Historical Archives

Nonreaginic Allergy in Theory and Practice

By Granville F. Knight, MD

Summary: A discussion of food allergies well ahead of its time. Dr. Knight distinguishes “nonreaginic” allergies (i.e., no antibodies) from the classic antibody-antigen type, placing the percentage of population suffering the former at ninety percent—a remarkable observation given that this paper was published in 1954. The focus of the article is the Coca Pulse Test, a method of determining nonreaginic allergies to foods and environmental compounds by taking measurements of one’s pulse before and after ingesting or inhaling a suspected allergen. From the Journal of Applied Nutrition. Reprint 100, 1954.

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Historical Archives

Margarine: A Counterfeit Food

By Kenneth de Courcy

Summary: This reprint of a 1957 article on margarine production epitomizes two fundamentally opposed philosophies of food production that emerged from the Industrial Revolution. On the one hand, large scale manufacturers strove to deliver food to consumers at the lowest cost possible, using novel chemical and thermal methods to preserve and manipulate foodstuffs regardless of the effect on the foods’ nutritional quality. (Indeed, industrial food processing was the reason the vitamins were discovered in the first place, the inadvertent removal of the then-unknown nutrients leading to mysterious epidemics across the globe.) Nutritionists, on the other hand, decried industrial adulteration of the food supply, citing copious evidence that eating foods in as natural a state as possible is critical for the growth, upkeep, and immunity of the human body. In this article the author, an advocate of commercial food manufacturing, sells margarine as a sort of modern super food, with a nutritional value “as high as that of butter” simply because the two contain the same amount of fat and calories per ounce. Such sophistry is what allowed food manufacturers to run roughshod over America’s food supply, as noted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, which reprinted the article so its audience could see margarine precisely for what it is—a “counterfeit food” made from “refined, rancid, and otherwise unfit food sources.” From World Science Review, 1957. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 106.

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Historical Archives

Nutrition and Dental Disease

By Allison G. James, DDS

Summary: A dentist warns that refined grain and sugar products are “the chief causative factor in dental caries [cavities] and paradentosis [gum disease].” The author also discusses the body’s important calcium-phosphorus ratio and warns against eating too much “heat-sterilized food.” The esteemed Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr., MD—author of the famous Pottenger’s Cats—comments at the end of the article. From Annals of Western Medicine and Surgery, Reprint 34, 1947.

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Historical Archives

A New Theory of Diet and Coronary Thrombosis

By Ernest Klein, MD

Summary: In this 1954 article from the legendary health magazine Prevention, Dr. Ernest Klein describes his remarkable discovery of a possible predictor of coronary thrombosis (the cause of most heart attacks) as well as a means of its prevention through a simple dietetic therapy. Unfortunately, Dr. Klein’s ideas—based on his observation and treatment of hundreds of patients—were never tested by other researchers because of the refusal of medical officialdom to even entertain them. In fact, upon publication of his findings, Dr. Klein was summarily fired by the hospital he worked at, as was his daughter. It is doubtful, Prevention’s editors opine, that Dr. Klein’s theory was the final word on heart disease and its prevention, but the fact that his findings were suppressed by the medical establishment and never pursued by other investigators is nothing short of scandalous. Unfortunately, obstructing alternative treatments for preventing disease remains stock and trade for medicine, an industry that profits from managing illness, not deterring it. From Prevention magazine, 1954. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 96.

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Historical Archives

Maternal Malnutrition and Congenital Deformity

By Howard H. Hillemann, PhD

Summary: In this lecture from 1958, Oregon State professor Dr. Howard Hillemann breaks down the number of birth defects occurring in the United States by cause, noting in particular the increasing numbers of defects attributable to environmental chemicals, food additives, and prenatal malnutrition. The report includes a comprehensive discussion of the role of vitamins and minerals in prenatal nutrition, addressing each nutrient individually. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, reprint 66B, 1958.

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Historical Archives

The Neglect of Natural Principles in Current Medical Practice

By Surgeon Captain T.L. Cleave, MD

Summary: In 1974 Dr. Thomas L. Cleave, Surgeon Captain of the British Royal Navy, wrote the brilliant but virtually ignored text The Sacharrine Disease: Conditions Caused by the Taking of Refined Carbohydrates Such as Sugar and White Flour. Decades before that, Dr. Cleave wrote this thirty-page article urging the medical profession to reconnect with the natural laws of health from which humankind evolved, specifically by promoting the consumption of whole, natural foods over the processed and overcooked products of commercial food manufacturing. Citing the work of Weston A. Price as an example of understanding natural law, Dr. Cleave argues that industrialized food production caused cheap, processed, carbohydrate-based foods to predominate in the modern diet, resulting in consequences for human health that have been nothing less than disastrous. From the Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service, 1956. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Is It Possible to Influence Multiple Sclerosis by a Certain Diet Regime?

By J. Evers, MD

Summary: In this preliminary report, translated from its original in German, a physician describes his success in treating multiple sclerosis using a diet of mostly raw whole foods. “Controlled examinations of my patients by experienced specialists (neurologists, internists, and ophthalmologists) acknowledge…remarkable improvements,” Dr. J. Evers writes. “Patients who had been treated by every other possible means and saw their condition get worse—and in some cases appeared entirely without hope—have been improved by my dietary treatment.” Dr. Evers treated nearly 600 patients in all, yet conventional medicine completely ignored his findings. From German Medical Weekly, 1947. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 90.

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Historical Archives

Natural Vitamin E for Heart Diseases

Authors unknown

Summary: A riveting article documenting the success of vitamin E therapy in the treatment of heart disease, published by the British journal Popular Science Digest. The key to this success, the authors emphasize, is the use of natural vitamin E over synthetic, the former having been shown to be “highly effective in the treatment of coronary disease, the incidence of which appears to be linked with a deficiency of vitamin E in the diet dating from the beginning of the century, when millers discarded vitamin E in the processing of grain.” While the authors mistakenly confuse isolated natural alpha-tocopherol with the natural vitamin E complex (which includes alpha-tocopherol but other factors in addition), they sum the case for natural vitamin therapy over pharmaceutical drugs brilliantly: “Alpha tocopherol (vitamin E) therapy has the distinctive feature of improving the function of damaged hearts by attacking the underlying pathological changes. Heretofore, the drugs at the disposal of the cardiologist such as digitalis, quinidine, the mercurial diuretics, and nitro-glycerine have helped to re-establish more normal function, but have left the basic pathology unaltered.” In other words, vitamins treat the cause, not the symptoms, as drugs do. The overwhelming clinical success reported in treating heart disease with vitamin E, the article concludes, “is a case for the closest and completely unbiased examination, by those competent to do so, of the claims of those who have developed and sponsored vitamin E therapy.” Words that still ring true today. From Popular Science Digest, 1953. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 40A.

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Historical Archives

Natural Versus Artificial Nitrates

By Sir Albert Howard

Summary: In this 1945 article from Organic Gardening magazine, Sir Albert Howard, father of the British organic farming movement, writes about the inherent inferiority of artificial soil fertilizers, specifically synthetic nitrates. He quotes the magazine New English Weekly: “It is always good to see the difference between natural and laboratory products emphasized, in recognition of the imponderable elements with which Nature endows substances, which can by no scientific skill be added to the synthetic product.” He also cites a study from an American university showing that “natural nitrates have something that the artificial lacks, and there is no completely adequate substitute for it in the field of [artificial] agricultural fertilizers.” Substituting crude imitations for Nature’s complex, synergistic compounds is a great way to destroy the health of soil and crops, he adds. Howard, the author of the classic book on organic farming An Agricultural Testament, was also the mentor of J.I. Rodale, the founder of Prevention magazine. From Organic Gardening, 1945. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 13.

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Historical Archives

Low Blood Sugar and Hyperinsulinism

By Dr. George Goodheart

Summary: Dr. George Goodheart, the founder of Applied Kinesiology, describes the biochemical, musculoskeletal, and hormonal response of patients suffering from hyperinsulinism and offers a very simple but still overlooked step to help remedy the problem: “What does not seem to be understood or practiced is that sugar and all carbohydrates cause this dysfunction and that sugar and high carbohydrates must be restricted.” This is one of the earliest chiropractic papers on what was soon to become a huge area of holistic healing. From the Digest of Chiropractic Economics, circa 1965. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Lithogenesis and Hypovitaminosis

By W.J. McCormick, MD

Summary: In this 1946 article, medical doctor W.J. McCormick looks at the relationship between vitamin C status in the body and lithogenesis—the formation of calculi, or stones, in an internal organ. “Clinical observations and laboratory experimentation by the author on the effect of administration of vitamin C in altering the physiochemical properties of the urine and other body fluids, principally in eliminating deposition of phosphates, has led to the hypothesis of C hypovitaminosis as the basic etiological factor in lithogenesis in general.” Note: Dr. McCormick equates vitamin C with ascorbic acid, though, as Dr. Royal Lee often pointed out, the latter is just one of the many factors that form the true vitamin C complex. From the journal Medical Record, 1946. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Leukemia in Infants and Young Children: A New Etiological Concept

By W.J. McCormick, MD

Summary: Writing at 81 years of age, the famous Canadian physician W.J. McCormick discusses the relationship between smoking mothers, vitamin C deficiency, and the rising incidence of leukemia in the very young. “This close link [between leukemia and] scurvy seems to have been completely overlooked by modern writers on leukemia,” McCormick says, “the major stress being given to genetic changes in chromosomes, irrespective of possible adverse contributing maternal factors.” Once again, medicine’s myopic view of disease as the result of “bad genes or germs” prevented consideration of malnutrition as a possible cause of an illness barely known to our whole-food-eating ancestors. From the Journal of Applied Nutrition. Reprint 5G, 1961.

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Historical Archives

Let Food Be Your Medicine

By Doris Grant

Summary: Doris Grant was one of England’s greatest proponents of the natural-foods movement. An avid supporter of the Lee Foundation, she wrote many books and lectured widely to teach the British people how to live healthier lives, particularly through their food choices. Strong and active until the end of her life, Grant died in 2003 at the age of 98. This document includes a brief account of her life. From the Cambridge University Medical School Society Magazine. Reprint 123, 1958.

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Historical Archives

Insulin and Cancer

By Samuel M. Beale, Jr., MD

Summary: In 1947 the British Associated Press asked pioneering American physician Dr. Samuel Beale Jr. to write a report discussing his “low-dose” insulin therapy for cancer. The result is the following article, published originally in London’s News Review and later reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. In it Dr. Beale details the shockingly quick reversal of cancerous lesions in a number of his patients through the combined application of insulin and a nutrient-dense diet. (As this letter attests, Dr. Beale was one of thousands of physicians who relied on Dr. Royal Lee‘s famous raw food concentrates to insure the nutrition of his patients.) While Dr. Beale concedes he does not know the precise mechanism of insulin’s efficacy, he speculates that it is the  hormone’s ability to balance the body’s entire endocrine system that is the key factor. In addition he names three “indications of cancer susceptibility” that modern medicine would be wise to revisit: 1) poor sugar handling 2) overalkaline blood, and 3) a disturbed calcium-phosphorus balance in the blood. Dr. Beale practiced medicine for over fifty years and used insulin to successfully treat an array of other diseases in addition to cancer. From News Review, 1947. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

How to Prevent Heart Attacks

By Benjamin P. Sandler, MD

Summary: An absolutely gripping book, published in its entirety by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. Dr. Sandler, a retired naval surgeon and researcher, challenges conventional science’s most basic beliefs about cardiovascular disease. If hardening and blockage of the arteries (i.e., arteriosclerosis) is the reason for heart attacks, he asks, why do many heart attack victims show no evidence of arteriosclerosis upon autopsy? And why do the vast majority of people with significant arteriosclerosis die of non-heart-related reasons? The truth is arteriosclerosis is a “secondary phenomenon, purely incidental, and is not the prime factor initiating [a heart] attack,” Sandler says, who points to dysfunctional blood-sugar regulation as the true cause of heart failure. Based on years of documented clinical work, Sandler reports consistent findings that a high-carbohydrate, vitamin-poor diet—the kind of diet Americans have been eating ever since the wide-scale adoption processed foods at the turn of the twentieth century—significantly weakens the heart and leads to heart attack. He especially warns against the budding advice of the time to reduce animal fat consumption. “To implicate animal foods as the ultimate cause of heart attacks because of their fat content is highly dubious and dangerous and unless absolutely confirmed as the cause…they should not be eliminated from the diet nor even slightly reduced.” Fifty years later, with animal fat still not shown to be linked with heart disease and heart attack rates showing no decline in spite of Americans having reduced their consumption of animal fats significantly, Dr. Sandler’s words ring as true as ever. Note: Be sure to check out the index at the end of the transcription. You’ll be amazed by the breadth of subjects Dr. Sandler covered. 1958.

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Historical Archives

The Influence of Food Cooking on the Blood Formula of Man

By Paul Kouchakoff, MD

Summary: A classic and profound study on the direct effect of cooking food on the human immune system. Presented by Dr. Paul Kouchakoff at the First International Congress of Microbiology in 1930 and later translated and published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, the research focuses on the phenomenon of “digestive leukocytosis,” or the increase and mobilization of white blood cells in response to eating food. Dr. Kouchakoff observed that this immune response occurs only when the food eaten is cooked and, moreover, that processed foods (which are often exposed to high temperatures in their preparation) incite an even graver response than cooked whole foods. Raw foods, on the other hand, not only fail to cause digestive leukocytosis but can prevent cooked foods from causing it if eaten at the same meal. Dr. Kouchakoff spent many years studying the effects of cooked food versus raw food on the human immune system, and it remains a great mystery and tragedy that no one has followed up on his startling findings. From Proceedings: First International Congress of Microbiology, 1930. Translated and reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

How the Facts Are Suppressed in Connection with Bone Meal

By Alfred Aslander

Summary: In this circular from the Division of Agriculture, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, the author surveys research conducted in Sweden and Switzerland on supplementing the diet with bone meal to prevent dental caries (cavities). He exposes significant design flaws in a study cited by the dental establishment to discredit bone-meal supplementation, and he describes a number of other studies that showed bone meal to be highly effective in preventing tooth decay. He also recounts his thwarted effort to have his own research published by journals beholden to the dental establishment. “At least once upon a time it was considered as an axiom that scientific investigations should aim solely at the pursuit of the truth, and consequently scientific journals should aim at publishing the truth. In this case it seems…[their] aim has been something else.” Note: a year before this article appeared, Dr. Royal Lee introduced a completely raw, cold-processed veal bone meal powder (flour) for use by dentists. Reprint 134A, 1964.

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Historical Archives

Humanitarian Award to Dr. Royal Lee

By the National Health Federation

Summary: He was called “the Einstein of nutrition,” “father of holistic health,” and, simply, “genius.” He was Dr. Royal Lee, lauded in the 1972 book A New Breed of Doctor as “the best informed person on nutrition in America and perhaps even the world.” Yet Dr. Lee was much more than a nutritionist. He was also a highly successful engineer, businessman, farmer, educator, author, and researcher. But perhaps most of all, he was a humanitarian. Dr. Lee genuinely cared about the health and welfare of humanity, earning him legions of devoted admirers. In 1962 the National Health Federation [NHF] awarded Dr. Lee its highest honor, the Humanitarian Award, in “appreciation of his outstanding contribution to the health of America by fearlessly proclaiming and publishing nutritional truth.” The federations’ words were not chosen lightly. The truth that Dr. Lee spoke—about the corruption of the food supply in America at the hands of industrial food manufacturers and their lackeys in both the federal government and the medical profession—put him in the crosshairs of some of the most powerful institutions in the country. Yet Dr. Lee never wavered from his mission to inform the public of what was happening behind the “iron curtain” of America’s food and health, for which he was “loved and respected by thousands of seekers for the truth,” as the NHF declares in this 1962 excerpt from its national newsletter. From The National Health Federation Bulletin, 1962. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Studies in Deficiency Disease

By Sir Robert McCarrison, MD

Summary: The complete classic of 1921, as republished by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research in 1945. Dr. Robert McCarrison was knighted in England for his groundbreaking research while serving as a British army surgeon in India during the first two decades of the twentieth century. His landmark investigations into the connection between the diets of various populations in India and their patterns of disease and health gave new insight into the cause and effect of nutrition on health and introduced the world to the amazingly healthy and long-lived Hunza people of the Himalayas. McCarrison set up laboratories in which he studied the effect of various local diets on animals, reproducing nearly the same health and disease patterns in the animals as displayed in the particular populations. Diet, he concluded, was the determining factor in the specific health patterns of each population. McCarrison was also the first researcher to inform the medical world that the endocrine system is the first system in the body to succumb to the effects of malnutrition, carefully demonstrating the lesions in the endocrine glands caused by specific adulterated foods. His work inspired the likes of Royal Lee, Weston A. Price, Francis Pottenger, Jr., and J. I. Rodale. Still remarkably relevant today, this book should be part of the corpus of all colleges of the healing arts. Originally published by Oxford Medical Publications, 1921.

View PDF: Studies in Deficiency Disease

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Historical Archives

The Red Beetroot Juice

By E.L. David

Summary: A report on the nutritional and therapeutic value of beetroot and beetroot juice. The extraordinary array of nutrients in the beet makes it the most nutritious root vegetable, David says, and its value may increase even more when juiced and lacto-fermented. From Let’s Live magazine, 1962.

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