute quantities on a daily basis. Whole
food vitamins, by contrast, are not toxic since the vitamin is complexed in
its integral working form, and requires nothing from the body, and triggers
no immune response.
DEFICIENCY
Scurvy is a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. Scurvy is characterized
by bleeding gums, slow wound healing, softening bones, loose teeth,
ulcerations of the mouth and digestive tract, general weight loss and
fatigue. From 1650 to 1850 half of all seamen on transoceanic voyages died
of scurvy.
It was discovered by ship surgeon Thomas Lind in the early 1800s that
British sailors were spared the disease altogether simply by a diet rich in
citrus fruits. Since limes traveled well, they were the common choice during
the early years, and thus the expression “limeys” was coined to describe
British sailors. It was later found both at sea and in prison fare that
potatoes were equally successful in preventing scurvy, and much cheaper to
obtain. (Lancet. 1842)
We find that there is less than 20 mg of ascorbic acid in a potato. Yet this
small amount, since it is complexed in a food source, is all the body needs
not only to prevent scurvy, but also to cure it, even in its advanced state.
Such a remedy is described in detail in Richard Dana’s amazing journal Two
Years Before the Mast, written in 1840.
Whole food vitamin C as found in potatoes, onions, and citrus fruits is able
to quickly cure any case of scurvy. By contrast, the fractionated chemical
ascorbic acid has been shown to be insufficient in resolving a scurvy
condition, simply because it does not act as a nutrient. (Lancet 1842)
Ascorbic acid simply cannot confer vitamin activity, as taught by the
discoverer of vitamin C himself, another Nobel Prize laureate, Dr. Albert
Szent-Georgi.
Szent-Georgi discovered vitamin C in 1937. In all his research however,
Szent-Georgi found that he could never cure scurvy with the isolated
ascorbic acid itself. Realizing that he could always cure scurvy with the
“impure” vitamin C found in simple foods, Szent-Georgi discovered that other
factors had to be at work in order for vitamin activity to take place.
So he returned to the laboratory and eventually made the discovery of
another member of the vitamin C complex, as shown in the diagram above:
rutin. All the factors in the complex, as Royal Lee and Dr. Szent-Georgi
both came to understand, ascorbic acid, rutin, and the other factors, were
synergists: co-factors which together sparked the “functional
interdependence of biologically related nutrient factors.” ( Empty Harvest
p120) The term “wheels within wheels” was used to describe the interplay of
co-factors.
Each of the other synergists in the C complex has a separate function:
– P factors for blood vessel strength,
– J factors for oxygen-carrying capacity of red cells,
– tyrosinase as an essential enzyme for enhancing white blood cell
effectiveness.
Ascorbic acid is just the antioxidant outer shell – the protector of all
these other synergists so that they will be able to perform their individual
functions.
Dr. Royal Lee’s phrase “biological wheels within wheels” always comes up in
any discussion of whole food vitamins. Essentially it means that individual
synergists cannot function as a vitamin in a chemically isolated form, like
ascorbic acid. Vitamins are living complexes which contribute to other
higher living complexes – like cell repair, collagen manufacture, and
maintenance of blood circulation. Ascorbic acid is not a living complex. It
is a copy of a part of a living complex known as vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is
a fractionated, crystalline isolate of vitamin C.
Why are you a high school graduate or a college graduate or a doctor, and
you don’t know this? Because drug manufacturers like things clean and simple
and cheap to produce. To this simple fact add the politics which always
comes into play when anyone mentions the word “billions,” and you are
beginning to get the idea about where to begin your investigation. Burned
his research???
DIETARY SOURCES
Most vitamins cannot be made by the body. They must be taken in as food. The
best sources then are obviously whole foods, rich in vitamins. Because of
soil depletion, mineral depletion, pesticides, air pollution, and erosion,
it is common knowledge that foods grown in American soil today have only a
fraction of the nutrient value of 50 years ago.
That means a fraction of the vitamins and minerals necessary for normal
human cell function. Royal Lee described the American diet as the
cultivation and production of “devitalized foods.” Dr. Weston Price
describes these empty products as the “foods of commerce.” Think it’s gotten
better or worse since their time? Thus the necessity for supplementation.
Vitamins and minerals are not functionally separable. They make each other
work. Example: vitamin D is necessary for the body to absorb calcium. Copper
is necessary for vitamin C activity. And so on. Mineral deficiencies can
cause vitamin deficiencies, and vice versa. Epidemic mineral deficiency in
America is a well-documented result of systematic soil depletion.
So that is the other prime difference between whole food vitamins and
synthetics: whole food vitamins contain within them many essential trace
minerals necessary for their synergistic operation. Synthetic vitamins
contain no trace minerals, relying on, and depleting, the body’s own mineral
reserves.
FUNNY FARMS
Following the German agricultural methods of Von Leibig in the mid-1800s,
American farmers found that NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) was
all that was necessary for crops to look good. (Frost p7) As long as NPK is
added to the soil, crops can be produced and sold year after year from the
same soil. They look OK. But the other necessary trace minerals vital for
human nutrition are virtually absent from most American soil after all these
years.
Many of these minerals, such as zinc, copper, and magnesium, are necessary
co-factors of vitamin activity. Depleted topsoil is one simple, widespread
mechanism of both vitamin and mineral deficiency in American produce today.
This doesn’t even take into account the tons of poisonous herbicides and
pesticides dumped on crops. According to the UN, two million tons of
pesticides are used worldwide annually. (Jensen, p69)
American agri-business has one motive: profit. Such a focus has resulted in
an output of empty produce and a nation of unhealthy people. The earth’s
immune system is its soil. To be vital and capable of growing vital foods,
soil must be rich in both minerals and soil-based organisms – life forms.
Healthy produce naturally resists insects. Insects are like bad bacteria in
the body: they are attracted to diseased tissue, though they do not cause
it.
THE FOODS OF COMMERCE
And we’re still only talking about people who actually eat raw fruits and
vegetables, which is a minority. Processed food composes the majority of
what most Americans eat. The only nutrients in most processed foods are
“enriched” and “fortified” as described below.
When a doctor says that food supplements are all unnecessary because we can
get everything we need from our food, that doctor is lacking basic
information published and agreed upon by his own peers. Whether or not we
need supplementation is no longer an issue, except for one who is totally
out of touch. The issue is what kind and how much. Vitamin and mineral
deficiency can be tagged to practically ANY disease syndrome known to man.
DW Cavanaugh, MD of Cornell University actually concluded that
“There is only one major disease, and that is malnutrition. ” (Jensen, p8)
Malnutrition of the affluent is the natural result of the foods of commerce.
WEBSURFING
The best vitamins are called whole food vitamins . It will be difficult
finding this out on the Internet, however, because the Web is dominated by
mainstream nutritional theory. In the area of vitamins, the Internet is 99%
marketing; 1% actual information.
There are about 110 companies who sell vitamins in the US. Less than 5 of
them use whole food vitamins. The reason is simple: whole food vitamins are
expensive to make. A few of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world
mass produce synthetic vitamins for the vast majority of these 110 “vitamin”
companies, who then put their own label on them, and every company claims
theirs is the best! It’s ridiculous! Americans spend over $9 billion per
year for synthetic vitamins. (Frost p2)
Whole food vitamins are obtained by taking a vitamin-rich plant, removing
the water and the fiber in a cold vacuum process, free of chemicals, and
then packaging for stability. The entire vitamin complex in this way can be
captured intact, retaining its “functional and nutritional integrity.”
(DeCava p.23.)
Upon ingestion, the body is not required to draw on its own reserves in
order to complete any missing elements from the vitamin complex.
Mainstream marketing of vitamins and minerals has successfully created the
myth that vitamins and minerals may be isolated from each other, that
correct amounts may be measured out, and then we can derive total benefit
from taking these fractionated chemical creations.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Vitamins and minerals, and also
enzymes, work closely together as co-factors for each other’s efficacy. If
one part is missing, or in the wrong form or the wrong amount, entire chains
of metabolic processes will not proceed normally. Result: downward spiraling
of health, probably imperceptible for long periods of time.
MARKETING AND PROMOTION
What is the marketing philosophy behind the prevalence of the type of
synthetic vitamins available in the supermarket and mall vitamin stores?
Simple: profit above all else. Once the public is shown that vitamin
supplementation is necessary, the rest is marketing. Marketing is the art of
persuading by suspending logic and twisting data into junk science. Example:
what’s the actual difference in compo-sition between Wheaties and Total, two
cereals put out by the same company? Total is advertised as being much more
nutrient-rich than “ordinary” Wheaties. Look at the labels. What justifies
the extra $1.30 for a box of Total?
Answer: 1.5¢ worth of synthetic vitamins sprayed over the Wheaties. That’s
it! That’s what “vitamin enriched” always means. The other trick word is
“fortified.” Generally that means that the food itself is devoid of
nutrients or enzymes, so they tried to pump it up a little with some
“vitamins.” Cheap synthetic vitamin sprays are all that is required for the
manufacturer to use labels like “enriched” and “fortified.” These words are
red flags – if a food needs to be fortified or enriched, you can bet it was
already dead.
The mega-vitamin theory doesn’t really hold when it comes to synthetics: If
A Little Is Good, More Is Better. Macro doses of vitamin E, and also vitamin
D have been shown to decrease immune function significantly. (DeCava.) It
stands to reason. Vitamins by definition are necessary in phenomenally small
doses. The discoverer of thiamine, a B vitamin, and the man who came up with
the word vitamin, Dr. Casimir Funk, has this to say about synthetics:
“Synthetic vitamins: these are highly inferior to vitamins from natural
sources, also the synthetic product is well known to be far more toxic.”
Nutrition authority DeCava describes it:
“Natural food-source vitamins are enzymatically alive. Man-made synthetic
vitamins are dead chemicals. ”
– The Real Truth About Vitamins, p 209
Oxymorons: military intelligence, rap music, synthetic vitamins.
The marketing of fractionated crystalline synthetic vitamins has been so
successful that most nutritionists and doctors are unaware that there is
something missing from these “vitamins.” Vitamin manufacturers compete for
customers with identical products – they all bought their synthetic vitamins
from the same couple of drug companies.
To differentiate their product, each makes claims of “high potency.” Our
vitamins are higher potency than theirs, etc. The point is, the higher the
potency, the more the drug-like effects are present. Natural whole food
vitamins are very low potency. Remember the 20mg of vitamin C in a potato
that was able to cure a patient of scurvy? That was low potency.
Low potency is all we need. Low potency is enough to bring about vitamin
activity. High potency overshoots the mark – the chemical is very pure and
refined, like the difference between white sugar and the type of sugar
that’s in an apple.
THE MILLIGRAM GAME
Generally speaking, if milligrams are being discussed at length, the author
has no clue about vitamins. Synthetic vitamins are refined, high potency
chemicals, and therefore may be accurately measured in milligrams, just like
drugs. This has nothing to do with vitamin activity or nutrition, except in
a negative way.
HALF THE STORY
The same type of incomplete action can be seen with any synthetic vitamin.
Let’s take beta carotene for a minute, which the body can turn into vitamin
A. Now you’ll remember that vitamin A is necessary for good eyesight, DNA
synthesis, and protects cells from free radicals.
A study reported in Apr 94 in the NEJM of some 30,000 Finnish subjects
showed conclusively that synthetic vitamin A had no antioxidant effect
whatsoever. A true antioxidant helps to protect heart muscle, lungs, and
artery surfaces from breaking down prematurely. In this study, the subjects
who received the synthetic beta carotene actually had an 8% higher incidence
of fatal heart attacks, strokes, and lung cancer than those who got the
placebo (sugar pill).
Stands to reason: the synthetic brought no vitamin activity to the tissues
that needed it. As a dead, purified chemical introduced into the body, the
synthetic further stressed the immune system, the liver, and the kidneys
which all had to try to break down this odd chemical and remove it from the
body. It would be bad enough if they were harmless, but synthetic vitamins
actually have a net negative effect.
Vitamin A was first discovered in 1919. By 1924, it had been broken down and
separated from its natural whole food complex: “purified.” By 1931, LaRoche
– one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, even today – had
succeeded in “synthesizing” vitamin A. That means they had created a purely
chemical copy of a fraction of naturally occurring vitamin A. Naturally
occurring vitamin A is found associated with an entire group of other
components:
– Retinols
– Retinoids
– Retinal
– Carotenoids
– Carotenes
– Fatty acids
– Vitamin C
– Vitamin E
– Vitamin B
– Vitamin D
– Enzymes
– Minerals
– Vitamins and Minerals, Somer 1992
Isolated from these other factors, vitamin A is a fraction which cannot
perform its biological functions. Taken as a synthetic, it must then draw on
this list of resources already in the body in order to complete its make-up.
Whole food vitamin A, by contrast, is already complete and ready to go.
Most synthetic vitamin A consists only of retinal, retinol, or retinoic
acid. The well-publicized potential for toxicity with mega doses of vitamin
A involves one of these three. Vitamin A toxicity, known as
hypervitaminosis, always results from an excess of synthetic, “purified”
vitamin A, and never from whole food vitamin A. (DeCava, p 86) Effects of
vitamin A toxicity include:
– tumor enhancement
– joint disorders
– osteoporosis
– extreme dryness of eyes, mouth and skin,
– enlargement of liver and spleen
– immune depression
– birth defects
Beta carotene is a precursor the body can convert to vitamin A.
Unfortunately, as a supplement, synthetic beta carotene is usually
“stabilized” in refined vegetable oils. In this trans fatty acid form,
oxidation occurs and the chemically “pure” beta carotene can no longer act
as a nutrient, because it was changed. Almost all synthetic beta carotene is
produced by the Swiss drug giant Hoffman-LaRoche. This form can no longer be
converted to vitamin A. The best it can be is worthless, and at the worst is
toxic.
Natural vitamin A and beta carotene are well known as immune boosters and
cancer fighters, in their role as antioxidants. Synthetic vitamin A by
contrast has actually brought about significant increases in cancer. A study
done in Finland provided smokers with large doses of synthetic beta
carotene. Lung cancer incidence increased 18%! (NEJM Apr 94 ” The Alpha
Tocopherol Beta Carotene Cancer Prevention Study Group”)
These findings were corroborated two years later in another study written up
in Lancet. Pharma-cologic doses of synthetic beta carotenes were found to
block the antioxidant activity of the other 50 naturally occurring
carotenoids in the diet. Anti-cancer activity was thus blocked by the
synthetic. (Lancet 1996)
With the vast outpouring of wrong information about vitamins A and C, the
findings of a 1991 article in Health Counselor are no surprise: 50% of
Americans are deficient in vitamin A and 41% are deficient in vitamin C.
Synthetic vitamins cannot prevent deficiencies.
FAKE VITAMIN B
In one experiment, synthetic vitamin B (thiamine) was shown to render 100%
of a group of pigs sterile! 100% would be considered a significant finding.
(Dr. Barnett Sure, Journ Natr 1939) Perhaps the fact that synthetic vitamin
B comes from coal tar, maybe that has something to do with it, you think?
Then there’s vitamin B12, which comes from activated sewage sludge. (Frost p
60) Been shooting blanks since you started on those multi’s?
For the licensed dieticians and clinical nutritionists reading this in
disbelief because it is too “unscientific, ” consider the way Theron Randolph
MD delineated between natural and synthetic:
“A synthetically derived substance may cause a reaction in a chemically
susceptible person when the same material of natural origin is tolerated,
despite the two substances having identical chemical structures. The point
is illustrated by the frequency of clinical reactions to synthetic vitamins
– especially vitamin B1 and C – when the [same] naturally occurring vitamins
are tolerated.”
IRRADIATION
According to Los Angeles naturopath, Dr. Jack Singh, all commercial
lecithins in supplements, as well as most vitamin D, comes from irradiated
vegetable oils. That’s rancid, oxidizing trans fatty acids! A birthday party
of free radicals. This is the precise mechanism for arterial wall breakdown
prior to plaque deposits, then arteriosclerosis, then heart disease. I
thought we were supposed to be taking vitamins to stay healthy!
LOST HORIZON
Why is this information so difficult to find? It’s in none of the
“alternative” health ‘zines, or any of the mainstream media.
Alternative- Lite guru Julian Whittaker, in his summer 1998 newsletter
actually had the temerity to state outright “Synthetic vitamins and whole
food vitamins are identical.” I’m sure his synthetic vitamin company and all
its retailers were reassured by this incredibly arrogant and flagrantly
inaccurate pronouncement. But who is objecting?
Only those clients of the 5 companies who know enough to take whole food
vitamins, because they have become educated to realize the difference. These
are the vast minority, having no control of the media.
Royal Lee and Harvey Wiley lost. Nobody knows who they are today, except we
few. This is no accident. What everybody does know is Pepsi and Viagra and
Wonder Bread and prednisone and Double Whoppers with Cheese and Zantac and
Baskin Robbins and Long’s Drug Store. And grocery store vitamins: synthetic
vitamins.
That’s America, today as the product of yesterday. Control of information in
America today is one of the most sophisticated systems of influence ever
devised. The simple ideas contained in this chapter are simply not available
to the mass consciousness. The documentation is out there, but you really
gotta dig.
100 years ago if a medical doctor saw a case of cancer he would call all his
colleagues to come and have a look, telling them it was unlikely they would
see another case, as cancer was so rare. People rarely died of heart
attacks; in fact the term heart attack itself didn’t even exist. There was
no incidence at all of atherosclerosis. Diabetes was practically unheard of.
What did they eat? Fruits, vegetables, meat, butter, and lard. But none of
it was processed with drugs and chemicals.
Today one in three dies of cancer. One in two dies of heart disease.
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. (Vital
Statistics) Is that progress? If you are a food manufacturer it is, and
especially if you are a drug manufacturer.
In the 1980s the WHO ranked the US as #22 in the world in infant mortality.
Male sperm count is less than 20% of what it was in 1929. (1981 University
of Florida report, Natural vs. Synthetic) Infant mortality is up; birth
defects are up. We spend $1.5 trillion per year for health care, most of
which goes for administration and executive salaries. Who are the largest
advertisers for TV and the printed media? Right: drug companies and food
manu-facturers. Do they want to keep the ball rolling? You bet. Will they
kill you to do it? You bet.
Do they want people to take charge of their own health by natural
inexpensive foods and supplements? Negative. A cure for cancer has been
“right around the corner” since Nixon. People are starting to ask questions;
they’re less inclined to believe the slick ads coming every 10 minutes on TV
and in Newsweek.
Perhaps Hippocrates did not envision doctors as detail men or drug reps. He
most likely thought like Henry Bieler, MD:
“Nature, if given the opportunity is always the greatest healer. It is the
physician’s role to assist in this healing, to play a supporting role.”
– Finding the Right Cure for You
REFERENCES
DeCava, Judith — The Real Truth About Vitamins and Antioxidants 1996
Jensen, Bernard, DC — Empty Harvest 1990
Frost, Mary — Going Back to the Basics of Human Health 1997
Bieler, Henry MD — Finding the Right Cure For You 1998
Lee, Royal — “What Is a Vitamin?” Applied Trophology Aug 1956
Wiley, Harvey W., MD — The History of a Crime Against the Pure Food Law
Robbins, John — Reclaiming Our Health 1996
Nelson, Elmer, MD — Washington Post 26 Oct 49
Somer, Elizabeth — “Vitamin C: A Lesson in Keeping An Open Mind” The
Nutrition Report
Lancet . 1842
Dana, Richard — Two Years Before the Mast, p 444 ff. 1840.
Lind, James — “A Treatise of the Scurvy in Three Parts. Containing an
inquiry into the Nature,
Causes and Cure of that Disease, together with a Critical and Chronological
View of what has been published on the subject.”
A. Millar, London, 1753.
Woodall, A — Caution with b-carotene supplements Lancet 347:967, 1996
Heinonen, O MD — The effect of vitamin E and beta carotene on the
incidence of lung cancer and other cancers in male smokers” The Alpha
Tocopherol Beta Carotene Cancer Prevention Study Group
NEJM 14 Apr 1994 330;15:1031
Barnett Sure, MD — Journ Natr 1939
University of Florida report — “Natural vs. Synthetic” 1981
Randolph, Theron MD — Human Ecology and Susceptibility to the Chemical
Environ. 7th ed. 1980
Price, Weston — Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – Keats Publ. 1997
CDC — National Vital Statistics Report – Vol. 47, no.19, June 1999