Fitness

There is still much to be learned concerning the relation of cholin to the utilization of cholesterol in the body. An undersupply of this vitamin, however, appears to be responsible for dim vision resulting when arteries in the eyes become so plugged by cholesterol that circulation can no longer be normal. Circulation to the legs and feet may be so decreased by cholesterol being deposited in the blood-vessel walls that pain and leg cramps occur. In diabetics, where a high-fat diet without cholin or any good source of B vitamins may be adhered to for years, cholesterol deposits may shut off circulation to the legs so completely that gangrene and death occur. “Senile softening of the brain” is probably the result of decreased circulation caused by cholesterol deposits in the blood vessels in the brain. Studies have shown that men put on high-fat diets (unintentionally lacking in B vitamins) because of diabetes, stomach ulcers, or a desire to gain weight 1 often develop fatal coronary occlusion or thrombosis in so short a time as three months; some of the men studied were only thirty-five years old. Persons kept on high-fat diets because of diabetes have been reported dying from atherosclerosis when as young as eighteen years of age. Atherosclerosis, therefore, is not a disease of the aged only. Cirrhosis of the liver in humans, or so-called fatty degeneration of the liver, has been treated successfully with cholin. This disease is also becoming increasingly common 8 as our national diet becomes increasingly deficient in cholin.

The assumption is that we get all the vitamin B6 we need from our diets too. Only recently have vitamin-B, deficiencies been produced in humans.” Hospital patients, given a diet adequate except for vitamin B6, developed mental depression, sore mouths, lips, and tongues and, in time, insomnia, extreme weakness, nervousness, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. The most striking abnormality, however, ‘was eczema (seborrheic dermatitis) which appeared first in the scalp and the eyebrows, around the nose, and behind the ears. One patient, already suffering from eczema, rapidly became worse. When vitamin B6 was given these patients, their condition quickly became normal. The investigators were then surprised to discover that similar eczemas had appeared in other patients during their hospitalization, while they were eating the “adequate” hospital diet. Since vitamin B6 is known to be part of enzymes necessary for the utilization of both fat and protein, these investigators suggest that eczema appears because the oil glands of the skin cannot function normally without the vitamin.

When experimental animals have been kept on diets adequate except for vitamin B6, eczema does not occur readily unless the diet is also deficient in linoleic acid. However, the animals do develop anemia, extreme irritability, nervousness and insomnia; they often have convulsions not unlike epilepsy. Many animals develop tremors and have difficulty in walking; if the diet is not improved, they eventually become paralyzed. When vitamin B6 is given early enough, health is regained; if not, nerve damage occurs, and the tremors, convulsions, or paralysis cannot be corrected. On autopsy, the heart muscles of these animals are found to be severely damaged.

Dr. Tom D. Spies studied a group of patients who had been given vitamins Bi, B2, and niacin but still complained of extreme nervousness, weakness, excitability, insomnia, irritability, and difficulty in walking. The relief was dramatic when vitamin B6 was given. The patients felt unusually relaxed; they slept soundly; their strength so increased that several, formerly unable to walk more than a few steps, walked a mile or more the day the vitamin was given. Persons with anemia which had not responded to iron, adequate protein, or the B vitamins already given showed marked improvement in five days.

Since animals develop tremors and epileptic-like seizures, physicians have given vitamin B6 in the treatment of paralysis agitans (popularly called palsy), epilepsy, and chorea, or St. Vitus’ dance. Excellent results have been obtained in some cases, despite the fact that epilepsy and paralysis agitans have been considered incurable. In other cases, especially when vitamin Be has been given without a dependable source of the remaining B vitamins, the results have been disappointing. Chorea, however, has been completely cured, the seizures of epilepsy have decreased, and palsy has been corrected except in cases where irreparable nerve damage appears already to have been done.

I have yet to see eczema which has not cleared up when the diet was made adequate and especially rich in linoleic acid and all of the B vitamins. A most spectacular case was that of a man fifty-three years old who had suffered from eczema since he was twenty. His entire body was covered; the eczema was so sore and weepy that, on the extremely hot day when I first saw him, he not only wore long underwear, but his arms and legs were wrapped in yards of gauze, like a mummy. I planned an adequate diet for him and asked him to take a heaping tablespoon of yeast with each meal and between meals. Two weeks later, his skin had completely cleared; in the 10 years since that time, the eczema has not returned.