The Common Etiology of Both Infectious and Degenerative Diseases, Part I
The following is a transcription of the November 1958 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally published by Standard Process Laboratories.
Also in this issue:
- Tip of the Month (Systemic Alkalosis)
- Salt Therapy for Toxemia of Pregnancy
- Symptoms of Potassium Deficiency
- The Ultimate Tranquilizer
- Importance of the Composition of Serum Proteins in the Aged
- High Points of Zypan
The Common Etiology of Both Infectious and Degenerative Diseases, Part I
(See Part II in the December 1958 issue of Applied Trophology.)
At one time tuberculosis caused the death of 350 persons per 100,000 each year in our industrial cities. Today it causes the death of less than one twentieth of that number. Is this improvement due to any intended defensive action on our part? Probably not. Over 90 percent of our adults today have had tuberculosis but have recovered.1
Therefore, the reduced mortality must be due to a better ability to fight the disease, through better nutrition in all probability, for instance, from better distribution of the fresh fruits and vegetables that carry the vitamins that defend against infection—namely, the A and C complexes. (The active principle of the vitamin C complex is not ascorbic acid, as generally presumed, but is, we feel, the organic copper enzyme tyrosinase, with the vitamin P fraction second in importance.)
The incidence of antitubercular immune bodies in the blood of adults among noncivilized peoples may be as low as 10 percent, with 90 percent in our civilized centers, showing that we are still well exposed to infection, while the aboriginal peoples have such a high resistance that the infection rate is far less—the exposure to active cases is reduced.2
Polio antibodies, on the other hand, are found universally in all the population in some of our neighboring countries, though those countries never have an epidemic, or reportable cases in any number. In the case of our own young people, polio antibodies fail to develop; if infection occurs, they are far more likely to develop serious forms of the disease. (Burnet tells us, “In most tropical countries, antibodies against polio virus are present from a very early age.”3)
Here we have a question to answer: Why has tuberculosis decreased as an infectious disease in this country while polio has greatly increased? We think the answer is that tuberculosis can be controlled by vitamins of the A and C class, which promote phagocytic defenses and the ability to resist bacterial invasion. Specific importance has been attributed to A and C in creating immunity to tuberculosis.3a
But viral diseases are not subject to control by phagocytic defense. They are more in the type of pellagra and beriberi. Viruses even have been identified as causative of the symptoms of these known deficiency diseases. McCarrison told how deficiency reactions were transmitted (by means of injections of filtered tissue fluids) from one test animal to another way back in 1921, in his book Studies in Deficiency Disease.
Dr. Sandler in his book Diet Prevents Polio well expounds the role of refined carbohydrate in undermining our health. He shows that the incidence of polio dropped almost 90 percent in his own state of North Carolina after the publication of his news release on how to prevent polio by diet.
India is remarkably free of polio but has a universal degree of antibody in the blood of her population.4 Dental caries is a disease that parallels polio, and in India the incidence of dental caries is only one in eighty people (of street beggars as compared with medical students).5 So we can see how poor our American diet is in its ability to protect us from either polio or tooth decay.
Here we see a common etiology for both infectious disease and degenerative disease. Tooth decay, like cancer, is tissue disintegration; we should look to the sources of defense rather than to ways to cope with an invading virus. (Cancer, now being proven to be a viral disease, is not much different basically from polio, which is also a viral disease.)
Polio too might be reasonably classed as degenerative disease—degeneration of nervous tissue. The incidence of polio among American soldiers stationed in tropical areas is ten times that of troops stationed at home. This no doubt is because of the overcooking and excessive use of refined foods in places where it is inconvenient to get fresh fruits and vegetables.6
There is a very important conclusion to be drawn from these facts. It is obvious that the polio epidemics are due to a lowered resistance in the victim, not to his exposure to the infective agent. Where resistance (by reason of natural foods) is high (India, etc.), there are no polio epidemics, because everybody has developed immunity. They have had the disease in a mild form; polio there never gets to the point of causing attention from the medical authorities.
Here we might refer back to the January 1957 issue Applied Trophology (“Which Is First—The Disease or the Microorganism?”) and Dr. Rene Dubos’s conclusion that we need to give more attention to the resistance of the host, and why, instead of so much on how to control the infective organism. In view of the facts there presented, the Salk vaccine seems to be an unsound method to control polio. If the patient has a low resistance, it is dangerous to try to immunize him, since the procedure of injecting an antigen may bring on the disease.
The important thing here is to learn just how we may build resistance and how to become as immune to polio and dental caries as the street beggars of India.
Dr. Sandler has thoroughly exposed the role of refined sugar and similar carbohydrates in his books Diet Prevents Polio and How to Prevent Heart Attacks.
He has shown that tuberculosis is aggravated by the same sugar excess that creates susceptibility to polio. We feel that the most important biochemical reaction to sugar excesses is the depression of calcium bicarbonate (diffusible calcium) in the blood. This inhibits phagocytosis and creates muscular atony, low blood pressure, and fatigue. This manifests itself as a reduced or missing second sound of the heart.
In our discussion of inositol (see the December 1957 issue of Applied Trophology), we suggested its action is to protect phosphagen (the sugar compound in muscle), which falls apart—releasing free phosphoric radical—when its sugar is oxidized (by muscle work) if inositol is not available. This free phosphate radical then can combine with the calcium bicarbonate, forming calcium phosphate and creating a deficiency of diffusible calcium and consequent impairment of the defensive function of the phagocyte.
Clinically, every person with a tendency to high blood sugar is benefited by the routine use of inositol. Our food supply of inositol is in the phytates of whole grains and is released only by raw food enzymes. This is why overcooked diets such as the one our soldiers get in foreign army camps can create ten times the polio that is found in domestic camps. To this enzyme (phosphatase) in supplement form, we offer Ostogen tablets [Calcifood Wafers].
In the splitting of phytates by phosphatase, the free phosphate radical is also released, so we are providing more of the offending phosphate along with the antidote, inositol. But this seems to be harmless, in fact beneficial, if the inositol is available to control it. The lack of free phosphate is in the background of many obscure types of chronic disease, arthritis in particular. The Wulzen factor (destroyed in cream by pasteurizing) is known to prevent arthritis by its effect of providing a free phosphate radical. Without the phosphate the body fluids begin to precipitate calcium.
This calcium precipitation is aggravated by alkalosis (too high a vegetable diet and too little cereal foods, especially raw whole grain products such as sprouted wheat).
Ostogen tablets again are the immediate remedy, preferably with whole grain foods to provide the phytates. Cal-Amo tablets (ammonium and calcium chlorides) are also recommended in alkalosis to quickly oppose the alkalinity; they are often immediately effective in controlling neuritic pains, sciatica, etc. Where the deposition of microscopic calcium crystals in nerve endings is the cause of severe reactions—the “migrating” type of neuritis—the deposits are taken up and redeposited by the pH changes of the blood between meals. Gastric acid secretion, remember, creates an “alkaline tide” after each meal.
That is why in the street beggar examinations in India no arthritis was found in the 160 beggars X-rayed. Their calcium metabolism was normal, and their teeth were almost perfect, thanks to their use of enough raw, unrefined food.5
In animal tests there is no known way to create arthritis except by the use of cooked or pasteurized food. Dr. Wulzen consistently created arthritis in guinea pigs by feeding them pasteurized cream and cured the animals with blackstrap molasses, which was shown to have ten times more of the Wulzen anti-arthritic factor than raw cream contains.7 Vitamin F2 (Eff-Plus [discontinued] and Super-Eff) is the biological equivalent to the Wulzen factor.
Dr. Pottenger, in feeding his cats cooked and pasteurized foods, found arthritis to be a consistent reaction to the heat-treated food. No signs of arthritis appeared in any animal fed raw food. Loss of teeth was a primary reaction to the cooked food.8 (See Applied Trophology, July 1958, for more on this.)
References
- Topley, W.W.C. Outline of Immunity, p. 319. Wm. Wood & Co., 1923.
- Topley, W.W.C. Outline of Immunity, p. 317. Wm. Wood & Co., 1923.
- Burnet, F.M. Principles of Animal Virology, p. 362. Academic Press, 1955; 3a. Getz, Long and Henderson. Rev. Tuberc., 64:381, 1951.
- Rhodes and Van Rooyen. Textbook of Virology, p. 368. Williams & Wilkins, 1953.
- Pathak, C.L. The Am. Jol. of Clin. Nut., Vol. 6, No. 2, 1958.
- Rhodes and Van Rooyen. Textbook of Virology, p. 371. Williams and Wilkins, 1953.
- Vitamins and Hormones, Vol. VIII, p. 120. Academic Press, 1950.
- Orth. and Oral Surg., p. 467, August 1946.
Tip of the Month (Systemic Alkalosis)
In systemic alkalosis calcium is lost by precipitation in body fluids. As a result, bursitis and neuritic pains are common. The addition of Calcium Lactate to the alkalosis schedule will alleviate these conditions.
Salt Therapy for Toxemia of Pregnancy
“A diet high in salt appears to prevent or relieve most of the toxic phenomena of pregnancy. For patients with early toxemia, Margaret Robinson, MD, of Derby, England, finds that the larger amount of salt, the faster and more complete the recovery. All of twenty women with early toxemia were benefited by extra salt in the diet; symptoms recurred when additions were not continued until the time of delivery. Of 1019 women instructed to increase sodium chloride intake, 38 had toxemia; of 1000 women who decreased salt consumption, 97 had toxemia. The incidence of edema, perinatal death, and hemorrhage during pregnancy and antepartum was also lower in women taking extra salt.”
—Lancet, 1:178–181, 1958 (reprinted in Modern Medicine, page 99, June 15, 1958).
Symptoms of Potassium Deficiency
The symptoms of hypokalemia are indeed similar to those of hyperkalemia and do not afford an accurate diagnostic aid. However, by the recognition of the many factors involved, one may suspect hypokalemia, and more definitive steps may be taken to establish the diagnosis.
The first symptoms that occur are malaise and a sense of not feeling altogether well. Since hypokalemia may follow or may be associated with other illnesses, the symptom of malaise may not seem important to either the patient or the physician. Muscular weakness is almost invariably noted and, when present with malaise, may lead one to suspect hypokalemia. In instances of chronic potassium deficiency, these symptoms may persist for many months and are frequently interpreted as being due to emotional instability. Vague muscle and abdominal aches and pains are sometimes associated with low potassium, and again the physician may not attach much significance to this complaint.
In the more severe and acute instances of hypokalemia, muscular paralysis may be present. This severe muscular weakness and paralysis usually begins in the muscles of the extremities and later involves the muscles of respiration.
Infrequently, patients may complain of difficulty in swallowing, although objective manifestations such as regurgitation and choking are only rarely observed. There are no characteristic signs demonstrated on physical examination, although the heart sounds may be muffled and distant, and there may be hypoactive tendon reflexes.
—Reprinted from “Potassium Deficiency,” by Wm. M. Nicholson, MD, and Howard H. Herring, MD, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, American Academy of General Practice, Vol. 9, pp. 79–84, January 1954.
The Ultimate Tranquilizer
“Under the benign bedspread of the ultimate tranquilizer, we will all come to rest. Gone will be the spur to invention, the drive to reform, the divine dissatisfaction that leads to progress. So we will rest, smiling at each other in the beatific calm of the ultimate tranquilizer, until some neighboring tribe, some rude and primitive people, move in on us. They will vanquish us with ease, because no one ever thought of giving the tranquilizer to our enemies as well as to our friends. And when the dust over our civilization stops being radioactive, a thirtieth-century archeologist will find writ on the tombstone of our culture: ‘Here lies the tranquil man.’”
—Editorial, “The Ultimate Tranquilizer,” J. Med. Society, New Jersey, November 1957.
Importance of the Composition of Serum Proteins in the Aged
It was shown that generally changes in the protein spectrum occur, along with a marked hypoalbuminemia with a relatively slight increase in alpha and gamma globulins. There is a marked total hypoproteinemia. Regardless of the origin of the hypoalbuminemia—insufficient diet, hepatic insufficiency, inadequate intermediary metabolism—the fact remains that severe disturbances in albumin metabolism are encountered in the aged.
—Excerpta Medica, August 1958. (Prusik, B., et al. Cas. Lek. Cesk., 96(51):1585–1588, 1957, in Czech).
High Points of Standard Process Nutritional Adjuncts
Zypan: Zypan is an enzyme product made from pancreas tissue, as the name implies. These proteolytic enzymes from pancreatin, together with pepsin, betaine hydrochloride, and ammonium chloride, form a combination product to aid digestion. Zypan relaxes the sphincter of Oddi, allowing the bile to flow more freely into the intestinal tract, so that the fats are readily metabolized. It also relieves achlorhydria, flatulence, and protein putrefaction.
