By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this monumental 1952 pamphlet, Dr. Royal Lee argues that arthritis is the direct result of nutrient deficiencies brought about by the overconsumption of cooked and processed foods. Insufficient intake of vitamins A, C, and G; various minerals; and the woefully forgotten Wulzen factor—an “anti-stiffness” agent for joints found in raw sugarcane juice and raw cream—all help contribute to the disease, Dr. Lee writes. (Interestingly, while raw cream was shown to prevent joint stiffness in test animals, pasteurized cream provided no such protection, which may explain why arthritis became epidemic in the USA after food processors began pasteurizing the nation’s milk supply.) Dr. Lee not only shows how these deficiencies lead to the arthritis-inducing conditions of acidosis and toxic bowel, he also delineates precise supplement protocols to reverse the arthritic condition, featuring his famous raw food concentrate formulas Betalco and Minaplex (known today as Betacol and Organically Bound Minerals). Dr. Lee also backs up his ideas with several carefully documented case studies showing how patients reversed crippling cases of arthritis using his protocol. This compilation is a tour de force of nutritional therapy—indispensable for all health practitioners and anyone else interested in restoring wellness through diet. From the Vitamin Products Company, 1952.
[The following is a transcription of the original Archives document. To view or download the original document, click here.]NUTRITION AND ARTHRITIS[spacer height=”20px”]
[First article by Dr. Lee:]Arthritis: A Deficiency Disease[spacer height=”20px”]
Is arthritis a deficiency disease? The answer to this question is becoming clearer every day. All the evidence so far accumulated points to an affirmative answer. Let us list a few high point in this array of facts:
Fact No. 1. Cats fed pasteurized milk and cooked meat invariably developed arthritis, if not in the first generation, always in the second.1 They first became constipated; then they developed ballooned colons; and soon they lost their teeth from pyorrhea. (Pyorrhea has been defined as arthritis of the articulations of the teeth.)
Fact No. 2. “X-ray studies disclose that 80 percent of arthritics—regardless of age or type of arthritis—have dilated, atonic colons.”2
Fact No. 3. In a ten year appraisal of arthritic patients to determine the relationship of arthritis to diseases of the liver and gallbladder, the conclusion was: “Our studies showed a definite dysfunction of the hepatic system…There was a definite evidence of liver damage in over 50 percent of patients with rheumatoid arthritis in this series.”3
Fact No. 4. Arthritis is so closely associated with scurvy that some cases may be cured with orange juice.4
Fact No. 5. An excess of anterior pituitary growth hormone injected into vitamin A deficient test animals invariably causes a prompt appearance of arthritic lesions in their joints.5 Army horses at Panama fed timothy hay poor in vitamin A always developed arthritis in a few months. A change to hay carrying a higher vitamin A content eliminated the disease.
Fact No. 6. Intravenous injections of bile cures tetany secondary to high blood guanidine.6 (Bile salts are known to absorb or neutralize guanidine.)
Fact No. 7. A sudden rise in bile levels in the blood eliminates arthritic pains.7 This suggests that guanidine is a cause of the pains and not of arthritis.
How does this theory fit with the rest of the facts we have listed?
Facts 1 and 2: A ballooned colon certainly will let poisons pass into the circulating blood that an intact colon will stop. Guanidine is one of the most potent of the bowel poisons.
Fact 3: Robertson, in his Biochemistry, tells us that nucleoproteins can afford guanidine as an end product. Since nucleoproteins are normally eliminated by the liver through the bile, it is clear that any impairment of liver function could result in a higher threshold of guanidine in the body fluids.
Vitamin A normally acts to aid the formation of protective lipoidal monomolecular films that insulate nucleoprotein elements in chromatin structures of the cell and prevent their degradation into toxic waste products, including guanidine.8 That is why vitamin A is vital to both liver and kidney activities, and its deficiency is undoubtedly contributory to a rise in guanidine levels of the body fluids.
Acidosis, of course, is a definite aggravating influence, since many enzymes tend to reverse their constructive action and become proteolytic when the blood or lymph drops in pH towards the acid phase and start to tear down tissue instead of building it up, releasing uric acid and guanidine.9 Thyrotoxicosis is another cause of enzyme reversal, especially of those under adrenal control.10
The cooking of food destroys our most valuable weapon against acidosis—that buffer substance glutamine, which is responsible for two-thirds the acid neutralization accomplished by the normal kidney.11
Citrus juices high in citric acid can cause acidosis whereby the patient is unable to burn up or oxidize the acid. Citric acid is as hard to get rid of in excess as sugar. Both must be consumed as fuel by oxidation, and sedentary habits are not conducive to their toleration. If not burned, citric acid takes out of the body great amounts of calcium. Some radiologist have said they can look at a patient’s bones and tell him whether or not he uses grapefruit juice by their relative density.
It is evident how arthritis attacks after middle age, at the time of waning gonadal activity, when the sex hormones lose their control of the pituitary and permit an excessive output of growth hormone, which cooperates with a commonly present vitamin A deficiency to cause arthritis. The chlorophyll in high vitamin A plant sources may also be a factor, for chlorophyll is destructive to guanidine on contact.12 (It is probably this fact that renders chlorophyll such a valuable healing agent.)
The general picture now beings to crystallize. There are many ramifications, many variations, but the basic elements in the malnutritional pattern that precedes arthritis are appearing from the haze. The degenerated and damaged organs of the long-suffering patient need careful watching as well as careful analysis of their condition to enable a constructive regime of nutrition to be established for encouraging the natural forces to rebuild where starvation has operated to promote most drastic destruction.
What are the requirements for success?
1. A loss of digestive assimilative tissues is common denuded stomach walls [sic], achlorhydria preceded by hyperchlorhydria (either situation may be present), and pancreatic enzymes lacking, so that proteins are not digested or are so partially broken as to act as antigens after absorption, with various forms of allergy as a result. To correct this, the vitamin G complex is essential, to ensure pancreatic and liver support. The trace minerals and potassium as found in the chromatic complex of alfalfa are usually valuable in bringing back the normal secretion of gastric juices. These minerals are enzyme activators. This probably explains their action (Mn and Co especially).
2. New nutritional factors have been found in sugarcane and beet molasses that seem specifically involved in arthritis.13 These affect the calcium-phosphorus balances13 and promote the liver detoxification of protein poisons (action of betaine and its synergists).14 The associated potassium, in organic combination, seems to be also definitely beneficial, maybe because potassium is the element that maintains alkalinity within the cell, while sodium does this job outside the cell. One operates in the cytoplasm, the other in the blood and lymph. (That is why sodium bicarbonate fails to do much in correcting acidity that is basically intracellular.)15
3. Diet: [Eat] raw foods as far as conveniently possible—eggnogs containing raw meat juices and eggs, carrot juice, raw certified milk, well-shredded vegetable salads with homemade French or other dressing made from the best ingredients. Remember, commercial salad dressings are wonderful examples of Ruskin’s comment “There is no product so bad but that somebody can make it worse and sell if for less.” The cheap oils and stale egg powders in these products are often unfit for food, but still there is another depth for the maker to descend to. He may use petroleum oils and sell it as a “reducing” salad dressing, or he may say nothing and let the buyer think it is wholesome. Mineral oil robs the body of fat-soluble vitamins and certainly aggravates arthritis.
Refined sugar, white flour, and all packaged cereals should be rigidly excluded. Honey, natural syrup of cane or sorghum, or blackstrap, in cooking, are to be used exclusively. The cereals sold in packages are all treated with preservatives to kill insect life and are unfit for food; in fact, they are incompetent to serve as such.
Most commercial whole wheat bread is a cheat, for it has had its vitamin content and flavor well exterminated by the chemical preservative otherwise called “bleach.” The only source of good cereals is a local mill or health food store. They can also be ground in an electric coffee grinder or with a hand mill, available form most department or mail order stores. Cracked whole wheat may be used as a breakfast food, cooked like oatmeal. Oatmeal must be steel cut, fresh, and without insecticide preservatives. This kind is available only at health food stores. Rolled oats have been overcooked at the mill, and their lack of flavor alone proves their worthlessness.
We should beware of aluminum salts in baking powder. They also may be expected to aggravate some of the stages of arthritis—especially the gastritis and colitis, paralyze the peristaltic action, and cause constipation. The label will state whether or not it contains alum or sodium aluminum sulfate. Good powders cost more, but cheapness is no argument for using poisons in food.
By Royal Lee. Vitamin Products Company, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. Date of publication unknown.
Bibliography
1. Pottenger, F.M., Jr. “Effect of Heat-Processed Foods and Metabolized Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of Experimental Animals.” Am. J. Orth. & Surg. 32:467, 1946.
2. Pemberton, R. “The Relation of the Gastrointestinal Tract to the Syndrome of Arthritis.” The Review of Gastroenterology, April 1942.
3. Comment by Samuel Weiss on Pemberton’s article. The Review of Gastroenterology, April, 1942.
4. Rinehart, J.F. “Studies Relating Vitamin C Deficiency to Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatoid Arthritis; Experimental, Clinical, and General Considerations; Rheumatic Fever.” Ann. Int. Med. 9:586–599, November 1935.
5. Personal communication from Michael T. Barrett, University of Pennsylvania.
6. Crotti, A. Diseases of the Thyroid, Parathyroid and Thymus. Lea & Febiger, 1938, p. 109.
7. Margolis, H.M. Diagnosis and Treatment of Arthritis and Allied Disorders. Paul B. Hoeber, Inc., 1941, p. 106.
8. Lee, R. and W.A. Hanson. Protomorphology. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1947.
9. Vernon, H.M. Intracellular Enzymes. John Murray, London, 1908, p. 190.
10. Elmer. A.W. Iodine Metabolism & Thyroid Function. Oxford University Press, London, 1938, p. 420.
11. J.A.M.A., Editorial, p. 775, November 22, 1947.
12. Kawakita. Bull. Coll. Agr. Tokyo, 6:181, 1904.
13. Van Wagtendonk and Wulzen. J. Biol. Chem., July 1946.
14. Ann. Rev. Biochem, p. 138, 1941.
15. Best and Taylor. Physiological Basis of Medical Practice. Wm. Wood & Co., 1947, p. 961.
Arthritis and Its Background of Malnutriiton[spacer height=”20px”]
Extracts of cane and beet molasses (alcohol-soluble fraction) have been found [to be] of considerable benefit in the relief of arthritic pains and arthritic lesions.
In geographical locations where trace minerals were most outstanding, these extracts were found to be much less effective; in fact they often tended to actually aggravate the symptoms. For that reason organic mineral concentrates should accompany the use of such extracts. It is of interest that manganese—probably the most important of this group of minerals—is essential to bone formation and repair, and the atrophic form of arthritis seems particularly to be benefited by the combined uses of molasses extract and organic minerals.
Where the hypertrophic form of arthritis is preponderant, the deficiency background may include a lack of phosphorus, in which the tendency of calcium to precipitate out of the body fluids as carbonate is a characteristic picture, described years ago by Dr. James B. Barr of London. Here, phosphorus in the form of orthophosphoric acid or organic phosphorus as phytates should be used together with the alkaline organic mineral. If either the alkaline organic mineral concentrate or the phosphoric radical is supplied alone without its balancing partner (one being acid, the other alkaline), adverse results may begin to be evident.
A deficiency of phosphorus is characterized by restlessness in sleeping, tendency to calcium deposition, aggravation of cataracts, and tendency of arthritic lesions.
A deficiency of the trace minerals results in a weakening of ligaments (“perosis” in animals), loss of parasympathetic tone, gastritis, initial hyperacidity of the stomach with ultimate destruction of acid-secreting cells, poor bone growth or failure of bone regeneration, atony of bowel, and constipation.
Where the dietary regime of the arthritic patient has been carefully supplemented with a judicious schedule of the necessary factors of the above three classes, there has been a progressive and definite relief and improvement in at least ninety percent of patients. The change is apparent within two days to a week. Best results seem to follow a minimal dosage, at least after the first two weeks. This is no doubt a consequence of the chronic nature of the disease, in which structural changes have occurred, requiring much time to repair, and in which an excess of stimulation can be of no constructive effect but rather may hinder real progress.
By Royal Lee, Research Director, Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. January 1948.
[Third article by Dr. Lee:]Vitamin Treatment of Arthritis[spacer height=”20px”]
In the atrophic type of arthritis, Betalco [Betacol] and Minaplex [Organically Bound Minerals] should be used as the nutritional supplement, at the rate of three tablets [each] per day. In hypertrophic arthritis, V-P Phosphade [Phosfood Liquid] should be added to this schedule, 1/2 teaspoonful (in water) per day.
Patients will show improvement within a month’s time on this schedule, most of them within a week. The first thing that happens is a reduction in their joint pains, and the next thing is an improved mobility of the joints. We have had patients who have been totally immobilized for 15 years become normalized within a few months on this schedule for hypertrophic arthritis.
The use of Catalyn, at three tablets per day, may or may not be used along with the above schedule, depending on whether the patient can afford the additional vitamins. Catalyn, of course, supplies the general pattern of vitamins that are commonly deficient in our [modern] devitalized diet.
Patients should be taken off all grapefruit, orange, or lemon juice while on this schedule if they have been using these products. Citric acid, until completely oxidized, is a decalcifying agent. It is only oxidized in individuals who are exercising enough to burn it up, as it is comparable to sugar in its metabolic character and carries similar caloric values.
The use of coffee should be limited to one cup per meal and tea to two cups. Otherwise, the diet should be confined to vegetables and fruits. The most desirable fruit is bananas, and meats should be fresh fish or fresh fowl as far as possible.
Oatmeal and cereals should be from health food stores, not the ordinary packaged product loaded with poisonous insecticides, as found in all grocery-store cereals, oatmeal, etc.
By Royal Lee. Form VK-18, November 1, 1948.
[Case Study #1]
[Supervising practitioner unknown.][spacer height=”20px”]Registered Nurse
Age 44
Diagnosis: Onset of Atrophic Arthritis
Onset at age eight or nine years of age. “Growing pains” with stiffness and pain and swelling in joints of wrists, knees, and ankles. No treatment.
Acute phase started eighteen years ago in right shoulder and transferred to left shoulder. Tonsillectomy performed, followed by gross edema and pain in left knee and right ankle. All teeth extracted. Gradual stiffening of all joints of the body, with severe contraction of left leg. All treatments used over a period of eight or nine years brought no relief or benefit. Condition gradually became so severe that patient was completely helpless and bedridden, and she was told that nothing more could be done for her condition as recently as two years ago.
August 1947: Patient was completely rigid in all joints of the body, with slight motion left in hip joints. Gross edema of feet, legs, hands, and arms. Severe pulling sensations in all body muscles, causing fingers to be bent far back, away from palm of the hand, with greatest deformity at second joint of each finger. Pulling sensation in muscles somewhat relieve by aspirin. Severe pain in left hip joint and in both sciatic nerves. Extreme pain when touched or lifted by anyone. Numbness of toes and fingers.
Vitamin Products therapy started in August 1947: Betalco and Vitamin E, three tablets a day of each. Two days following, the first change was noticed. This consisted of a lessening of pulling sensation in the muscles and a warmer feeling, as if circulation had improved. Approximately two weeks, later there was noticed a “lighter” feeling, less pain to touch, and a slight beginning of motion in joints of hands and arms. This improvement was slowly progressive, and gradually the patient could hold a pen and move herself about in bed and from bed to wheelchair. [She experienced] motion in the upper part of her spine, enabling her to move her head a little.
May 1948: Schedule was changed to Betalco, Minaplex, and Phosphade Wafers, three tablets a day of each. Following the change, in about two days, the patient had a reaction. At first she felt very well and wanted to move her muscles and exercise. This was followed by stiffness, soreness, pain, and numbness in the hands. The schedule was discontinued for a few days. The patient then restarted on one [tablet of each supplement] a day and has continued spasmodically [sic] one or two a day since. The patient has been using some Phosphade Wafers but fewer of them than the Betalco and Minaplex, as they seem to have a tendency to make her feel feverish and tired.
Since May 1948 the pain in the left hip has gone completely; also, the pain in the sciatic nerves has gone. [There is still] slight soreness and pressure in the left hip. The patient now has more motion in all joints and has rotating motion, as well as forward and backward motion, in ankles, wrists, spine, hips, and neck. Head moves freely. Edema has subsided, so that flesh is soft to touch rather than hard, as previously. Can move self in bed more freely.
(Singed)________________, R.N.
August 25, 1948[spacer height=”20px”]
[Letter to Royal Lee]
[From a medical doctor in Los Angeles concerning arthritic patients.][spacer height=”20px”]Dear Dr. Lee:
I thought you would be interested in knowing that over the past few months I have given directly or indirectly the Betalco [Betacol] to twenty-six different arthritic patients. All of these have shown dramatic improvement, especially freedom from pain, with the exception of the one patient who took only seven capsules and discontinued the therapy. She was the patient of another doctor. One other patient took nearly a whole bottle of fifty capsules before noticing improvement. The second bottle changed her from a cripple to a woman able to go up and down stairs with comparative ease, and the last I heard from her, she was decorating a church altar.
Most patients noticed improvement with three to seven capsules. I have been prescribing one capsule at bedtime. A larger dosage doesn’t seem to give any added benefit.
Signed, MD, Los Angeles
Form VF-67[spacer height=”20px”]
[Product Bulletin]
[For food-concentrate supplement Eff-Plus, known today as Super-EFF.][spacer height=”20px”]EFF-Plus: Vitamin F2
(For Physicians Only)
Composition: This is a liver fraction, the normal fatty acid form of the vitamin F complex in a natural combination of beef and flax lipoids.
Specific Action: This is a special organic combination in a molecular form that we consider to be used as an insulating layer or wrapper for determinant factors. It guides the reactions of healing and construction. Vitamin F2 is a close partner of vitamin E in its function of protecting chromosomes.
They both are essential, it seems, to the construction of chromatin-protective material (the fatty layers that separate the strata of active determinant “pages” in the “book of blueprints.”) This protective material must be present in each cell to permit its reduplication; without it we could not heal a wound or grow new skin. (This mechanism is further described in Protomorphology, by Lee and Hanson.)
Indications for Possible Need of F2:
- To promote tissue regeneration where a deficiency has caused stoppage
- To stimulate and build muscle and functional tissue, not fat
- To depress craving for sweets
Administration: It should produced immediate results at a schedule of two capsules a day for the adult or one a day for children of eight years of less.
Contraindication: None
How Supplied: EFF-PLUS (V-P 731):
- 1 bottle of 60 capsules – $4.50
- 1 bottle of 250 capsules – $17.25
The statements contained herein may not agree with the present consensus of medical opinion but do represent the facts as far as we are able to ascertain them through our experience as producers of natural vitamins since 1930. Note that these statements apply only to natural complexes, and we doubt that they can apply to any synthetic products.
Form No. VD–119(R)
Vitamin Products Company
Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin[spacer height=”20px”]
[Product Bulletin]
[For food concentrate Betalco, known today as Betacol, by Standard Process.][spacer height=”20px”]Betalco
(Physicians Only)
Betalco contains the lipotrophic, alcohol-soluble factors from beet molasses; trace mineral fractions from sugarcane juice; tillandsia; and specific lipoproteins of the chromatin of beef liver (cytotrophic determinant factors essential to repair and regeneration of liver tissues).
Due to the important and complex function of the liver, it is easy to see that if there is deficiency of essential nutrients, severe symptoms will arise. In most debilitating diseases, the liver should be given immediate consideration. With a properly functioning liver, the prognosis is usually favorable.
Betalco is designed to supply the specific fat-metabolizing factors required for liver function that reduce abnormally high blood sedimentation, and because of its recent inclusion of cytotrophic factors of liver, it will undoubtedly aid in rebuilding liver tissue, just as Biost (a cold-processed veal bone flour that contains cytotrophic factors of bone) will rebuild bone structure where atrophy has taken place.
Betalco, in clinical tests, has been found helpful in degenerative liver conditions and cirrhosis of the liver. The use of Betalco in arthritis has for some time shown very outstanding results. Joint pains will usually lessen, and an improved mobility in the joints is commonly reported.
A low-protein diet is often contributory to liver degeneration. More raw proteins are very helpful—cottage cheese, eggs, eggnogs, and rare meats have been used.
Occasionally, when a patient does not seem to be responding properly to a nutritional supplement program, liver degeneration is found to be the cause of improper assimilation and utilization of the nutritional factors. For this reason quite a percentage of doctors insist on giving virtually all their patients one capsule of Betalco per day for about a week before starting supplementation.
Suggested dosage is one capsule per day for the first week, to be increased thereafter as indicated by the response of the patient.
Betalco (V-P 728) 50 capsules…$4.50
VI–214 (R-2)
Vitamin Products Company
Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin
A Practical Way to Avoid Malnutrition
Lecture delivered at San Francisco meeting of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition, April 17, 1948.
After considering the collected evidence of the effects of the use of foods that are inherently incapable of building health, one is forced to conclude that the only way to avoid malnutrition is to become completely immune to the advertising blandishments of the processors of food products that have been made worse so they could be sold for less—by which procedure a greater proportion of the price was made available for commercial propaganda.
Our staff of life, bread, is a good illustration. About sixty years ago, the roller mill was invented, a gadget that made possible the separation of the high vitamin components from the flour. This new flour was far less perishable; it could be distributed over greater distances without spoilage and thereby facilitated centralized production on a large scale. The old-time local mills could not compete with the lower price of flour and soon disappeared.
No tests were made to compare the nutritional value of the new flour with the old; the change was gradual, and until very recently no suspicion of doubt was cast on the product. Full-page advertisements were run in medical journals headed “White Flour is Wholesome” when the public began to doubt the wisdom of using such a devitalized and processed product, which had lost its main content of minerals and vitamins. But it was 1946 before the University of Minnesota published results of a test that really caused nutritionists to sit up and take notice.1
In this test, cattle were fed grain that had been degerminated, like commercial flours are. The cattle gained in weight and appeared to all outward indications to be in good health. But they soon began to drop dead one by one with heart failure. It is apparent that we here have the explanation of why heart disease has become the leading cause of death in all countries where the main foodstuff is white flour.
White flour, therefore, seems to be the world’s greatest monument to fraud.
Is this too harsh a term to use? Maybe the millers have inadvertently gotten “behind the eight ball” by a course of events beyond their control.
Yes, that is true for each individual miller. Back in 1906 the state of North Dakota made a survey by questionnaire of milling companies, asking their opinion of the practice of adding bleach poisons to flour. Their consensus of opinion was that it should be stopped by a pure food law—that bleaches permitted unscrupulous millers to sell low grades of flour as high grade, while the real quality was impaired.2
But collectively, as an industry, the story is otherwise, for the law never did stop flour bleaching—although the first and most celebrated head of our federal Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, lost his job trying to accomplish this objective, and even after Dr. Wiley’s case against bleached flour was decided in his favor by the United States Supreme Court, six years after his elimination from government service, no attempt was subsequently made to enforce the law. Whether flour bleaching is bad for our health or not you may decide after reading the article in ’48: The Magazine of the Year entitled “White Bread—One Case of Epilepsy?” (April 1948, page 28).
So you may be sure that food and drug laws cannot substitute for your own discretion in selecting foods that will afford you the nutrition your body demands. The penalty imposed on you for neglect of this duty may be just as sudden and just as unexpected as the penalty you will suffer if you insist on filling the gas tank of your automobile and neglect to maintain the oil level in the crankcase. You may aver today that you feel just as good as you ever did, that white flour never has harmed you, but tomorrow your friends may be buying flowers and wondering why the grim reaper had to suddenly take away one so happy and active and only approaching the prime of life.
The [typical] food buyer, the housewife, not knowing just what a food should be like and what it should do, is in the same position as a South African Hottentot, who feels that he is not properly attired without a wristwatch but, not knowing that watches are primarily time-keeping devices, is perfectly happy with a dime store watch of tin and never realizes that his watch is only a case without any works inside. I feel that this is a perfect description of modern white bleached flour.
To get the whole nutritional value of wheat, the flour should be as fresh as possible; the ideal way is to grind the wheat just before baking the bread.
Sugar is another common foodstuff that has been refined to the vanishing point of nutritional value. I know of a dentist who in his thirty years of practice has many adult patients at present with perfect sets of teeth, who have followed his advice on food selection since infancy. His advice is very short and clear. It is simple: eat no white-flour or white-sugar products. That includes the banning of soft drinks, since they all contain white sugar. There is no restriction on natural sweets such as honey, maple syrup, molasses, etc.; it is only the refined sugars that rob the body of calcium and wreck the teeth and bones.
Most of us do not realize that our bones suffer as much from sugar eating as our teeth. We wind up with false teeth, but we cannot get false bones. When we are crippled up with arthritis, we have to quit working and possibly become a candidate for a wheelchair.
Butter is another food that has suffered from neglect by the Food & Drug [FDA] authorities. For fifty years or so, butter has been artificially colored to fool buyers into thinking it is richer in vitamins than it really is—for you should know that butter from cows that are not fed well is very pale and unappetizing.
The coloring of foods to hide inferiority is a basic fraud that the [pure] food and drug laws were intended to stop. But our authorities have always been afraid of political repercussions if they meddle with established practices, and the coloring of butter never has been challenged. Not even labeling to show the presence of the fraudulent coloring is required. But the worst aspect of this sordid picture is that until very recently the color used, because it was the cheapest, was a coal tar dye, known because of its use as “butter yellow.” When cancer research workers found that coal tar applications to test animals caused cancer, they began to test the various coal tar products. Butter yellow was found to be one of the most potent cancer promoters known.
One investigator made a survey of foods in relation to cancer and came up with the conclusion that dairy foods cause the disease. He found the highest incidence of cancer in Denmark and in the dairy districts of the United States. We know now the real reason. It was not the dairy foods but the adulterating color in butter and cheese that was causing the record-breaking incidence of cancer.
Of course, oleo [margarine] is another product made worse and sold for less. Butter contains vital phospholipids that protect our very chromosomes, those little bundles of blueprints in our cells that are so necessary for passing on the characteristics of the race and without which we cannot even heal a wound. Otherwise, we might as well eat dime-a-pound fats, which are a great temptation to food processors to flavor and color to imitate dollar-a-pound butter and sell for fifty cents. It is still dime-a-pound fat. It will not protect your chromosome patterns, and it might take twenty or forty years for its use to prove to you its failure to perform as a good food should.
You may recall the death of the famous ballplayer Lou Gehrig from a degenerative muscular disease. It is that kind of thing that results from chromatic degeneration. Today we are beginning to realize that vitamin E and the phospholipids in some animal fats will protect us from such a fate. Bone marrow, sweetbreads, and liver are about their only food sources we know of other than butter. Stomach ulcers are common in patients who have impaired ability to heal wounds. One definition of ulcer is that it is a situation where the stomach has a greater power to digest itself than to heal itself.
Milk too has not escaped this program of devitalization. Pasteurization is, in effect, the cooking of a food that should be used raw. It is one of the few raw animal foods available. What happens to its nutritional value when it is pasteurized? I can offer you a very good reference on that too. It is found in the Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery.3 It relates the results of a test on cats fed various combinations of raw meat, raw milk, cooked meat, and pasteurized milk. The results of tests on 900 cats over a period of years showed that:
- Feeding [the cats] pasteurized milk, even with raw meat, definitely impaired the health of the animals.
- Feeding them an entirely cooked diet caused unhealthy conditions to develop within three to six months. These included:
- Gingivitis, commonly called “pink tooth brush.”
- Abscesses of teeth and progressive loss of teeth.
- Lessened reproductive efficiency in the females: abortion common (25 percent in the first generation, 70 percent in the second); deliveries difficult, with many cats dying in labor. “Mortality of the kittens was high, frequently due to the failure of the mother to lactate. At times the mother steadily declined in health following the birth of the kittens, dying from some obscure tissue exhaustion about three months after delivery. Others experienced increasing difficulty with subsequent pregnancies.”
- Irritability. “The females were dangerous to handle, occasionally viciously biting the keeper.”
- “Sex interest was slack or perverted.”
- “Vermin and intestinal parasites abounded.”
- “Skin lesions and allergies were frequent, being progressively worse from one generation to the next.”
- Great increase in susceptibility to infections and degenerative disease. “Pneumonia and empyema were among the principal causes of natural death among the adult cats. Diarrhea, followed by pneumonia, took a heavy toll of the kittens. Osteomyelitis was also both common and often fatal. Cardiac lesions, some ascertained clinically during life, were frequent. Hyperopia and myopia, thyroid disease, nephritis, hepatitis, orchitis, oophoritis, paralysis, meningitis, cystitis, arthritis, and many other degenerative lesions familiar in human medicine were observed.”
- Impairment of hereditary endowment to offspring. “The kittens of the third generation were so degenerated that none of them survived the sixth month of life, thereby terminating the strain.”
- Progressive impairment of bone calcification. “The trabeculation of the bones became coarser and showed evidence of less calcium. In the third generation…some of the bones became as soft as rubber, and a true condition of osteogenesis imperfecta was present. The degenerative changes in the skull and mouth grew more pronounced in the third generation. The bones were very fine, with scarcely enough structure to hold the skull together. The teeth were smaller and much more irregular. When the permanent teeth erupted, the third-generation cats were frequently prostrated.”
Now, since milk is one of the few animal foods that is heat processed only for the convenience of the middlemen, as Mrs. Darlington has so ably demonstrated in her articles,4 why do people not use more certified raw milk and goat’s milk? Simply because they do not know what the terrible consequences of using pasteurized milk are. They do not know that pasteurized milk would be dear at any price—that its devastating effects on succeeding generations can never be properly compensated for, and they represent nature’s penalty for our ignorance and carelessness in neglecting to select sound and wholesome food.
[It is] a penalty that cannot be dodged or evaded, for we know of no way to counteract or restore the damages due to its use. Dr. Pottenger showed that succeeding generations [of the cats] could be gradually restored to normal by careful feeding, but the damaged individuals were just the types that flood our hospitals—incurable and often public charges. The death of second-generation cats at half their life span, usually from arthritis if not from some infectious disease, is terribly suggestive of why we have 20,000,000 arthritic victims in this country in various stages of disability. Would these people or their parents have used one drop of pasteurized milk if they had even suspected there might be such consequences?[spacer height=”20px”]The use of pasteurized milk has been promoted by milk distributors with the argument that it is necessary to prevent the spread of undulant fever. The basic dishonesty of that argument as been well shown up by Mrs. Darlington and her exposé, which should be read by every housewife. Further, medical authorities have shown where 2000 cows were once accidentally inoculated with an injection of undulant fever cultures, and although the cows developed the disease, the users of their milk were not affected—though considerable time elapsed before the accident was discovered.5
Dr. McCormick of Toronto, in the September 1947 Medical Record, shows us how infectious diseases have been becoming less and less prevalent in the last hundred years, thanks, he believes, entirely to better distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables. This has given us more of the vitamin C complex—the vitamin that activates our phagocytes and keeps them busy looking for invading disease germs.
The great increase in the degenerative diseases such as heart disease, arthritis, and cancer in the same period seems unquestionably due to the devitalization of the basic foods flour, sugar, and milk. And the pasteurization of milk has partly offset the gains in the vitamin C picture. One authority has estimated that pasteurization destroys each year as much of this vitamin in milk as is produced by the annual crop of citrus fruit in this country.
The relationship of malnutrition to cancer has been established by Dr. Davidson of Winnipeg, Canada,6 who fed mice on deficient foods and subjected them to irritants. They soon became so susceptible to cancer that every individual of the strain developed spontaneous cancer at a certain age without the irritant. By feeding the same strain of animals better foods, Dr. Davidson was able to eliminate the susceptibility to cancer—just as the cats fed raw milk progressively, generation by generation, lost the stigma of deformed bony structures and their susceptibility to arthritis and other disease.
Since these degenerative diseases are far less prevalent in countries such as China, where bleached flour, refined sugar, and pasteurized milk are practically unknown, we need no more evidence to prove to us that we are victims of preventable malnutrition. Only the discriminating housewife who is interested in learning the true function of foods can protect us from further harm in this direction.
References
1. Gullickson, Thor. W., and Chas. E. Calverley. “Cardiac Failure in Cattle on Vitamin-E-free Rations as Revealed by Electrocardiograms.”Science, vol. 104, no. 2701, pages 312–313, October 1946.
2. Ladd, E.F., and Stallings, R.E. “Bleaching of Flour.” Bulletin No. 72, North Dakota Government Agricultural Experiment Station, Fargo, North Dakota, USA, November 1906.
3. Pottenger, Francis M., Jr., MD, FACP. “The Effect of Heat-processed Foods and Metabolized Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of Experimental Animals.” American Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 467–485, August 1946.
4. Darlington, Jean Bullitt. “Why Milk Pasteurization?” The Rural New Yorker, March 15, 1947; May 3, 1947; July 5, 1947.
5. Strong. Nelson’s Encyclopedia of Medicine, chapter 44, vol. 2.
6. Davidson, J.R., MD. “Cancer: A Nutritional Deficiency.” Question Mark Magazine, February 1943. Published by Science Department, University of Manitoba.
Reprint references listed above are available at the following prices. [Pricing information retained for historical purposes.]
1. $.02
2. .02
3. .50 (contains four Kodachrome reproductions)
4. .10
6. .05
Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research
Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin[spacer height=”20px”]
[Case Study #2:] Case History of Arthritis
Chronicle of a Young Boy Whose Life Threatening Arthritis Was Reversed Through Food Based Vitamins[spacer height=”20px”]
[Lead newspaper report:][spacer height=”20px”]“Around Town”
By Hugh Park. The Atlanta Journal, Sunday, June 26, 1949.
When Warner Fryer was seventeen months old, he cried in his sleep form the pain that throbbed in his arms and legs. His mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy Warner Fryer of Sullivan Rd., College Park, would get up and try to soothe him, thinking that he was suffering from “growing pains” or the stomachache.
Then some terrible, feverish force began to bend his legs and arms. His arms drew up until his hands were near his shoulders, and his knees were pressed upward against his abdomen. One of the most wretched and agonizing of all diseases had seized him.
Today Warner is nine years old. He sits in a chair, his legs little more than bone, his knees swollen, hard knobs. He can open his mouth barely enough to eat. His mother grinds up his food and pushes it through an opening in his teeth.
One of Mrs. Fryer’s happiest memories is the day Warner was able to open his mouth wide enough so that she could see the tip of his tongue.
His eyes, once so blue, are now almost black from suffering. He weighs possibly 35 or 40 pounds. Doctors say that Warner is gradually drifting after such a long fight.
The nine-year-old boy has been in the hospital eight times with fevers of 105 and 106, and twice doctors thought his pain was nearly over because he seemed to be dying. But the acute attack [abated] for a while, and then the disease returned for a slow, [text omitted] campaign.
Sometimes Warner can move his finger enough [omitted] has an exceptional childhood talent. On Father’s Day [he] drew a picture of his father walking toward him. Under [the] picture was the greeting, “I Wish You the Happiest Father’s Day You Ever Had.” His father has spent everything he has [to] get Warner well. Among the child’s drawings is a [omitted] swollen and knotty hand. Unconscious of the irony, he has [written,] “Warner’s Hand. Age 8.”
Mrs. Fryer says he seldom complains. One time [omitted] were too much for Warner as he sat on the small [screened] porch and watched his dog romp around. Later, he told her, “[omitted] you didn’t know about it, but the other day I cried [omitted] to thinking about how much fun I could have had.”
[Photo of young boy with dog, with caption:] Warner Fryer and his dog, Pepper. Cried once when he saw dog romping. (See original for image.)[spacer height=”20px”]When Mayo Clinic announced the discovery of [omitted] a new hormone treatment that has given miraculous [results to] some arthritics, his doctor immediately wrote the clinic, and the family began raising money to obtain the [expensive] preparation. It was a bright new hope to save Warner’s [life].
Then, Mayo replied that no supplies of Compound [omitted] takes 30 separate chemical procedures to produce, would [omitted] for months, and that even the clinic is short of the [omitted] for experimental work.
May said there may be some of the compound [available for] Warner in a year or two, which might mean never.
[Follow-up newspaper report:][spacer height=”20px”]“Around Town: Enough Vitamins for Year Given Child”
By Hugh Park. The Atlanta Journal, Sunday, September 18, 1949.
Western Union
July 15, 1949
To: W.H. Stackhouse
601 Connally Building
Atlanta, Georgia
Suggest four tablets daily of Cataplex A, Cataplex C, and Rutaplex [Cyruta] with Biost in milkshakes as major diet other than fruit, with bananas preferred to more acid fruits.
Royal Lee,
Vitamin Products Company
VJ 283[spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] [Fifth article by Dr. Lee, from Vitamin News:]
Clinical Acidosis and Alkalosis[spacer height=”20px”]
The blood pH is supposed to remain “practically constant” according to our best textbooks. The physician who starts to check his patients, however, cannot concur. Instead of the normal figure of pH 7.3 to 7.5, he finds it varying from 7.2 to 7.8.1
The measurement of pH is attended with difficulty because blood loses CO2 and thereby rises in pH rapidly after it has been withdrawn. In 2 minutes a rise of 0.2 may occur.1 pH meters are available wherein the electrodes are built into a syringe, so the pH may be read directly before the blood is exposed to air (National Technical Laboratories, Pasadena, California).
The importance of clinical pH tests is illustrated by the following report of a pharmacist. He had been supplying for a number of months a capsule formula of aspirin, caffeine, phenacetin, and ammonium chloride to an arthritic patient, the remedy [proving] successful in controlling arthritic pains. The capsule dispensed was a standard formula of a pharmaceutical house, with a specific catalog number.
After receiving a renewed supply of the capsules, the patient returned two days later, complaining that they were ineffective and different from the previously used kind. On checking the records, it was found that the original formula had been revised, and the supposedly unnecessary ammonium chloride had been omitted. On supplying capsules of ammonium chloride along, the patient reported the usual successful results.
What was the biochemistry behind this? Simply that a high pH tends to throw calcium out of solution in the body fluids, and bursitis, arthritis, neuritis, lumbago, sciatica, and a host of other painful syndromes develop as a consequence. Cheilosis may occur and herpes simplex too, and other virus type diseases become active. The low calcium bicarbonate in the body fluids seems responsible; vitamins F and D as well as the C complex are also factors; their deficiency aggravates the situation. Allergies become acute—the calcium deficiency aspect of allergic sensitivity is well known. Normal rates of wound healing are greatly reduced; ulcers tend to become static.
The alkalosis-correcting effect of ammonium chloride is of course due to its decomposition into ammonia and hydrochloric acid in the blood after absorption, [whereby] the ammonia becomes urea, and the acid is available to reduce the pH. Calcium chloride seems to be a needed synergist, for if ammonium chloride is used alone for too long a time, calcium demand increases, no doubt by the conversion of other calcium forms in the blood to chloride. If the ammonium chloride is used in tablets or capsules, an equal amount of calcium chloride should accompany it. Five to twenty grains a day of the combined chlorides is the usual range of effective dosage.
Ammonium chloride is a natural constituent of gastric juice; calcium chloride is the form of calcium found in arrowroot starch. So both these materials are physiological therapeutic agents—factors common to body chemistry and not new substances foreign to the physiological economy (as are synthetics and antibiotics).
Merck’s Index, Fourth Edition says that ammonium chloride is useful in the treatment of the following: bronchial affections, hepatic congestion, pelvic cellulitis, muscular rheumatism, gout, sciatica, chronic glandular enlargement, hemicranias, senile gangrene, dysmenorrhea, and leukorrhea.
Calcium chloride is listed as useful in the treatment of hemorrhage, hemorrhagic endometritis, epistaxis, menorrhagia, erythema nodosum, tetanus, spasmophilia, blackwater fever, hay fever, asthma, hemophilia, albuminuria, nephritis, typhoid, coryza, tuberculosis, osteomalacia, scrofula, rickets, arthritis, spasm of glottis, infant convulsions, urticaria, eczema, and pruritis, among others.
All these effects are no doubt in the main supply accomplished by correcting the unbalanced state of the buffers and mineral salts in the tissue fluids. It will be noted that vitamin C complex is a desirable synergist in most of the conditions listed. Gout is mentioned as one situation where ammonium chloride may help. Recently, it has been discovered that the juice of cherries contains some active agent effective in gout, 4 to 6 ounces of the juice (preferably unsweetened, but it may be in the canned or cooked form) promoting relief within a few days, with consistent improvement. This is the first time that the possibility of gout being a deficiency disease has been suspected. We can say that the ingestion of sodium compounds—particularly sodium phosphate—is definitely aggravating. Gout patients should see that their diet contains a preponderance of potassium. Sodium promotes the precipitation of the gouty concentrations of sodium urate in the tissues.
A very important aspect of alkalosis is the fact that the habitual use of milk of magnesia promotes the condition. It also tends to cause epistaxis, very specifically. You would be surprised how many patients who ask for a remedy for nosebleed are using milk of magnesia as a laxative.
Citrus fruits, being of a highly alkaline ash and with a high content of organic acid (citric), need special attention. The first and immediate effect of ingestion of a few ounces of grapefruit or lemon juice is to lower (acidify) the blood pH. The patient with alkalosis feels temporarily better. But later in the day, after the citric acid has been destroyed by oxidation as a fuel (it is classed as a carbohydrate), the aggravation of the alkaline state becomes apparent. The temporary effect of the citric acid is to cause calcium to be picked up—no doubt from the bone reserves—and after the pH change this calcium is deposited elsewhere, in physiologically undesirable spots. The treatment of bursitis [thus] becomes obviously simple. No longer can we recommend X-ray treatment with equanimity. Let the physiological treatment be the preferred method.
Guanidine, a fatigue and tissue poison and end product of the breakdown of creatine (combated by vitamin E complex, which stops the loss of creatine from the tissues), is the most potent organic alkaline substance known. It specifically precipitates calcium (recall our comment that its diffusion from tired heart muscle into coronary vessels is the cause of the precipitation therein of calcium) and is normally reconverted into creatine by the influence of the parathyroid hormone with the assistance of the thyroid.2 Blood guanidine levels rise eightfold after parathyroidectomy.3
We can see where the guanidine effect as a fatigue poison is contributory to arthritis, sciatica, etc., the patient often telling us how fatigue aggravates his sate of misfortune. Also, local inflammation can release guanidine, its presence ensuring a spastic state of blood vessels and contributing to gangrene of necessity.
There seems to be no doubt that the effect of the oxygen-metabolizing vitamins—the C and E complexes—is vital in [preventing] these morbid reactions by preventing the degradation of tissue elements into guanidine. Where vitamin E deficiency has caused the tissue demand for oxygen to rise up to 250 percent of normal,4 the [resulting] augmented release of end products certainly includes guanidine, and we see here how the finding of Dr. Shute of London, Ontario—that vitamin E reduces capillary hemorrhage—may be rationalized.
A vicious cycle is set up. The more oxygen demanded, the less supplied—by reason of the constrictive effect of guanidine on blood vessels. Degeneration—rupture of capillaries—is inevitable. Vitamin C promotes a greater oxygen supply; this is also why it is good in gangrene (especially the diabetic type) and in “capillary fragility.” (The true antifragility vitamin is vitamin P, which provides a special calcium to promote collagen formation.)
Vitamin F opposes the toxic effect of guanidine by providing more of the diffusible calcium (from the colloidal blood reserves) that is precipitated out of the body fluids by guanidine, thereby ameliorating the spastic, nervous, and irritative (allergic) reactions.
The thyroid hormone physiologically promotes the resorption and dissolution of protein structures that have reached the end of their physiological cycle (a la the theory of the dynamic state of living tissue, [they are] replaced and rebuilt at specific time intervals). This is why in children thyroid deficiency is the cause of delayed development. In the adult a hyperactive thyroid again can cause toxicosis by promoting more tissue poisons than the eliminative system can tolerate. In old people this may be a critical situation, thyroid [hormone] sometimes becoming a violent poison—only because the normal synergists are not available to maintain the desirable cycle of activity.
We can see that vitamin F is vital to the prevention of this toxicosis. It tells why the thyroid puts its secretion into the blood after ingestion of vitamin F to the extent of a doubling of the iodine of the blood.5 The normal activity of the gland had been blocked by reason of F deficiency. In this blocking we have apparently the explanation for prostate hypertrophy. Once the thyroid is permitted to secrete, its hormone makes quick work of the fibrous tissue collected in the prostate.
This also explains why we consider the vitamin F and F2 complexes the most friendly vitamins for the older person. The F2 is a more highly developed compound of the basic F (a sensitized fatty acid), in which the fatty acid is combined into a phospholipid molecule that appears to have a specific function of catalyzing protective (insulating) layers in nerve tissue and [illegible] nuclear structures, thereby protecting the basic control of metabolic activity. Loss of appetite and wasting disease suggest the possible need for this vitamin. Appetite restoration is immediate where the deficiency exists (in adults and children alike).
There seems to be as much clinical acidosis as alkalosis.1 The effects of acidosis may be aggravated by a diabetic state, wherein organic acids cannot be oxidized normally but instead must be combined with reserved alkaline salts and excreted.5 Where sodium bicarbonate is administered to relieve diabetic acidosis, the urine should be watched and dosage stopped when a neutral urine pH is reached, according to this authority. Normally, blood glutamine provides ammonia for this purpose. Beetroot and beet leaf are the best vegetable sources of glutamine, which is very high if the plant is grown on high-ammonia-content soils. (Plant cells force glutamine to dispose of excess ammonia.)
When an abnormal pH is found, it must be considered only as a sign that something is wrong. Symptoms may be entirely different from patient to patient for the same abnormal pH value because there is an infinite number of combinations of chemical situations that can alter blood pH—as many as there are different acids and alkalis—just as a plump patient may be bloated with gas, water logged, fat, or hypermuscular. It is a preliminary classification, not a final one.
The pH of the blood is a resultant of the forces acting on it. The regulation of the blood CO2 by the respiration control center of the brain is a major factor. The parathyroid, by eliminating the alkaline guanidine, and the kidney, by eliminating mineral salts (both acid and alkaline as may be required), no doubt exercise a supplementary control.
The clinical value of vinegar is more or less well known as an alternative of merit. Creatine is methylguanidine acetic acid, and the regeneration of guanidine into creatine requires acetic acid. In the toxemias of pregnancy, guanidine is a critical factor, and vinegar is often craved by the patient—very logically, it would seem. Cider vinegar being the preferred form, no doubt the malic acid of the apple is a factor, calcium malate being a catalyzer of polyphenol detoxification.6
References
1. “The Importance of the Acid-Alkali Balance of the Blood.” Trans. Am. Therapeutic Soc., pp. 59–66, 1941–1942.
2. Lee & Hanson. Protomorphology, p. 123. Lee Foundation, 1947.
3. Robertson. Principles of Biochemistry, p. 436. Lea & Febiger, 1924.
4. Houchin & Matill. Jol. Biol. Chem., 146:301, 1942.
5. Sellards. Principles of Acidosis. Harvard Univ. Press, 1917.
6. Robertson. Principles of Biochemistry, p. 466.
Vitamin G Complex
The first intimation that the vitamin G complex existed occurred when it was found that there was doubt about the identity of the “beriberi-curing complex and the growth promoting factor” in foods (1921).1 Note that at this early day the word “complex” was used. The growth factors were classed later as the G group of vitamins, and because they were separable by precipitation with alcohol from the beriberi-preventing complex, it was obvious that they were protein in nature. Later, the proteins were found to be enzymes, and riboflavin and a dozen or so other flavins were split off and identified as essential components, along with the pellagra-preventive group and the anemia-preventive group.
Where did the idea become extant that a vitamin was a single chemical substance? Only after fractions were synthetically made and sold with the idea that such fractions were of vitamin value. No natural vitamin has ever been made, to my knowledge, that was a single, synthesizable fraction. It is impossible even by repeated crystallization to eliminate accompanying factors that also take part in physiological processes, such as in case of natural thiamine, which cannot be separated from the B4 fraction, which is essential to prevent the nerve paralysis that develops in beriberi along with the polyneuritis.2
The original G complex, then, contained that entire group of B vitamins that were linked with enzyme systems. Today, the family has so increased that we find B15 the last mentioned of the group—and most of these subdivisions are in their own right complexes too. Eddy and Dalldorf in 1937 defined the G complex as including the flavins and the pellagra-preventive factors (the pyridoxine complex and the niacin complex). They also suggested the inclusion of the antidermatitis factor, vitamin H—later called biotin.
So much for the historical side. What we need to know today is how to identify the type of deficiency reaction we must look for to keep our health in this funny world of counterfeit foodstuffs. There are various vitamin G complexes on the market. When you feel the need for one, be sure to get one that is reputed to perform as it should, for the clinical test on human subjects is the only way to be sure that the right factors are present. Each species may need a different kind of some of the vitamin G components, so animal tests are useless in the case of this group of vitamins.3
Symptoms of G complex deficiency include:
- Roughness, cracking, and exfoliation of skin on soles of the feet.
- Excessive oiliness of skin of face and nose.
- Cheilosis (cracking of skin and lesions at angles of mouth; dry, chapped, fissured lips; soreness and burning of lips, mouth, and tongue).
- Allergic tendencies, probably secondary to pancreas inhibition and reduced ability to digest proteins, permitting such proteins to enter the blood at lesions in bowel. Such lesions, leading to mucus colitis, are common, first noted as burning and irritation in rectal area or as alterations of constipation and diarrhea.
- Fatigue, no stamina; patient tires easily and may be mentally low, pessimistic, cannot concentrate, complains of “weakness and general discomfort.”
- Sensitivity to sunburn, dermatitis in forms that show symmetrical determination—a result of spinal cord changes that alter skin reactivity in specific areas.
- Engorged capillaries of cornea of eye; reddened tongue with similar engorgement.
- Susceptibility to lesions secondary to engorged capillaries, such as coronary thrombosis, blood sludging, and cerebral hemorrhage or thrombosis.
- Liver disease, cirrhosis, and loss of fat-metabolizing ability follow lack of the G complex; thiamine in its synthetic form causes this condition unless accompanied by the natural G complex factors. First symptoms may be edema (swollen ankles) or unbalanced sex hormone status, due to failure of the diseased liver to properly eliminate or detoxify estrone alpha-estradiol.4
- Hyperestrogenic reactions: in the female, menorrhagia, metrorrhagia, cystic mastitis, premenstrual tension, hyperadrenia; in the male, gynecomastia (common among war prisoners), hyperadrenia, possibly hypertension.
The general effect of the G complex deficiency is fatigue, due to capillary engorgement and stagnation. This brings on the tendency to blood sludging5 and the consequent tendency to form thrombi and the dangers of coronary thrombosis and cerebral thrombosis. It is well to recall that cancer too has been called the disease of stagnation; it seems to never occur in tissues supplied with normal circulation unless a local supply of toxins is present. Further, recent animal tests demonstrate that cancer is far more easily created in those animals that get a low-vitamin diet than in animals getting natural, unrefined foods.6
Psoriasis is an old and stubborn ailment that often responds well to the use of the G complex. Allergies too often disappear in a few weeks under the use of this vitamin group. The liver produces a detoxifying hormone discovered by the Japanese that they call yakriton,7 which seems to be a physiological antihistamine. It is probably that this function of the liver is impaired in G complex deficiency.
Without this natural antihistamine, we are more susceptible to colds and hasten to try synthetic substitutes that have far less effect, and require our attention to something we would never think about, if we had not been cheated of the right vitamin content in our food.
As to the synthetic enrichments supposed to take the place of the natural, never accept that smooth argument. Tests made on such synthetic “enrichments” show that their effect is to actually reduce the already low nutritional values of the impoverished product. Test animals died quicker on the “enriched” diet than on the unenriched.8 The millions of dollars spent advertising such products do not make the claims true. Careful tests on human subjects confirm the results.9 One of the strange facts of modern life is how people will believe advertising propaganda at the expense of ten to twenty years off their life span.
Synthetic vitamins may have an important place as drugs. They are of no possible value as foods according to all available tests; they act to destroy nutritional values instead. Our government should follow the example of Canada, where synthetic products of all kinds are barred from any food use.
[References:][spacer height=”20px”]1. Eddy, Walter H. The Vitamine Manual, p. 24. Williams & Wilkins, 1921.
2. Stepp, Kuhnau & Schroeder. The Vitamins and Their Clinical Application, English translation, p. 29. Vitamin Products Co., 1938.
3. Vitamin News, p. 122. Vitamin Products Co.
4. Williams, Eakin, Beerstecher, and Shive. “The Biochemistry of B Vitamins.” Am. Chem. Soc., Monograph 110, p. 382, 1950.
5. Knisely, Block, Eliot, and Warner. “Sludged Blood.” Science, Nov. 7, 1947.
6. Engel, Copeland. Cancer Research, 12:211–213, 1952.
7. Horiuti and Ohsako. Tokohu Jol. Exper. Research, 24:505, 1934.
8. Morgan, Agnes Fay. “The Effect of Imbalance in Filtrate Fraction of B Complex in Dogs.” Science, p. 261, March 14, 1941.
9. J.A.M.A., 125:2, 175, May 14, 1944.
The B Vitamins (as of November 1952)
B1: Thiamine (1912)
B2: Riboflavin (1933)
B3: Pantothenic acid (1938)
B4: Antiparalysis factor (adenylic acid? cocarboxylase?)
B5: Niacinamide (1934)
B6: Pyrodoxine (1934)
B7: Biotin (1935)
B8: Inositol (1928)
B9: Folic acid and paraminobenzoic acid (1945) (latter acts by promoting synthesis of the former)
B10: Feathering factor for chickens (Elvehjem, 1944) – unknown composition
B11: Growth factor (animal protein factor?) – unknown composition
B12: Organic cobalt (1948)
B13: Growth factor (1948) – unknown composition
B14: An antianemic factor, essential to cell growth; may interchange with B9 (1949)
B15: A universally required cell oxidase (Sajous’ adrenoxidase?) – pangamic acid (1948)
Copies of references 3, 5, 8, and 9 available free upon request. Order as “G Complex References.”
Other literature available on these subjects from the Lee Foundation, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin, at the price listed.
1. How Our Government Subsidizes Malnutrition and Disease – Bulletin 1-49…..5 cents
2. Butter, Vitamin E, and the “X” Factor of Dr. Price – Bulletin 1-50….5 cents
3. Three Opinions of the “Death Food” Propaganda – Bulletin 1-52….3 cents
4. The Effect of Aluminum Compounds in Foods – Lee Foundation Report No. 5….5 cents
5. How and Why Synthetic Poisons Are Being Sold as Imitations of Natural Foods and Drugs – Lee Foundation Report No. 6….5 cents
6. Cancer: A Nutritional Deficiency – Reprint No. 18….1 cent
7. Quotations on Vitamins from “The United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook for 1939 – Reprint No. 22….3 cents
8. Recent Conclusions in Malnutrition – Reprint No. 30….1 cent
9. The Battlefront for Better Nutrition – Reprint No. 30E….1 cent
10. It Can Happen Here: How Our Food Is Damaged in Processing – Reprint No. 30F….1 cent
Entire set of ten reprints – 25 cents. Order directly from Lee Foundation, Milwaukee 3, Wis.
[All reprint ordering information retained for historical purposes only.][spacer height=”20px”]The statements herein may not agree with currently accepted medical opinion; nevertheless the publisher believes them sound.
Edited by Royal Lee. Vitamin News, November 1952. Vitamin Products Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Printed in USA.
