Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone. Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
The best recent example of using modern technology to improve food originated during World War II, when enrichment of flour was brought into general use. It was generally conceded that whole-wheat flour was more nutritious than white flour, but for many reasons whole-wheat bread was not generally available or used. Perhaps only 10 percent of the population used whole-wheat bread. It was agreed in 1941 that the addition of small quantities of thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (B2), and niacinamide (B3) to white flour would restore some of the nutrient loss resulting from the milling process. In 1961, Dr. Norman Joliffe was honored by the American Bakers Association and the American Institute of Baking; both groups concluded that the introduction of enrichment was a major event in the history of nutrition because it not only contributed to making the people of the United States stronger and healthier, but it also marked a great new step forward in preventive medicine.
Certainly it has decreased the prevalence of pellagra, but it is also true that the enrichment program developed over sixty years ago is not necessarily the best one, and that it could have been much improved by paying more attention to recent developments in nutrition. However, no amount enrichment would be as good as going back to the original whole-grain product. In other words, the white flour would have to be enriched not only with all the vitamins that have been removed, but also with the minerals and with the fibrous part of the kernel that has been removed. Ironically, the situation seems quite different today, with the official medical societies opposing the use of vitamin tablets by the general population, probably spurred, aided, and abetted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
ALLERGIES
The first rule is to avoid junk food, and the second basic rule is to avoid food that makes you sick. Whether one is dealing with an allergy or a toxicity is irrelevant—the patient suffers just as much. Clinical ecologists have specialized in detecting these foods and in developing treatments. However, physicians need not be clinical ecologists before they can begin identifying foods that patients are allergic to. The foods are identified by history and by a number of tests.
Patients are asked about their diets, their food preferences, and about foods that have made them sick. Foods most likely to be a problem are those consumed in large amounts—the staples. People generally are very fond of these foods. If a person loves cheese, there may be a cheese allergy. If that same person hates milk, it is almost certain that an allergy is present. They have learned that milk causes unpleasant symptoms, such as plugged sinuses, runny nose, and stomach pain, while the cheese, to which they are just as allergic, causes only fatigue and depression. They may also love milk and consume up to eight glasses per day. The cause of trouble may be any food.
Once the diet history is completed, it may be possible to identify all the allergic or toxic foods. These foods are then avoided for at least six months. If the diagnosis has been correct, these patients will be much better or well. After six months, it may be possible to eat these foods infrequently, perhaps not more often than every four days. However, some allergies are fixed and are never lost.
If the history does not elicit all the allergic or toxic foods, elimination diets can be used. There are a large number of these and they range from four-day water fasts to specially selected diets that use only foods seldom or never consumed. If the elimination diet is successful, the patient will get better. Then, individual foods can be reintroduced. If a food causes a reaction, that food is again eliminated for six months, as before. A number of other tests are used, such as sublingual tests with food extracts, titered intradermal tests, and blood tests for immunoglobulin and for cytotoxicity. For these tests, the patient may need to be referred to an allergy specialist, especially if the specialist is also familiar with clinical ecology.
Animals, including human beings, can cope with short-term intake deficiency, including starvation of either calories or nutrients. The permanent effect will depend on the particular nutrient and whether it can be stored in the body for some time. If the deficiency is prolonged, it will become a chronic deficiency or, more accurately, a dependency. We have previously referred to pellagra patients who did not recover with the usual small doses of B3 that made others well who had been sick for a short time; this was also found to be true in studies with dogs. The message of vitamin dependency was either never grasped or was discarded by nutritionists. It was proven again by prisoner of war camp experiences, which were terribly stressful. The prisoners suffered from deficiencies of calories, protein, fats, and all the other essential nutrients. The Hong Kong veterans whom I treated did not regain their health until they were back on normally good diets supplemented with large doses of niacin. One year’s exposure to the Asian camps aged these soldiers at least four years. There is no agreed-upon figure with respect to the time needed for a deficiency to become a dependency. Dr. Cleave estimated twenty years, because he found that it took about twenty years of the bad (high-sugar, low-nutrient) diet to cause sugar metabolic syndrome.
There is a connection between chronic food allergies and the development of nutrient dependencies. The best example was a study showing that supplemental zinc taken with milk was not absorbed. The number of patients with chronic diseases (such as depression or schizophrenia) who are allergic to dairy products and who show evidence of zinc deficiency is remarkable. These signs were first described by Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer, and include such indications as white areas in the fingernails, stretch marks on the skin, growing pains in childhood, severe PMS, and very pale skin. It is likely that chronic inflammation caused by inappropriate foods for many years interferes with normal function of the intestine and prevents the absorption of many essential nutrients. It is essential that these people be supplemented with nutrients to restore what they have been deficient in for so long.
Textbooks in clinical ecology provide complete descriptions of the many diseases that are caused by allergies and are so often misdiagnosed by physicians who do not think about allergies. One recent clinical case demonstrates how serious this can be. A teenage girl had suffered from convulsions, diagnosed as epilepsy, since childhood, but no neurologist was able to help her. Then, she began to suffer from repeated episodes of psychosis, for which she was given antipsychotic drugs. Her weight soared to 250 pounds. Fifty percent of her calories came from dairy products. On a dairy-free diet, she started to lose weight, her psychotic episodes decreased, and she was free of convulsions in a few weeks.
Many long-term studies show the damaging effects of chronic malnutrition. For example, Dr. J. R. Galler, director of the Center for Behavioral Development and Mental Retardation at Boston University School of Medicine, studied the effect of constant malnutrition on many generations of animals.9 She used descendants of a colony of malnourished rats begun in the mid-1960s. Animals born of undernourished mothers were smaller, weighed less, had behavioral problems, and were more susceptible to disease. On the same diet, there was a steady decline for eight generations. After that, there was no further deterioration. When the animals were given an adequate diet, it took four generations before they were rehabilitated. Her human studies showed the deterioration within one generation (about twenty years) when children were living on poor diets. This suggests that on a steady poor diet, deterioration will continue for over 100 years. Can any society afford to wait so long?
SUMMARY
The objective of orthomolecular nutrition is to provide the foods to which we have been adapted by evolution; to supplement these foods with additional quantities of the nutrients that are deficient in modern diets; and to provide even higher quantities of nutrients for people, especially sick people, whose needs are greater than average.
Good nutrition need not be very complicated. For millions of years, our ancestors and wild animals did pretty well in knowing what to eat, without any training. They were not more intelligent; they simply had no choice. They ate what they had adapted to. We have introduced a choice by damaging our diet and providing what appears to be food but is not. To return to our previous state of consumption—what we can be healthy with—there are two simple rules:
• Eat no junk food
• Avoid foods that make you sick