Fitness

In female animals, the estrus cycle-menstrual cycle to us - becomes irregular when vitamin E is undersupplied. The onset of menopause is early, but if vitamin E is increased, normal estrus (menstruation) and fertility are restored. When large amounts of vitamin E are given, menopause is delayed to an advanced age, although eventually all females become sterile. If middle-aged or older males low in vitamin E are given testosterone, they develop enlargement of the prostate, and their testicles atrophy, or shrivel.

At the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University a four-year study was made of hundreds of animals past their menopause to see whether vitamin E was involved in the aging process. It was found that the less vitamin E given, the higher the percentage of sick animals. The testicles of males receiving less than optimum amounts of vitamin E atrophied, or became smaller, and both males and females lost sex interest and would not mate. Although animals showed no abnormalities when fed “normal” quantities of the vitamin, added vitamin E had a striking effect in prolonging youth and increasing the life span; the conclusion was that aging may be a consequence of multiple deficiency states rather than the result of “natural” processes.

Such research would indicate that vitamin E plays some role in the production of normal sex hormones. Although the relation of this vitamin, if any, to secondary sex characteristics has not been studied, my hunch is that it is important. A number of physicians have pointed out that young people these days seem to be losing their secondary sex characteristics. The hips of boys and men are often too large, whereas girls and women frequently have flat chests and slender hips. “Falsies” for women and corsets for men, semantically known as “surgical belts,” have both become major industries. I am horrified at the frequency with which I find little boys, whose diets appear to be adequate except for vitamin E, with round-cheeked hips or girls with narrow masculine hips. It has been my experience that when the diet is made completely adequate and vitamin E is increased temporarily to perhaps 100 units after each meal, these children develop normal sex characteristics quite rapidly. In my opinion, a boy’s chest should be at least two inches wider than his hips, and a girl’s hips should be as wide or wider than her shoulders. I have seen a few cases where normal breasts have developed after flat-chested women from twenty to thirtyfive years old have conscientiously followed an excellent nutrition program.

Another problem, possibly the result of multiple deficiencies of the nutrients including vitamin E, needed for normal hormone production, is that of children growing excessively large. The rooster becomes a huge capon when the testicles are removed; the slender-hipped bull becomes a steak-producing steer. Any animal supplied with too little sex hormones grows to a larger-than-normal size, Similarly many girls these days grow so large that their mothers, not realizing that poor nutrition may lead to glandular abnormalities which can result in overgrowth, are afraid, for example, to allow them to take vitamin supplements; the mothers fear that their daughters cannot find boys large enough to date with them or eager to marry them. Although there is no proof, I for one am going to follow my hunch. I want my children to achieve normal growth but neither of them to be excessively large; I want my son to have slender hips and my daughter to have something genuine to put inside her brassiere; it is my belief that adequate nutrition in general and vitamin E in particular may help these wishes to come true.

Another hunch started years ago when a professor in biochemistry class stressed that when the ovaries were inactive, the body fat of women became redistributed; they developed middle-age spread and perhaps piano legs and ankles either long before or during middle age. Since I suspected vitamin E was related to ovarian hormone production, I have recommended 100 units of this vitamin after each meal to dozens of women whose weight was correct but whose faces were too thin and hips too large. Although vitamin E may not have done the trick, the weight of most of these women has been redistributed, which was all they or I care about.

I suspect that the middle-age spread of men is often not so much the result of age or too many calories as of an undersupply of hormones caused by cumulative multiple deficiencies of which vitamin E is one. This change from a former physique, I believe, is analogous to the transition from the narrow hips and Hat abdomen of the bull to the broad hips and sagging abdomen of the steer. Although a hereditary tendency may exist, this theory can perhaps be supported by the fact that many men begin to thicken through the waist at ages of thirty-five or forty, whereas the general build of others does not change until the age of sixty-five, if at all.

Many physicians have reported successfully treating irregular menstruation and excessive or scanty flow with vitamin E. The vitamin has been particularly effective in resolving menstrual difficulties at adolescence or at menopause. When generous amounts of this vitamin are given one or two years after the menopause, normal menstruation may recur. I warn such women who consult me to expect the return of menstruation; otherwise they sometimes get panicky, thinking they have uterine cancer. A few women have conceived after dietary improvement, although menstruation had ceased a year or two earlier. Since the irate husband of one shouted at me, “You and your d– vitamins,” I also warn women that unplanned pregnancies may occur.

I have another hunch that when general nutrition is poor and vitamin E is undersupplied, the onset of menopause is early, whereas it may be markedly delayed if the intake is generous. Among my personal friends whose diets have been unusually adequate, I know of no woman whose menopause has set in before the age of fifty-three to fifty-five. Furthermore, I suspect aging occurs rapidly at menopause when vitamin E is undersupplied and, conversely, that women with delayed menopause stay physiologically young. One woman whose nutrition I have checked annually since 1936 is still menstruating at sixty-two years of age; she can pass for forty any day.

In animals, vitamin E is important in aiding the liver to detoxify a variety of harmful substances. The amino acid, methionine, has been considered one of the body’s most important detoxifying agents. Vitamin E, however, has been found to be 400 times more effective than methionine. Far larger amounts of vitamin E are necessary to maintain normal liver function than normal sex function. Jaundice in humans, resulting from the toxic effects of such drugs as atabrine or bromides, has responded so favorably to large amounts of vitamin E as to indicate the wisdom of taking vitamin-E capsules along with any drug which must be used.
Vitamin-E deficiencies in animals take various forms in different species; enzyme systems also vary with different species. The brain is most affected in chickens and turkeys obtaining too little vitamin E; encephalomalacia is produced. This abnormality, known to experienced poultrymen as crazy chick disease, develops spontaneously in farm flocks. Cattle and monkeys, undersupplied with vitamin E, develop severe heart disease long before sexual function becomes abnormal.

If females of most species are given too little vitamin E during pregnancy and their young in turn are undersupplied with the vitamin, the voluntary muscles of the young become abnormal; when the deficiency is severe, these muscles stop growing, and a condition known as muscular dystrophy 3 develops. Dys means to stop; trophy means growth. Normal muscle cells are often replaced by woody, fibrous tissue which has no power to contract. Muscular dystrophy has been produced in such widely varied species as guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, rats, ducks, hamsters, calves, pheasants, pigs, dogs, and even kangaroos. The rabbits and kangaroos can no longer hop, the rats and mice cannot run, and the ducks and pigs stop waddling. Only in the guinea pig and rabbit can this disease be corrected by giving vitamin E; in all other species, permanent nerve damage occurs. The onset of the disease is slow and insidious; it cripples rather than kills. Although this disease is purposefully produced in the laboratory, animals develop it under field conditions. These animals eat food from the same land we get our food from; the disease may develop in animals which we ourselves may eat as food.

Such research indicates that vitamin E plays a role in building normal muscles and perhaps in maintaining muscle tone. I have a hunch that the lack of vitamin E may be one cause of poor posture seen in perhaps 95 per cent of our population, from the wobbly-headed infant born of a malnourished mother to its stooped grandparents. Do you know of a baby clinic where 10 infants of normal weight can be found without potbellies? Do you know of a classroom of 20 youngsters, none with protruding stomachs and angel-wing shoulder blades? Have you seen a high-school room where all the students stand erect and walk with grace? I would gladly cross the continent to see anyone such group. I find many children, especially adolescent boys, whose intake of protein and other nutrients appears to be adequate but whose posture is atrocious; improvement usually follows when this vitamin is given.