Historical Archives

Trophopathic Diseases (or Systemic Nutritional Disturbances) as Reflected in the Mouth

By Grant H. Laing, MD

Summary: An excellent ten-page review of the signs of malnutrition that dentists routinely and literally overlook. The early nutrition pioneers, many of them dentists, knew full well that malnutrition creates specific lesions in the oral cavity. This article from the Fortnightly Review of the Chicago Dental Society is one of the earliest papers presented on the subject. The editor’s note, written by an MD, still applies today: “At first glance this article…appears to be completely foreign to dentistry. However, we assure our readers that if they will but read it, they will be fascinated by it.” Note: Trophopathic means “due to derangement of nutrition,” a term we should hear more often given that malnutrition is the primary cause of most degenerative disease. Reprint 51, 1949.

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Historical Archives

Certain Nutritional Disorders of Laboratory Animals Due to Vitamin E Deficiency

By Alwin M. Pappenheimer, MD

Summary: A fascinating snapshot of some of the early animal research testing vitamin E deficiency. In this 1940 lecture, Dr. Alwin Pappenheimer details the grave and varied muscular and neural dystrophies that result in different species fed a diet lacking vitamin E. The young are particularly susceptible, he notes, often showing no symptoms for months after birth before being suddenly struck with neural or muscular dysfunction—the latter a condition he terms “nutritional muscular dystrophy.” In perhaps the most disturbing finding, a partial vitamin E deficiency in the diet of pregnant rats was shown to affect only the offspring—not the mothers, suggesting that what we today attribute to genetic inheritance is actually a problem of inherited malnutrition. In the words of Dr. Pappenheimer: “The fact that a partial deficiency of vitamin E in the mother may manifest itself only in the offspring seems to me to be one of the most significant lessons that one can draw from this work. May not similar things happen in human diseases and help explain the supposed hereditary or familial character of certain nervous and muscular disorders?” From Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital, 1941. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 57.

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Historical Archives

The Chemical Background of the Relation Between Malnutrition and Heredity

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: It’s been said that Dr. Royal Lee’s theories were typically fifty years ahead of their time. In this astounding lecture from 1956, the great pioneer of nutrition science presents two “radical” ideas now considered revolutions in scientific thought. First, Dr. Lee challenges the principle of classic genetics theory that, barring a mutation in a person’s DNA, that individual will pass on a clean genetic slate to his or her children. Instead, Dr. Lee states, any defect caused to a person during his or her lifetime by malnutrition is likely to be inherited by the individual’s future children—a fact thoroughly substantiated by the new science of epigenetics. Dr. Lee then discusses the science behind his remarkable Theory of Protomorphology, the first known account of autoimmune disorders. According to Dr. Lee’s theory, the growth and repair of body tissues is controlled by a careful balance between, on one hand, growth-promoting antigens produced by (and unique to) each type of tissue and, on the other hand, antibodies produced by the body’s autoimmune system. If the amount of antibodies exceeds the normal balance, then those antibodies attack the tissue—or an “autoimmune reaction” occurs. Though it would take decades for conventional science to catch up with Dr. Lee, today autoimmune reactions are considered a leading cause of disease and death in America. From Natural Food and Farming, 1956. 

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Historical Archives

Protomorphology: The Principles of Cell Auto-Regulation

By Royal Lee and William A. Hanson

Summary: The complete book on the subject of the Protomorphogen. In this seminal work, Dr. Royal Lee connects the dots between the endocrine, nutritional, and cellular control mechanisms of the living human cell as well as how growth and repair in the body are regulated. This is the basis for Dr. Lee’s theories of autoimmune disorders, in which he detailed the immune system’s ability and tendency, under conditions such as nutrient deficiency, to target the body’s own tissue. Lee’s visionary tome was released decades before any understanding of autoimmune disorder was acknowledged or accepted by medicine or any other field of healing. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1947.

View PDF: Protomorphology: The Principles of Cell Auto-Regulation

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Historical Archives

Raw Food Vitamins

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In this article from Health Culture magazine, Dr. Royal Lee describes in detail the negative effects of cooking and pasteurizing foods, specifically with regard to the destruction of vitamins, amino acids such as lysine and glutamine, and enzymes such as the phosphatase group, which help free up calcium in raw milk for absorption and aid its digestion (phosphatase is destroyed in pasteurized milk). Phosphatase also neutralizes the infamous compound phytic acid, so abundant in whole grains, that binds minerals and prevents them from being taken up by the body. Lee also discusses the vital role of vitamin E in nutrition. Reprint 30C, 1956.

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Historical Archives

The Role of Some Nutritional Elements in the Health of the Teeth and Their Supporting Structures

By John A. Myers

Summary: A remarkable overview of some of the great, ignored research in nutrition history. First, author John Myers details the pioneering works of Dr. Weston A. Price and Dr. Francis Pottenger Jr., who in the 1930s showed clearly that tooth decay is but one symptom in an overall debilitation of human health brought on by the consumption of processed foods—a degeneration that includes diminished resistance to bacterial infection, onset of any number of degenerative diseases, and the alarming introduction of birth defects and mental illness in offspring of people who eat “modern” foods. Myers then touches on the famous studies of residents of Deaf Smith, Texas, the “county without a dentist,” and shows how these studies were used to justify the mass fluoridation of water in America despite their evidence suggesting something quite to the contrary. Finally, Myers draws form his own twenty-five years of clinical experience to illustrate the obvious practical effectiveness in preventing and reversing tooth decay and other dental disease by supplementing the diet with essential nutrients such as vitamins A, B6, D, and E, the minerals zinc, iodine, and magnesium, and the essential fatty acids. A true classic on alternative health. From Annals of Dentistry. Reprint 107, 1958.

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Historical Archives

Prenatal Nutrition and Birth Defects

By Mark R. Anderson

Summary: “The first words spoken by a woman upon learning she is pregnant should be, ‘Am I well nourished?'” writes nutrition researcher and educator Mark Anderson. In this sweeping article, Anderson recounts the findings of some of the giants of early nutrition research—Sir Robert McCarrison, Dr. Weston Price, Dr. Royal Lee—to show that the key to being well nourished is a diet of whole, unprocessed foods prepared “in obedience to time-honored dietary traditions.” Indeed, regardless of which of the many tribal societies these intrepid pioneers observed, it appeared that “isolation from Western civilization and its foods of commerce…afforded a diet that protected health.” Unsurprisingly, birth defects among these societies were virtually nonexistent. And how did these traditional diets compare with the current recommendations of our public health officials? “[They] looked nothing like our modern USDA Food Pyramid,” Anderson writes, “unless, perhaps, if it is turned upside down and all the foodstuffs are consumed in their unrefined state.” This is an incredibly important document about not just prenatal nutrition but the core of nutrition in general: what to eat. From Whole Food Nutrition Journal, circa 2000.

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