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Pharmacology and Trophology: How They Differ in Principle and Practice
The following is a transcription of the May 1960 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally published by Standard Process Laboratories.
Also in this issue:
- A Note on “Unfitting the Unborn”
- Smallpox and How It Is Transmitted
- Q&A
- Point of Interest (Urate Calculi)
- High Points of Vasculin
Pharmacology and Trophology: How They Differ in Principle and Practice
Pharmacologists who try to apply their methods to the study of nutritional problems certainly stumble into the most interesting dilemmas. Dr. Ancel Keys’s recent attempt to evaluate the effect of vitamin F as a cholesterol metabolizer, as reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July/August 1959, is one that we will now discuss.
Using a purified arachidonic acid (instead of a natural complex) in massive doses, he found that it started to lower the blood cholesterol in human subjects after five days, but then the cholesterol rose during the next seven days of continued high dosage and kept on rising for about two weeks after the administration of the arachidonic acid was discontinued. After that there was a progressive decline in blood cholesterol for two weeks, to levels below any otherwise reached during the test.
The vitamin F complex in nutritional amounts (not the massive drug dosages) is well known to progressively lower blood cholesterol. The most recent review of this subject can be found in Lancet, 2:749, November 1959.
Overdoses of some refined vitamin components, isolated from natural complexes, are well known to cause a reverse effect biochemically. In The Vitamins in Medicine (Bicknell and Prescott), the authors stress the reverse effect of pure tocopherol relative to the effect of the natural vitamin E complex: the pure product in overdosage causes bone decalcification, whereas the normal action of the natural vitamin is to aid bone calcification. The true effect of the arachidonic acid was exhibited by the lowering of the cholesterol level at the beginning of the test, and the lowering after the high dosage was discontinued and the body level of the vitamin fell to physiological levels.
That is why physiological dosages of natural vitamin E complex (as supplied by the Therapeutic Foods Laboratory or Vitamin Products Company, in tablet form) promptly control muscle cramps, while drug dosages of tocopherol aggravate such cramps and, in fact, may cause them.
Refined sugar is a common cause of tachycardia and heart overload (a laboring heart that refuses to calm down even after the patient retires). Why? Refined sugar has lost the potassium that is high in the unrefined, brown sugar. Alfalfa tea or tablets of Organic Minerals (aka Minaplex) promptly relieve the condition. The reason for this is that potassium is necessary as a synergist in storing sugar in the muscle cells. If potassium is deficient in the bloodstream because of excess ingestion of refined sugar, an imbalance in autonomic nerve control is caused that may end in paroxysmal tachycardia. We know of no other cause for this very common syndrome. This is another good example of the asininity of meddling with natural food complexes.
Many clinical symptoms can be found in the patient who lacks vitamin F. In fact it is seldom necessary to run a blood cholesterol estimation. He may have a weak or absent second sound over some area of the heart. (We believe a doctor of any school of thought who fails to check every patient with a stethoscope or Endocardiograph is as guilty of criminal negligence as the filling station attendant who fails to check the oil level in the automobile engine. An alert doctor can double his practice in a matter of months by detecting heart lesions and functional disorders resulting from simple deficiencies and curing them. We know from thirty years of experience that 95 percent of these cases can be cured.)
Often, the second sound returns within ten minutes after two tablets of Cataplex F complex are administered. (The tablets must be chewed to get this quick effect. Skipped beats, extra systoles, auricular fibrillations, and murmurs often disappear just as quickly after the chewing of two natural B complex [Cataplex B] tablets.)
But we must stress the point—apparently unknown to Dr. Keys—that the most critical index of vitamin F deficiency is the protein-bound iodine, which may rise 200 percent after the ingestion of a few tablets of the natural F complex, effective even though it is about one five-thousandth the amount of arachidonic acid that Dr. Keys used. This index of deficiency was reported in 1941, in Lee Foundation Report No. 1, together with clinical evidence of the value of the vitamin F complex in relieving prostate enlargement.
This places the F complex in the category of a thyroid synergist and undoubtedly brings up the possibility that without the F the thyroid is unable to function normally.
Similarly, tyrosinase deficiency (due to lack of natural vitamin C complex) can impair the adrenal function, the adrenals being essential partners of the thyroid. The C complex is an effective remedy for thyrotoxicosis, restoring the endocrine balance through its support of adrenal function. It is through this same effect that the C complex has earned its reputation for promoting stamina and helping the victim of asthenia. If you want to test this effect, try the C complex the next time you are tired. In twenty minutes two or three tablets may restore your zest for action where you have used up your resources. (Chew them up—remember Fletcher? We are talking about food not drugs.)
No doubt the pharmacologist will call our dosage of vitamin F a “homeopathic” quantity. The homeopaths do get results with their microscopic dosages. Read Dr. Shadman’s book Who Is Your Doctor and Why for an accurate survey of homeopathy. No doctor can study the results obtainable from homeopathy without finding remedies he will use to the end of his days. And the homeopath understands the effects of food factors better than anyone else. He was the first to discover the essential minerals and the effects of their deficiency.
A Note on “Unfitting the Unborn”
“There is hardly a mental disease which is not influenced unfavorably by alcoholic habits. They lend a tremendous impetus to the retrogressive changes in senility, and, as has been said, the acquisition of alcoholism by defectives often results in acute mental symptoms when none need to have occurred. Statistics collected independently by several investigators show that the parents of nearly 50 percent of defective children were alcoholics. It is held by many psychiatrists that no other single cause of imbecility and idiocy except mental defectiveness in the parent can compare with alcoholism in the parents…” (Milton J. Rosenau in Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, Appletons, p. 302).
And do not forget that there is no congenital physical defect found in babies that cannot be created in test animals by deliberately controlled malnutrition.
For more on this subject, ask for my future “Unfitting the Unborn” and Lee Foundation Reprints Nos. 51, 57, 66A, and 66C—free on request.
Smallpox and How It Is Transmitted
Epidemics of smallpox once killed millions of people. Dr. Milton Rosenau tells us that at one time it was often fatal to 50 percent of its victims. Now it has almost disappeared. He states, “We are still ignorant of the precise mode by which smallpox is conveyed…One may safely live next door to a smallpox hospital that is well screened and properly managed” (Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, Appletons).
It is a definite fact that either vaccination with cowpox virus or inoculation with smallpox for the production of immunity requires the introduction of the virus by an incision of the skin. That lends great weight to Dr. Campbell’s finding that smallpox is transmitted by bedbug bites. (See his book Bats, Mosquitoes and Dollars, Lee Foundation, $3.50.) As health officer for the city of San Antonio, Texas, he had occasion to frequently isolate and treat cases of smallpox where the infection had been brought in over the border. His operatives always found bedbugs present in the living quarters of the victims. Dr. Campbell was unable to find any instances of transmission of the disease where the bedbug was not present. He had no restrictions on the visiting of relatives with the smallpox patients, and no infectivity was found by such contacts in a number of years’ experience.
The bedbug has been proven to transmit relapsing fever and kala-azar and, according to Dr. Rosenau, is strongly suspected of transmitting leprosy.
Question and Answer
Q. I have been told garlic oil and castor oil are good to promote hair growth if rubbed into the scalp. Is this true?
A. Yes, garlic oil is a wonderful hair tonic. I knew of a medical man, who saw its effects in China, who tried to separate the hair-growing factor from the odoriferous principle. He finally concluded the effect was due to the same thing, so he gave up the attempt to make a hair tonic from the stuff.
All-natural plant oils seem to be good for the hair, including wheat germ oil. Oils (all vegetable and most animal oils and fats) all contain protectors of the cell blueprints, so it is easy to understand their value in this connection.
Thyroid extract is often used in hair tonics too. It releases these blueprint factors that stimulate growth. Vitamin F often stops falling hair—it is a thyroid activator and probably acts by that route.
Mustard plasters have been used to promote hair growth. Mustard is, like garlic, a circulation stimulant. Maybe the irritating factor in castor oil that promotes peristalsis is the active principle.
In most of these remedies, however, we are getting more into pharmacology than nutrition. We have no wonder food to suggest—I could use some myself! Our endocrine regression as we get older, no doubt aggravated by deficiencies, is unquestionably the cause.
—Royal Lee
Points of Interest (Urate Calculi)
The following news item falls into the category of cherry juice in the treatment of gout (see “Cherry Diet Control for Gout and Arthritis,” by L.W. Blau, reprint free upon request*). From J.A.M.A., 128/78, January 2, 1960:
Solution of Urate Calculi – At the meeting of the Society of Physicians in Vienna on October 30, B. Bibus reported that by chance the observation was made that large urate calculi in the renal pelvis, which might have been considered an indication for surgical removal, could frequently be dissolved by the administration of one or two lemons daily, given in the form of lemonade, for several months. The success of this therapy was checked by roentgenograms. In addition to therapy with lemons, a purine-free diet was prescribed, and the patient was advised to refrain from the ingestion of alcohol…In patients with chronic recurrent calculus formation in the ureters, it was possible to obtain prompt relief with the lemon diet, provided the calculi were of the urate type.
*Reprint not available.
High Points of Standard Process Nutritional Adjuncts
Vasculin: Vasculin is a proportioned combination of several complex nutritional products concentrated from alfalfa, mushrooms, green buckwheat leaf, green peas (whole plant), fresh raw bone flour, and liver. It supplies vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin C, and Cardiotrophin, including their complex synergistic factors, enzymes, and trace minerals.
All of these factors are indicated for the sluggish type heart that is irregular in function and manifested by split sounds, heart block, auricular flutter, extra systoles, etc.
Vasculin is indicated to: reduce dilation, reestablish nerve conduction, reduce heart load by increasing oxygen-carrying capacity, prevent further tissue degeneration, and improve the repair rate by furnishing essential repair factors.
Vasculin is not indicated in severe coronary conditions. Any involvement of impaired coronary circulation indicates a need for Cardio-Plus.
