Guideposts to Mental Health

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Dr. Lee addresses some possible nutritional causes of mental distress. People who eat too many acidifying foods, such as whole grains, may become overly acidic, marked by symptoms of irritability, introversion, and the feeling of not getting enough air. People who eat too many alkalizing foods, such as green vegetables, on the other hand, may feel aches in their joints or a nervous stomach. Dr. Lee also quotes Dr. Benjamin Sandler‘s description of people who suffer from drastic swings in blood sugar: “Dizziness, faintness, nervousness, tremors, sweating, pallor, flushing, palpitation, tachycardia (rapid heart), abdominal pain, and psychoneurotic manifestations may occur,” Sandler says. To combat such sugar swings, Lee recommends—in words that speak to any nutrition practitioner today—to “avoid refined sugars as found in doughnuts, pies, cakes, ice cream, candy and other forms of sweets.” From Let’s Live magazine, 1958.

Obesity and the Physiology of Osmotic Transfers

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: “Most overweight people have an obviously disordered endocrine balance,” writes Dr. Lee in this speculative paper on the nature of weight gain and loss. While historically the thyroid has always been considered the main dysfunctional endocrine gland when it comes to obesity, Dr. Lee points to another player, one “higher up the chain” of the endocrine system—the pituitary gland. With some modern researchers claiming the cause of obesity to be resistance of the pituitary to the hormone leptin, Dr. Lee appears to have been on the right track—once again years ahead of his time. 1954.