Fitness

One frequently hears the statement that all nutrients should come from good wholesome food. Of course they should. It is extremely difficult, however, to get good wholesome food. Certainly our over-processed, over refined American diet diluted with soft drinks, candy bars, and “quick-energy” cereals has little or no relationship to wholesomeness.

Selecting the best food available and preparing it by the best methods known are both extremely important. Selection and preparation determine the degree of health you enjoy. Food supplements may help, but food itself is far more important. Let us suppose you do obtain wholesome food and bring it into your kitchen. Losses of 60 to 100 per cent of certain vitamins and many minerals can occur during food preparation. One can predict with fair accuracy both the sickness expectancy and the life expectancy of a family by observing the wife’s cooking methods. Any man can be sure of decreasing his life span by marrying a fluffy-cake-and biscuit artist or one who does good-ole-Southe’n cookin’. The green vegetables prepared by some of these women look like the business end of a mop and taste, to me, like something a mop has picked up.

I personally know one such woman, a veritable feminine Bluebeard, who has buried three husbands from heart disease. I call it murder by the lemon-meringue-pie method. H you do wish to murder your husband, this method is excellent; no messy investigations by the police, no prisons, no loss of social prestige except among your acquaintances who are interested in nutrition. In fairness to women, however, it must be stated that many husbands commit suicide; men will continue to do so as long as the way to their hearts - often meaning their billfolds - remains the French-fries-apple-pie path.

Neither careful food selection nor preparation should he minimized. In my opinion, however, the best of both can still not assure health although the absence of either can and usually does assure illness. As I see it, we are caught in a double-squeeze play. We must have nutrients to maintain health. Most of us, however, live sedentary lives; we can use few calories. The desired nutrients come in packages with undesired calories. We cannot obtain the nutrients because we cannot use the calories; this is the first squeeze play. Because of the stresses of modern-day living, our nutritional requirements are extremely high, higher for our entire population than ever before in our history. Because our foods are over-processed and over-refined, our chances of obtaining these nutrients from foods are extremely low, lower for our entire population than ever before in our history; this is the second squeeze play. We are caught like trapped animals, and like trapped animals, we are suffering.

People are different from the experimental animals in a nutrition laboratory. Such animals are put on diets adequate in every respect except for one requirement, which may be only partially under-supplied. All other nutrients are generously supplied, their sources checked and double-checked. Even then the animals’ health gradually changes to disease, and their life span is shortened. People’s diets are often partly inadequate in from 20 to 60 nutrients simultaneously. A few nutrients may be severely lacking; others only slightly so. Just as the scientist produces ill health in experimental animals, so do people produce ill health in themselves. The principal difference is that, with these animals, illness is planned and expected; with people, illness is dreaded but expected.

Instead of the clean-cut, single-deficiency symptoms discussed in the previous chapters, persons usually suffer from multiple deficiencies, the symptoms superimposed upon each other. For example, an individual uninterested in nutrition may suffer from symptoms of a severe lack of 20 amino acids and 12 B vitamins intermingled with the symptoms of milder deficiencies of vitamins C, D, and E and of calcium, iron, iodine, and the trace minerals; during certain hours of the day the symptoms of low blood sugar may become more severe than any others. Such deficiencies, however, are not too difficult to correct.

As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself. There is, of course, a sliding scale ranging from the most perfect health which you as an individual can attain, through all degrees of semi-health and semi-illness to serious disease. Your choice of foods can largely determine where on this scale you will fall. Neither sickness nor health is a matter of chance.

The problem, however, is less simple than merely selecting and preparing food. The reason nutrition is not applied and may never be applied is largely psychological. We enjoy foods; our pleasures are few enough; if the only foods we feel we can enjoy are the refined and/or processed ones, we will fight to keep them, thus fighting to hold our few pleasures. We as a nation have become so malnourished that we crave sweets as an alcoholic craves drink. This craving is being bred into our children from the very day of birth when, instead of being given life-saving colostrum, the child is offered sugar water in a hospital nursery, which is soon changed to a formula often prepared from solids containing 50 per cent or more refined sugar. Later, limited budgets, radio-and-television blarings, tired mothers, kids’ parties, Girl-Scout-cookie sales, and a hundred other forces combine to perpetuate this craving for sweets. People will fight to satisfy these cravings. The cravings themselves must be prevented if health is to be built.

Here is chlorine which originally came from table salt; like the shuttle from Times Square to Grand Central, it shifts continuously in and out of the cell, thereby aiding the body in removing carbon dioxide. Here are all the trace minerals, the catalysts, or speeder-uppers; they are the traffic cops which keep all traffic moving at a fantastic speed. Movement ‘can take place without them, but it is slow and the traffic jams. Here is cobalt in the vitamin B12 portion of certain enzymes; iodine is part of thyroxin; zinc is helping the messenger, insulin; here are magnesium, fluorine, and all the other minerals, each helping the cell to function.

Just outside the cell wall is sodium, which may have originally come from meat or table salt. In some way not understood, sodium carries on a lifelong duel with potassium, largely inside the cell. This mysterious duel is apparently fought over the water supply. When the sodium appears to be winning, the cell contains more water, but potassium is withdrawn and excreted in the urine; when potassium wins, much sodium and water are lost. The referee for this duel appears to be a messenger from the outside of the adrenal glands.

Perhaps with the help of these duelers and of calcium and vitamin C, this cell has an amazing power of selectivity. If poisons, harmful chemicals, allergins, and/or bacterial toxins are carried in the tissue fluid, this healthy cell refuses to let them enter. On the other hand, if the nutrition is good, the tissue fluid carries every nutrient to this cell; the cell invites whatever nutrients it needs to enter, withdraws what it wants, and leaves the remainder to be carried on to other cells. When too little of a nutrient is supplied, the cell adjusts itself as best it can; when too much is given, the cell fights back but is sometimes defeated.

Every nutrient has its own duties; yet each works cooperatively with the others. Vitamin E helps linoleic acid, linoleic acid helps vitamin D, vitamin D helps phosphorus, phosphorus helps calcium, calcium helps vitamin C, ad infinitum. No nutrient plays a hermit role.

Many activities which take place in this cell are brought about by other substances; although neither the activities nor the substances are described, both are known and understood by scientists. There are still, however, myriads of unknown activities and unknown substances which scientists have yet to understand.

This cell with all its processes and activities, multiplied by billions and billions, is you. The degree to which this cell can maintain its ideal structure and can carryon its normal functions is the degree of your health. A seemingly minor lack of a single nutrient or of many nutrients can damage the structure and/or interfere with its functions; a severe deficiency of one or more nutrients can bring about disaster. It is the amount of nutrients supplied to the cell itself which determines the state of your health. Malnutrition does not necessarily mean a faulty diet or even faulty absorption; it means only that less than enough of one or more nutrients reaches the cell.

The sum total of all the never-ceasing activities of all the cells is spoken of as metabolism. When these hundreds of activities, although still carried on at fantastic speed, are at their slowest, as when you lie motionless not even digesting food, the total is called basal metabolism. A lack of any nutrient or nutrients can slow down the activities of the cells; less food is needed, and unwanted weight may be gained. Only when all nutrients are generously suppli€d elm the activities of the body be maintained at ideal speed, and the metabolism remain normal.

Let us now see how all nutrients help the body by imagining that we can watch one of your cells. Let us say that you are in perfect health; therefore all the processes of this cell are perfect.

The cell is the shape of an egg. Foods can pass through its walls just as spilled juice might pass through a tablecloth. Every moment from birth until death there is poured in and sucked out a continuous surf of blood plasma, or tissue fluid. The incoming surf is pushed in by the force of the blood pressure from capillaries branching from arteries; the outgoing surf is withdrawn by the attraction of the tiny particles of a protein, albumin, in the capillaries joining the veins. The incoming wave carries fresh supplies; the outgoing wave removes wastes.

We can see through this ever-moving fluid as a diver can observe sea life about him when he walks the floor of the ocean. As we gaze into the cell itself, we see endless particles in fantastic and ceaseless motion. First we notice the business center of the cell, the nucleus. It is made of amino acids from the proteins you have eaten and of nucleic acid, obtained perhaps from yeast or liver; with the help of at least three B vitamins (biotin, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6) these substances are formed into what are known as nucleotides; they in turn are combined into genes and chromosomes carrying your hereditary pattern, the life program of this cell. Surrounding the nucleus are ever-changing clusters of protein particles, or molecules, formed into what are known as colloids; these protein clusters make up the tissue of the cell, the cytoplasm. The whole, or the nucleus and cytoplasm together, is called protoplasm.

There is so much to observe that we scarcely know what to look at first. Before us are molecules of fat and glucose, both combined with phosphorus; bits of the body starch, called glycogen, made up of dozens of glucose molecules; tiny globules of the fat-like materials, cholesterol and lecithin. We see every known vitamin and mineral.

Our eyes fall on the worker ants in this amazing anthill, the carpenters who build, the demolition crews who tear down; these workers are the enzymes. Your genes carry the blueprint of the enzymes in your body; it is by enzymes that heredity is made possible. If you have blue eyes and brown hair, some of your enzymes are different from those of the person having hazel eyes and black hair. All enzymes are made of protein, but many also contain a vitamin and/or a mineral, such as magnesium or cobalt. They have been named according to the work they do, just as a family might originally have been named Smith because the father worked as a blacksmith.

We watch an enzyme family called phosphatase breaking phosphorus free from molecules of glucose and fat, thus beginning to change them into energy. By the help of other enzymes containing vitamin B1 or pantothenic acid, the particles of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which form the sugar and fat are tom apart. Hod-carrier enzymes containing vitamin B2 take oxygen from the blood cells and carry it to the fat or sugar. Still other enzymes, this time containing vitamin C, pick up the hydrogen freed as the food is broken into its component parts. With the help of these and other enzyme families, oxygen from the air is combined with the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which once formed sugar and fat and which are changed into carbon dioxide and water. By this process energy is liberated; all energy, in turn, is changed into heat.

We observe many other enzyme families; ones which tear down the genes of old cells and rebuild genes for new cells, the nucleotidases. The enzymes containing vitamin Be are demolishing and rebuilding bits of the protein cytoplasm. Still others containing pantothenic acid are building or demolishing the unsaturated fatty acids combined with pro.., teins, which together form the lumber for this amazing house. Other enzymes are breaking worn-out protein into sugar, fat, and nitrogen-containing substances. There is the enzyme family of glycogenases, quickly changing glycogen into sugar to replenish that used in energy production, and there are other enzyme families, hundreds of them.

We next notice little telegraph messengers, the hormones, racing in and out of the cell. A messenger from the thyroid glands, thyroxin, helps to determine how much energy is needed and to keep the temperature at the point at which the cell can function best and the worker enzymes can be most efficient. We see another messenger from the pancreas, insulin, aiding the cell to change the sugar not needed for ‘immediate energy into glycogen or fat. Still another messenger from the adrenal glands, cortisone, stands by to break body protein into sugar and fat if sufficient glucose is not supplied. A messenger called adrenaline (epinephrine) is here from the adrenals to speed up the change of glycogen into sugar in case large amounts are needed quickly, as during anger or fear, to produce energy required for fight or flight. Even messengers have come from the sex glands to affect the life of this cell and all cells of the body.

Our eve now catches our old friends, the minerals. Here is phosphorus, both free and combined with protein and fat as part of the cell structure. Calcium is here ready to help relax the cell when rest is required, and potassium is waiting to stimulate it into greater activity when the need arises.

The first argument seems unsound to me. Mothers of children whose teeth decay most severely are usually ignorant of or not interested in nutrition and/or cannot afford excellent food. Furthermore, many intelligent, conscientious parents, doing everything they can, still cannot prevent their children’s teeth from decaying; sweets are given the children by well-meaning neighbors, store owners, and even strangers and are served at parties, cub scout meetings, and endless other places. The argument that fluoridation has not been studied sufficiently is probably true. Long-term “experiments,” however, have occurred naturally in dozens of places, some of which have been studied in great detail. In certain communities where the water contains as much as three or four parts of fluorine per million, there have been little or no mottling and no tooth decay. No other toxic effects have been found. In communities perhaps only a few miles away, almost no fluorine occurs in the water; tooth decay is rampant. The reason there seems little danger of toxicity from adding one part of fluorine per million (as is already being done in many communities) is that fluorine, like iodine, is excreted daily in the urine. Even when relatively large amounts are obtained for a time, fluorine is held temporarily in the body and laid down in the teeth and bones; when little or no fluorine is supplied, it is gradually withdrawn from the body and excreted.

My conviction on fluoridation is also emotional. My father used’ to make maple syrup almost every spring; I loved it and still do. Furthermore, I was an unhappy motherless child. Our general diet was atrocious enough, but in addition I ate far too much maple syrup to compensate for the love I craved and never got. Dozens of nights as a child I sobbed with seemingly unbearable pain from abscessed teeth or from decay which exposed the nerves. Thousands of youngsters, through no fault of their own, have screamed with similar pain, and thousands more will unless enough kind people try to prevent it. Furthermore, fluorine makes bones as well as teeth stronger. In every hospital in this country are old people-sad people-with not many years to live perhaps and not much to make them happy, lying motionless and uncomfortable hour after hour because of broken bones which should never have broken. You and I will be old some day, and we may fill those hospital beds; fluoridation of water might help us to enjoy our last years instead. My emotional conviction, therefore, which no one need accept unless he wishes to, is that every water supply in this United States should be fluoridated, even at the risk that some toxicity may occur.

There are a number of trace minerals which can be either valuable or harmful to health depending on the amount obtained. In fact, all trace minerals can be toxic if taken in excess. Arsenic, well known as a drug and a poison, may be important in human nutrition. Relatively large amounts are found in the liver and blood, particularly before birth. Aluminum occurs in the human body and in the bodies of animals which have never eaten food prepared in aluminum utensils; minute amounts of it, too, may be essential. Bromine is found in human blood; in a type of insanity known as manic depressive, the amount of bromine in the blood falls to half the normal quantity and increases only upon recovery from the disease. Tin, silver, nickel, and mercury are also found in human tissues; their functions, if any, are unknown.

The trace minerals, like calcium and iron, cannot be absorbed until they are first dissolved in the hydrochloric acid of the stomach. As we have seen, this acid is frequently undersupplied or absent. Poor absorption, therefore, can lead to deficiencies. This reason, however, is only a minor one.

The relation of this mineral, if any, to insanity has not been investigated. In many of our institutions for the insane the diets provided are far from adequate. No well person could eat the food served in some of these places, let alone an ill one. There has been no effort to find out what a well absorbed diet adequate in vitamin B6 and magnesium could do for mentally ill persons. Whenever I think of the tortured human beings writhing in straitjackets or perhaps held down in hot water by canvas fitted around their necks and the sides of the tubs, as I have seen them in too many institutions and psychopathic wards, I long to give these people injections of vitamin B6 and magnesium. Yet I know of no physician who is even interested; and how could one be? In a new gOO-page book on clinical nutrition, written as a reference book for the practicing physician and as a textbook for medical students, the word magnesium is not even mentioned or listed in the index. The assumption is that it is unimportant because it is “generously supplied in our foods.”

Copper helps the bone marrow to produce red blood cells.

Anemia results if it is undersupplied. It aids in forming certain enzymes necessary to the function of the nerves. This mineral plays some role in pigment formation, thus possibly being a factor in the prevention of gray hair. Black animals, lacking copper, become gray. Graying in humans has long been known to be often associated with anemia. Copper also appears to aid the body in using vitamin C economically; signs of scurvy in guinea pigs without vitamin C can be prevented by giving this mineral.

Copper-deficiency symptoms can be recognized in plants.

“Swayback” disease occurs in lambs grazed on copper-deficient soil, and anemia in the ewes; both conditions may be prevented by putting copper in the soil. In infants and small children, anemia which is not corrected by iron alone is corrected when copper is added. Yet one finds in medical textbooks such statements as, “Since the human requirement is so small and the element is so widely distributed in foods, it is difficult to imagine circumstances under which copper deficiency might develop.” I find it as easy to imagine as it is to imagine a person with gray hair.

Zinc deficiency is not recognized in humans, but it is in plants, where it results in little-leaf disease. The healthy human body contains more zinc than any other trace mineral. Zinc is present in all human tissues, especially in the pancreas where it is associated with insulin. The zinc content of the pancreas of diabetic patients is only half that of normal persons. Zinc is known to be part of several enzymes in the body and acts as a cell catalyst, or “speeder-upper,” of energy production. Zinc deficiency in experimental animals results in slowed growth, loss of hair, faulty food absorption, skin abnormalities, and emaciation. Zinc is lost when foods are refined; diabetes increases when foods are refined; perhaps a mere coincidence.

Manganese is also necessary to human growth and health, although its exact action in the body is little understood. It is found in all healthy human tissues and can be stored in the liver and thyroid glands. This element is important in maintaining normal reproductive functions; it is related to the use of calcium and phosphorus and is found in the bones; and it activates at least four known enzymes. An undersupply of manganese causes a loss in mating interest and later sterility in male animals. It interferes with the maternal instinct in females; mother rats on manganese-deficient diets will not suckle their young nor will normal mother rats adopt manganese-starved baby rats. Manganese is found in green leaves if the food is grown on good soil; it is often discarded in cooking water. Whole-grain breads and cereals contain about six times the quantity found in the refined products.

Fluorine is another element essential to health. I have received many letters asking my opinion on fluoridation of water. People become so emotional about this subject that I am tempted to say that my opinion is like my religion, no one’s business but my own. I recently heard a forum on fluoridation; dentists, physicians, and biochemists argued it out, each with violent convictions for or against. Some speakers were unscientifically emotional; others, emotionally scientific. Everyone seems to agree that the right amount of fluorine will reduce tooth decay. The opponents argued that if youngsters’ teeth no longer decay, mothers will make no more effort to keep the child’s nutrition adequate; that fluoridation has not been studied sufficiently; and that even small amounts may be toxic. Too much fluorine obtained when the teeth are developing causes them to be mottled with an unattractive brown pigment.

Under normal conditions, a healthy person runs little risk of deficiencies of sodium and chlorine. In extremely hot weather, however, so much salt can be lost through perspiration that death may result. Death from salt deficiency occurred during the first years of work on Boulder Dam and similar projects. During the blistering summer of 1933 I corresponded with an engineer who was working on Parker Dam. Each letter contained some such cheerful note as, “We had a wonderful cook but he died yesterday of heatstroke.” The symptoms of sunstroke also are now recognized as caused largely by loss of salt through perspiration.

A lack of salt causes symptoms varying in severity from mild lassitude, weariness or hot-weather fatigue, common during heat waves, to heat cramps, heat exhaustion, or heatstroke, familiar to people who work in iron foundries, furnace or boiler rooms, and industrial plants such as steel or paper mills. Even persons who foolishly play tennis or take similar exercise in hot weather may suffer from heatstroke. The symptoms of heatstroke are nausea, dizziness, exhaustion, vomiting, and cramps in the legs, back, and abdominal muscles or any muscles being used at the time. Without salt, the more water drunk, the worse the condition becomes. Persons working in extreme heat are now advised to take a salt tablet with each drink of water. During hot weather, salty foods, such as salted nuts or soybeans, cheeses or potato chips, should be kept near the drinking water, and at least one well-salted food should be served with each meal. Too much salt rarely harms a healthy person; if more is eaten than is needed, diarrhea occurs. Since normal people may lose as much as a tablespoon of salt daily in the urine, it is unwise to restrict the salt intake unless advised to do so by a physician. Except during hot weather, the healthy person can allow his taste to be his guide as to the amount of salt to eat.

Another essential element, magnesium, is a component of chlorophyll. This mineral is necessary to the action of some 30 enzymes in the body. The best source is green leaves; like potassium, however, it can be lost if cooking water is discarded. Whole-grain breads and cereals contain some five times more of this mineral than do the refined products. When animals are deficient in magnesium, their hearts usually become abnormal and beat too rapidly; they are extremely nervous and irritable and often have tremors and/or convulsions; slight noises such as turning on a water faucet or an electric fan near by can cause the animals to go into convulsions which may be fatal. The animals’ behavior resembles certain types of insanity more nearly than that produced by any other means.

The blood of persons suffering from extreme irritability has been found to be low in magnesium. Recent work indicates that the soothing effect of vitamin B6 (p. 84) is due to better utilization of this mineral. For years Mrs. Gladys Lindberg, who works as a nutrition consultant, and I have obtained remarkable results in giving vitamin B6 to many persons suffering from nervousness, insomnia, mild or severe tremors, convulsions (epilepsy), or even paralysis agitans (palsy). Reports in medical journals often state that these same conditions have not been helped by vitamin B6. I believe that the difference lies in the fact that we also recommend for every malnourished person a supplement of trace minerals containing magnesium.” It is my guess that magnesium deficiencies are partly responsible for the widespread nervousness, insomnia, and irritability supposedly caused by the “fast pace of modern living.”

All unrefined foods grown on good soil contain minerals necessary to the normal life processes of animals and humans and to the plants themselves. Besides the minerals already discussed, there are sodium, chlorine, potassium, and a group spoken of as trace minerals.

There is no trick, of course, in getting sodium and chlorine, which are supplied by ordinary table salt, or sodium chloride. It is usually assumed that the other minerals are generously supplied in a “well-balanced diet”-whatever that means mostly because many of them are needed in such small amounts. The small-amount argument, in my opinion, is what we used to call on our Indiana farm “so much hogwash.”

Cobalt is a trace mineral needed only in small amounts.

It forms part of vitamin B12; as little as three micrograms of vitamin B12 daily can cure pernicious anemia. The fact that the amount needed was small did not keep thousands of people from suffering from fatigue which tortured every cell in their bodies; it did not prevent a crippling paralysis from dooming them to a stumbling and falling existence and finally a bedridden living death during the years before Drs. George R. Minot and William P. Murphy found that raw liver could control the disease. Thousands of cattle, sheep, and other animals, grazed on land deficient in cobalt, especially in Florida and Australia, sickened and died from a crippling anemia. Such deaths could be prevented if a few pounds of cobalt were added to each acre of land. Pernicious anemia, however, was never confined to Florida or Australia. Studies conducted at the University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station showed that 81 per cent of the children living in the area suffered from anemia, just as did the animals; 50 per cent showed definite anemia, whereas 31 per cent were borderline cases. When the land is deficient, the plants grown on that land are deficient; the animals which eat the plants are deficient; the people who eat the animals and the plants are deficient. It cannot be otherwise.

I believe that the various minerals are far more important to health than anyone realizes; I believe that our diets are far more deficient in them than anyone realizes. One reason for my belief is that in any agricultural library you can obtain books 1 with beautiful colored pictures of deficiency symptoms of vegetables, fruits, and other plants which we and animals use as food. You can see those same deficiency symptoms in the food in every market: the split stalks of celery; the cracked cores of cabbage and cauliflower; the uneven ripening of the apricots and tomatoes; the yellow margins on the spinach; the rusty streaks of the lettuce; those signs and dozens more. Such symptoms occur only when the plant is deficient in one mineral or another.

Potassium is said to be widely found in foods, particularly in small green leaves. The three nutrients, potassium, sodium, and chlorine, are important in keeping the body fluids near neutrality; they determine the amount of water held in the tissues, and they attract nutrients from the intestines into the blood and from the blood into the cells by means of maintaining what is known as osmotic pressure. These minerals are essential parts of the glandular secretions. Potassium helps in sending messages through the nervous system. Chlorine is used in forming hydrochloric acid in the stomach. These three minerals are excreted daily in the urine, the amount being equal to that ingested by a healthy person.

A partial deficiency of potassium in animals causes slow growth, constipation, gas formation, and a nervousness typified by extreme alertness and insomnia. The hearts of potassium-deficient animals beat slowly and irregularly, the heart muscles are damaged, the kidneys become enlarged, and the bones fragile. The symptoms produced in animals are so similar to the nervousness, constipation, and digestive disturbances endured by millions of Americans that a study was made of human subjects maintained on a diet low in potassium. All developed constipation, indigestion, insomnia, and nervousness. Potassium is largely lost when foods are refined or when vegetable-cooking water is discarded. Our high consumption of refined foods and our sloppy cooking methods, to say nothing of the condition of our soil, could easily allow unrecognized potassium deficiency to be widespread.

During my next 15 years, perhaps a dozen physicians told me to take thyroid tablets, but it is no easy trick to find the correct dosage. If you take too much, you become highstrung, nervous, wakeful; your heart nearly jumps out of your chest. Soon you become discouraged and give up until you either realize how important iodine is or are driven by sluggishness to try thyroid tablets again.

Later, for me, came the years of wanting children, with the accompanying heartaches and frustrations only a childless woman can understand. You spend hundreds of dollars trying to correct the unknown difficulty and take shots until you feel like a pin cushion. Hope rises at each intermenstrual period; crushing disappointment comes with the onset of each menstruation. Eventually you learn that the ovaries are usually damaged when the iodine deficiency has been too severe during the developmental period; taking iodine later cannot restore normal ovarian function. Then followed years of empty-armed despair, spent searching for children to adopt. Yet everyone of these abnormalities could have been prevented in my case and thousands of similar ones by five cents’ worth of iodine or at no cost if iodized salt had been available years ago as it is now.

In 1917, Drs. David Marine and O. P. Kimball showed that goiter could be easily prevented. These doctors gave iodine twice a year to 2,190 girls in Akron, Ohio; only five developed goiter. Among an untreated group of 2,300 girls, almost 500 relatively severe goiters developed. After this classic study iodized salt was made available; not one case of goiter should have ever again occurred. Yet recent surveys, made more than 30 years later, revealed that 55 per cent of the girls and 30 per cent of the boys in the Cincinnati schools had goiter; in Minnesota, 70 per cent of the girls and 40 per cent of the boys; in Portland, Oregon, 40 per cent of the girls and 22 per cent of the boys. In Cleveland, the incidence of goiter was found to be exactly the same as it was before iodized salt was put on the market. This valuable salt was not and is not being used. Figures like these are disgraceful. The ignorance and apathy which allow such abnormal conditions to be so widespread are likewise disgraceful. The amount of goiter among adults is not known, but the incidence is appalling when one considers that both prevention and cure have long been known.

The chief source of iodine is the ocean. The only parts of our country where adequate iodine may perhaps be obtained without using iodized salt is a narrow strip along the Atlantic seaboard, around the Gulf of Mexico, and in regions which in recent geologic ages formed the floor of the ocean, such as parts of Kansas, South Dakota, Utah, western Texas, and New Mexico. Foods grown on these soils usually contain some iodine. Other soils, although near the coast, contain little or no iodine. No food is a reliable source except ocean fish and seafoods. Even fresh-water fish in Minnesota are said to develop severe goiters. Many cities on the Pacific Coast use melted-snow water which is iodine free; despite nearness to the ocean, iodine deficiencies are common.

Iodized salt, approved by the American Medical Association, contains the amount of iodine that occurs naturally in unrefined ocean salt. When iodized salt is used throughout life, the iodine needs are supplied. No harmful effects can result from using this salt because iodine is lost continuously in urine, perspiration, and even exhaled air. Harm caused by not using it runs into millions of dollars spent for the surgical removal of goiter alone. The monetary value of the loss of efficiency resulting from an undersupply of iodine cannot be estimated. Surveys reveal that only 15 per cent of the salt purchased even in the goiter belts is iodized. So great is the contribution of this nutrient to health that the compulsory iodinization of all salt seems to be the only answer. Wherever this step has been taken, as in Switzerland and Austria, goiter has disappeared, and basal metabolic rates stay more nearly normal.

The iodine requirements are increased in early childhood, puberty, and adolescence, during pregnancy and lactation, and particularly at menopause. It is during menopause that goiters most often grow to be huge. No additional amounts of iodine need be taken at these times if iodized salt has been used continuously for years; the thyroid gland traps and stores iodine for future safety. If this valuable salt has not been used constantly, some form of iodine should be taken to meet current needs and make up the deficiency. Dr. William T. Salter, professor of Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine, writes (p. 132 of ref. 1, P: 35): “There are still clinicians and surgeons alive who favor one type of iodine preparation over another, but this is a problem in psychology rather than in clinical science.” This physician states that to correct goiter, one minim-a few drops-of Lugol’s solution every Sunday is sufficient. Any druggist can prepare Lugol’s solution in a couple of minutes; it costs little and is almost tasteless if added to % cup of water or milk. Often physicians who recommend Lugol’s receive poor co-operation because patients become discouraged by the slow improvement; goiters which could have disappeared are removed surgically at great cost. Despite the ease of prevention, every year millions of people who fail to obtain a normal supply of iodine pay for their neglect through a lack of mental and physical efficiency and alert- . ness; thousands more, through pain and misery.

When one has suffered personally from a deficiency of a nutrient, it is perhaps difficult not to overemphasize its value. I have been guilty of that. Years ago I found an unopened box of salt on the kitchen sink; since its label assured me it was free running but not iodized, I tossed it into the trash can. Later, my husband asked if I had seen the salt; I told him what I had done and why. He was understandably a bit irritable as he explained that he had wanted to put it into the toilet of our mountain cabin to keep the water from freezing and that he did not consider its iodine content of great importance.

The National Research Council recommends 12 milligrams of iron daily for adults and 15 milligrams for adolescents and pregnant women. Probably slightly larger amounts are more nearly ideal for women with heavy menstrual flow. Any diet adequate in protein and the B vitamins, supplied by natural sources, will be more than adequate in iron. If anemia does persist after a sound nutrition program is adhered to, a physician should certainly be consulted.

A blood analysis tells a physician many things; it usually tells you nothing you could not learn by examining yourself carefully before the mirror. If your ears are red and if your forehead, neck, and skin not hidden by rouge have a glow of health, you can assume that your bloodstream is satisfactory. You have one of the fundamental attributes of genuine beauty and probably the vivacity which helps to make up the intangible qualities known as charm and personality.

Too little iodine can be even worse than a lack of iron.

When iodine is undersupplied in the mother’s diet during pregnancy, the baby fails to develop normally; if the deficiency is quite severe, he may become an idiot, or cretin. I am told that institutions for subnormal children in goiter belts are filled with such cases. When a severe lack of iodine occurs later in life, myxedema results. I have seen only one case each of these abnormalities and, please believe me, one of each is too many. The child, the first of wonderful parents, is eighteen months old, sluggish, disgustingly fat, still toothless, and covered with eczema; so many behavior problems are developing that the conscientious young mother is already nearly insane. Her physician told me, “Her troubles haven’t even started yet.”

I hesitate to tell of the other case, it is so unbelievable; a woman of perhaps forty-eight, unable to leave her home. I saw her on a sweltering day in August. A daughter opened the door and took me to the living room where the mother sat on a davenport, wearing a heavy winter coat, her knees covered with a blanket, a small gas heater burning at her feet, and every door and window in the room tightly closed. One could scarcely breathe in the room. The woman was stuporous, her eyes were glassy, and her movements and thinking were unconceivably sluggish. The condition had come on gradually. Her physician had given her thyroid, but she had failed to consult him again when the cumulative effect of repeated doses had made her extremely nervous and had caused frightening heart palpitations. She had stopped the thyroid weeks before. A small amount of iodine daily could have prevented both conditions and all others like them.

Iodine is needed by the thyroid glands, situated on either side of the windpipe. These glands produce an iodine-containing hormone known as thyroxin, which can be produced in normal amounts only when adequate iodine is supplied. Thyroxin has a profound effect upon growth, mental and physical development, and the maintenance of health throughout life. Although minute amounts of iodine are found in all parts of the human body, it is concentrated in the adrenal cortex, the ovaries, and particularly the thyroid gland which soaks it up like a sponge.

Thyroid activity is now measured by analyzing the blood for protein-bound iodine. A normal basal metabolic rate, or BMR, means that energy is produced as it should be. The normal range is from minus 10 to plus 10; persons with such a BMR have iodine values of 4 to 8 micrograms for each ~ cup (100 cc.) of blood. Persons with less than 4 micrograms of iodine have a BMR of minus 10 to minus 50. It must be remembered, however, that low blood sugar or an undersupply of protein, vitamin Bi, or anyone of several other nutrients decreases energy production. If a person’s diet is inadequate in any of these nutrients, his basal metabolic rate can he far below normal even though the iodine intake is adequate.

A partial or severe lack of iodine causes goiter, or enlargement of the thyroid glands. The enlarged glands often use the limited iodine supply more efficiently than can normal glands; hence the amount of thyroxin produced may remain the same, and the BMR may not drop below normal. Aside from a slight fullness and perhaps a mild pressure in the neck, there may be no other symptoms. The swelling in the neck may be so slight as to go unnoticed; yet every person, in my opinion, should learn to detect even a small goiter. Stand before a mirror and turn your head as far as you can from side to side; if you can scarcely see the ligaments in your neck as you turn your head, your thyroid glands are probably somewhat enlarged, and your iodine intake should be increased. Even large goiters disappear when sufficient iodine is taken together with an adequate diet; the process is slow, but eventually new, healthy cells do replace the abnormal ones. The seriousness of goiter often lies in its very mildness, which can easily lead to neglect. Goiter is a danger signal, pointing to possible troubles ahead, years and years of possible troubles.

I grew up in a goiter belt and know these troubles only too well. Mine were typical difficulties associated with iodine deficiency. When I was about fourteen, came blinding, pressure headaches associated with the menstrual period; each time I felt as though my neck would burst and my head would blow apart. A physician pointed out my goiter at that time and recommended iodine, which I considered a sort of aspirin substitute and failed to continue; he was the only physician who ever recommended iodine for me. The headaches continued for years. In a nutrition class at the University of Wisconsin the famous Dr. Amy Daniels mentioned that it was difficult to find an adolescent girl in the Middle West whose thyroid glands were not enlarged; she pointed out several girls with goiter in the class, then glanced at me and said, “You have a bad one.” I still did not take iodine; correction was not stressed.

Later, as the need for iodine decreases, the goiter disappears, but a low metabolic rate persists. There is no spontaneity or JOy in work or exercise; energy is not produced normally. You are cold when other people are comfortable; your hands are clammy; your feet are so cold at night that you cannot get to sleep. Your cooling system, however, does not work right either; in hot weather you are still more miserable. You are mentally and physically sluggish. College is difficult, and you learn by the plodder method, envying friends who complete an assignment at first reading. You gain weight easily, forever trying to reduce and forever staying too fat. The heavy-hipped, thick-legged, goiter-belt figure, resulting from iodine deficiency during growth and particularly at puberty, can be recognized the world over. Probably everyone of the millions of women who have it hates hers as much as I hate mine. Taking iodine after growth had ceased cannot change it.

The greatest single cause of iron-deficiency anemia is the refining of breads, cereals, and molasses. Although much has been said about the iron in “enriched” flour, only 6 milligrams per pound is added; whole-wheat flour contains approximately 18 milligrams. Brewers’ yeast and wheat germ are both excellent sources supplying per lh cup 18 and 8 milligrams, respectively. Blackstrap molasses is not only one of the richest sources of iron but also of many other minerals and of inositol. It supplies about 9 milligrams of iron per tablespoon; dark unrefined molasses, 1.5 milligrams; sugar, none. As a by-product of sugar refining, thousands upon thousands of gallons of blackstrap molasses are available. The dumping of blacks trap in Cuba became a public health hazard because it attracted so many gnats and bugs. It seems an affront to the human ego that insects, with their minute brains, can appreciate nutrition so much better than people can.

I used to recommend blacks trap stirred into milk or tiger’s milk. Then I saw a formerly anemic child of three whose parents, super interested in nutrition, had given him directly from the tablespoon almost a half cup of blackstrap daily. The child had never been allowed to taste candy even at Christmas, but his teeth were decayed to the gum margin. Since then I have been afraid to recommend blackstrap.

This reason, of course, may be only rationalized, the real one being that I can no longer take the ribbing. The blackstrap gags have become shopworn. The following, however, written before a geologist, Dr. Natland by name, left for Arabia, is no isolated example:

Camel’s milk, boiled goat, dates and cheese,
Poor Nat will starve if he can’t eat these;
Sun-warmed, fly-specked and sprinkled with sand,
Sounds like a diet Adelle Davis had planned.

In a mixed diet-not mixed with sand-only about 50 per cent of the iron is absorbed even by a healthy person; the remainder is lost in the feces. In experiments in which anemia was treated with single foods, liver was found to produce most hemoglobin, kidneys second, apricots third, and eggs forth. Many foods which contained as much or more iron failed to be good blood builders. Part of the iron in leafy vegetables is held in insoluble compounds which cannot be absorbed. The iron from most fruits reaches the blood stream. In general, the softer the texture of any food containing iron, the more complete the absorption. Much iron in meats is in the form of hemoglobin which is incompletely digested.

When iron-containing foods are digested, the freed iron must dissolve in hydrochloric acid from the stomach before it can pass through the intestinal wall into the blood. Since approximately two-thirds of all anemic persons lack this acid, much nutritional anemia cannot be overcome unless acid is supplied with adequate iron. Foods which contain acids, such as buttermilk, yogurt, sour fruits, and citrus juices, aid the absorption of iron. Even the drinking of sweet milk increases iron absorption because milk sugar is converted into lactic acid by intestinal bacteria. Conversely, refined carbohydrates decrease iron absorption both because they stimulate the flow of alkaline digestive juices and because they do not support the growth of valuable intestinal bacteria. Persons with stomach ulcers, anemic from loss of blood, cannot absorb iron while taking alkalinizing preparations.

Most inorganic iron is well absorbed, even iron rust. An old medical treatise entitled Self-help for People in Remote Places suggests for “the disease of pale ears” soaking rusty iron shavings in vinegar-water overnight and drinking the water. An ancient treatment of anemia was to stick rusty nails into a sour apple, allow it to stand overnight, remove the nails, and eat the apple. A rusty horseshoe would be an excellent toy for an anemic toddler who puts everything in his mouth. Ferrous chloride and ferrous sulfate are used medically in treating nutritional anemia. The body, however, needs only a limited amount; if more is absorbed than is needed, these drugs may be mildly toxic. I frequently find persons who are taking both an iron preparation and more than adequate amounts of vitamin C but who show multiple signs of vitamin-C deficiency; I suspect the vitamin is destroyed by the excess iron. I find liver, yeast, wheat germ, and eggs far more effective in correcting anemia than are iron salts.
A small excess of iron is stored in the liver, the bone marrow, and the spleen and is used at times when the diet is inadequate. The person suffering from an iron deficiency is anemic only because he lacks such a store.

The life span of red corpuscles is three to four months.

They are then withdrawn from circulation by the spleen and liver and are broken down by enzymes. The iron is used again and again in building other corpuscles. Most authorities believe that healthy women after menopause and adult men need no dietary iron. The non-iron parts of broken down hemoglobin are excreted by the liver as waste products. They are carried away in the bile and are known as bile pigments. These pigments give the color to the stools and urine.

Iron requirements are especially high during adolescence, when the blood volume increases rapidly, and during pregnancy. The needs of non-pregnant women vary with the losses during menstruation. Many women have excessive’ menstrual flow for years without realizing that it is excessive. Usually an adequate diet particularly high in protein, the B vitamins and especially vitamin E will correct excessive flow in a few weeks. Cumulative menstrual losses, pregnancies, and the long use of deficient diets cause anemia to be prevalent in women at and after the menopause. Besides causing needless fatigue, mental confusion, and depression, anemia can bring about such forgetfulness that these women often become convinced they are losing their minds.

So-called normal blood, arrived at by studying averages, has 4,500,000 red cells and 80 to 100 per cent hemoglobin for children and women and 5,500,000 cells and 100 per cent hemoglobin for men. When an adequate diet is given growing children, adolescent girls, and women of the reproductive age, hemoglobin of 100 per cent can be maintained, and the average blood count of 4,500,000 increases to 5,500,000. Such improvement shows that the standards for women are below normal. There are no age or sex differences in blood color or number of corpuscles in well-fed animals.

I cannot see how any intelligent person could let himself be deficient in either of the two nutrients, iron and iodine. The need for both has been known for decades. Iron is found in almost every natural food, whereas iodized salt has been sold at no extra cost for years. The fact that deficiencies of both iron and iodine are still widespread gives me a depressing you’re-butting-your-head-against-a-brick-wall feeling. But then I remind myself, more logically, that people will never apply sound nutrition until convinced it has personal value for them.

Not long ago a physician referred to me a man suffering from a fatal disease in which iron is held in the body in the form of a pigment. This man’s identical twin had already died of the disease. My problem, supposedly, was to plan a diet which could maintain maximum health but which supplied no iron, meaning no meat, eggs, fruit, vegetables, yeast, wheat germ, or whole-grain breads or cereals. If you can plan such a diet, let me know. I could not.

Anemia can result from inadequate protein, iodine, cobalt, copper, ascorbic acid, or ahnost anyone of the B vitamins, particularly folic acid, vitamin B12, niacin, or pyridoxin. Approximately half of all persons suffering from anemia have abnormal or sore tongues, indicating a lack of B vitamins. Probably every nutrient plays some role in building healthy blood. Much anemia does exist, however, which can be corrected by nothing more than iron.

Red blood cells, or corpuscles, are made in the bone marrow. It is estimated that approximately one billion per minute are produced by a healthy adult. In a cubic millimeter of blood, an imaginary cube about 0.04 inch on every side, there are normally about 5,000,000 red corpuscles. This number is spoken of as the blood count.

Each corpuscle must contain a certain amount of red coloring material, or hemoglobin, which carries oxygen by combining chemically with it. An easy method of estimating the amount of hemoglobin in the corpuscles is by comparing the color of blood with that of a standard series of colors. Blood which matches the brightest red of the standard is considered to have 100 per cent hemoglobin. If your blood matched the color marked 80 per cent, it would indicate that you have 80 per cent of the total amount of hemoglobin you should have.

Iron-deficiency anemia is a childish or feminine disease rare in men; the chief reason is that children grow and women menstruate. Men, however, may produce anemia in themselves through hemorrhage from stomach ulcers. Severe anemia often occurs in blood donors whose admirable generosity is not matched by an intelligent replacement of iron. Anemia in general means that the body does not produce enough red corpuscles or enough hemoglobin or enough of both. If the only deficiency is one of iron, the number of red blood cells is only slightly below normal; the hemoglobin, however, lacks color. The body of an anemic person cannot be supplied with sufficient oxygen; energy production is interfered with. The chief complaints are weakness, perhaps dizziness, shortness of breath on exertion and consciousness of a pounding heartbeat, or palpitation; fatigue amounts to a continuous dead-tiredness. The fingernails are often brittle and show longitudinal ridging. Such persons are literally and figuratively colorless, listlessly lacking in vitality. Since too little oxygen reaches the brain, they cannot think as clearly or quickly as is normal, and they forget easily. Yet when an adequate diet is adhered to and well absorbed, the amount of hemoglobin and the number of red corpuscles quickly become normal.

Aside from the iron needed for hemoglobin, iron is in the nuclei, or business center, of all body cells. It is part of substances known as cytochrome, important in energy production, and myohemoglobin, or hemoglobin of the muscles. During iron deficiency, iron for the production of cytochrome and myohemoglobin has priority over that of hemoglobin.

It is not enough to see that calcium is adequately supplied; it must pass through the intestinal wall into the blood before it can be of value. Calcium must first be dissolved by hydrochloric acid in the stomach. If this acid is absent, as it usually is when persons have the tongue symptoms described on page 63, calcium cannot be absorbed, though the supply be generous. Even when the stomach acid is normal, the added citric acid supplied by a glass of orange juice or lemonade has been found to increase calcium absorption markedly. Lactose, the sugar obtained by drinking milk, causes a pronounced increase in calcium absorption because it is broken down by intestinal bacteria into lactic acid. If the diet is excessively high in phosphorus, calcium and phosphorus combine in the intestine to make insoluble salts which do not dissolve even in acid. The taking of soda or any alkaline substance, which neutralizes the food and stomach acids, or the eating of candy or other concentrated carbohydrate, which stimulates the flow of alkaline digestive juices, decreases or prevents calcium absorption.

After calcium is once soluble, it must next combine with fat, making a soap which dissolves as readily in water as ordinary soap dissolves in a bathtub; in this form, the calcium passes across the intestinal wall into the blood. If so much fat is eaten that it cannot be absorbed, soap is formed, and both the fat and calcium are lost in the feces; this soap becomes hard, often causing constipation as well as robbing the body of valuable calcium. The stools of persons attempting to gain weight by drinking rich milk and eating quantities of fat often look like shiny soap; instead of gaining, such people usually become thinner because the loss of calcium results in greater nervousness and over activity.

Conversely, almost any person who stays on a fat-free diet absorbs little or no calcium from his food. For example, leg cramps and other calcium-deficiency symptoms suffered by women during pregnancy or menopause can sometimes be relieved more quickly by fat than by extra calcium. More calcium is absorbed from yogurt and buttermilk, which supply both fat and lactic acid, than from sweet whole milk. If you wish to use skim milk, drink it at a meal when you have a salad tossed with oil. Using fresh or powdered skim milk without fat being obtained simultaneously may be actually dangerous; besides calcium being lost, the need for vitamin B2 is increased.

After calcium has reached the blood, the next task is to prevent it from being lost from the body. If cholin and/or linoleic acid are undersupplied, if the protein intake is inadequate, or if thyroid, benzedrene, or certain other drugs are used, large quantities of calcium may be lost in the urine. Even a slight increase in protein intake can markedly increase calcium retention. The most important factor, however, is the quantity of phosphorus in the diet in relation to the amount of calcium. Ideally, no more than twice as much phosphorus as calcium should be obtained; yet persons often ingest 10 times more phosphorus than calcium. Aside from such urinary losses, calcium and phosphorus which might be thought of as worn out are lost daily in the feces.

Phosphorus is necessary to the life processes of every cell not only in all animals but in all plants. The American diet, poor in calcium, is therefore rich in phosphorus. In the maintenance of bones and teeth, calcium is used in chemical combination with phosphorus. If calcium is undersupplied in proportion to phosphorus, there is nothing for phosphorus to combine with. In this case, phosphorus is excreted in the urine. There is, however, always calcium in the blood. Unfortunately, urinary phosphorus is excreted in the form of calcium-phosphorus salts, and the body is robbed not only of its limited calcium supply but of phosphorus which may also be greatly needed. For these reasons, calcium gluconate and calcium lactate are preferable to calcium salts containing phosphorus.

Liver, yeast, and wheat germ are unusually rich in phosphorus and yet poor in calcium; if large quantities of these foods are consumed, calcium lactate or calcium gluconate should be obtained simultaneously. When such a precaution is not taken, the proportion of phosphorus to calcium may become so high that the excretion of the excess phosphorus in the urine can induce a severe calcium deficiency. Sometimes a person who uses little or no milk becomes enthusiastic about obtaining large amounts of the B vitamins; his high intake of phosphorus and lack of calcium can cause him to become a nervous wreck. Phosphorus, calcium, and vitamin D are interdependent. When liberal quantities of milk, cultured buttermilk, yogurt, and foods prepared with fresh and powdered milk are used, calcium is supplied, and no problem arises unless large amounts of liver, yeast, and/or wheat germ are eaten temporarily; in this case, a calcium salt can both prevent harm and be of great value.

Excess calcium which is absorbed and retained is stored in the shafts at the ends of the long bones as a lacy network of bony structure known as trabeculae, absent when no excess minerals have been available. You probably have noticed this lacy structure when a soup bone has been cut lengthwise. Calcium thus stored can be used at times of dietary insult; thus health can be protected. When no minerals are stored, calcium and phosphorus, aided by a hormone from the parathyroid glands, are removed from the bones to supply the needs of the soft tissues. The amount of calcium in the blood therefore remains at a normal level even when bones become progressively more porous and fragile, teeth become susceptible to decay or erosion, and multiple symptoms of calcium deficiency become evident. When deficiency symptoms are persistent, the bones are probably in a precarious condition.

Instead of bones being lifeless structures, unchanging after the cessation of growth, a continuous tidal flow of minerals passes in and out of them every hour of life. If sufficient calcium is obtained and absorbed, the tide flows into the bones, building and repairing until all porosity is gone and dense mineralization is formed; any excess is then stored in the trabeculae. When too little calcium is obtained, the tide Haws first from any calcified trabeculae; if no minerals have been stored, calcium and phosphorus are removed from the bones to supply the calcium needs of the soft tissues.

The calcium content of milk varies with the feed of the cow and season of the year; a quart of milk may contain 800 to 1500 milligrams. Powdered milk, made from summer milk when the supply is generous and green food is usually available, contains more calcium than does average winter milk. Powdered milk should be used liberally in cooking, always in recipes containing fat. If optimum health is to be obtained, adults should have daily at least one gram of calcium, the amount obtained from four glasses of average milk, yogurt, or cultured buttermilk. Still larger amounts may be advantageous. In times of prosperity, the daily calcium intake of the Finns and Swiss averaged six grams; many primitive races obtain even larger amounts of calcium. If a small excess is allowed for daily storage, large amounts of calcium would never be needed nor would calcium deficiencies ever exist.

Your own disposition can probably tell you the adequacy or inadequacy of your calcium intake, absorption, and retention. If it is good, no one can enjoy it more than yourself.

Another reason for an adequate calcium intake and for keeping calcium tablets in the medicine chest at all times is that this mineral is a pain killer par excellence. Old medical textbooks give as the treatment for the sharp stabbing pains of pleurisy-than which there are few worse-injections of calcium. Why calcium has not been used more widely in alleviating other pain remains a mystery. One physician tells me that he uses no opiates but injects one to four grams of calcium gluconate into the veins of patients suffering even excruciating pain and that relief occurs almost immediately. Although the severely ill person or one enduring a blinding headache usually cannot absorb enough calcium taken by mouth to relieve pain, a less ill person can. The migraine sufferer, for example, can be helped most by taking calcium between headaches. For years I have told people to take calcium tablets before visiting a dentist; the mineral not only helps them relax and feel less pain but makes life easier for the dentist. It has been my experience that adequate calcium usually relieves the itching of hives in a half-hour and the pain of arthritis within one to three days. Since the publication of my book on baby feeding, I have been amazed at the number of young mothers who have written or told me personally that they had experienced no pain during delivery. Invariably they have written or said, “I thought I was having gas pains when the baby was born.” Now I tell women to grab a vitamin-D capsule as soon as labor starts and to take two or three calcium tablets every hour until they are wheeled into the delivery room. Regardless of the cause of pain, calcium can usually do something to relieve it; if no relief comes, blame it on poor absorption.

A further reason for obtaining adequate calcium is that it is necessary for the clotting of blood. This need for calcium in blood clotting can be a matter of life or death after an accident. A year ago I interviewed a woman in her forties, a milk-hater whose calcium intake was almost nil; she had suffered from nosebleed most of her life. At the time I saw her, the hemorrhages were so severe that she was paperwhite and exhausted; she was being given blood transfusions every few days. Her hemoglobin had been 45 per cent the previous day prior to a transfusion and 58 per cent afterward. Vitamin K, another nutrient essential for clotting, had not decreased the clotting time. I planned a diet containing liver daily and a quart of tiger’s milk to which were added powdered bone and dilute hydrochloric acid. I suggested that she take 25,000 units of vitamin D daily for three days and during this period three calcium tablets every two hours, sipping tiger’s milk with them. A letter written 10 days later gives the following report: 1 “Had a hemo taken yesterday and it was 79. Pretty good, huh? A queer thing. I told you about the hot flashes and my nose would start practically every time I had a hard one. Well, I haven’t had one hot flash since I saw you. The second day was blistering hot. My nose bled a very little bit. None at all since. Gosh, sure is wonderful not to be afraid to breathe for fear of a nosebleed.”

The 1 per cent of calcium in the soft tissues has still other functions. According to Dr. Cantarow a lack of calcium allows cataracts to form, “probably due to the effect of diminished calcium concentration upon colloid aggregation.” 2 Cataracts are undeniably common during the advanced years when calcium deficiencies are legion. Calcium appears to be necessary before vitamin C can function effectively. Physicians have often been afraid to give adequate calcium to persons suffering from arthritis, thinking that still more minerals might be deposited in the joints; the lack of calcium necessary to help vitamin C in forming normal cartilage around the joints appears to be a major cause of the disease. Calcium decreases cell-wall permeability and thus prevents harmful substances from entering the cells. This mineral is also essential in maintaining normal muscle tone, or excellent posture, and strong muscular contraction; it is for this reason so valuable during labor at childbirth. Calcium has been found also to delay fatigue and to hasten recovery.

A lack of calcium causes susceptibility to decay of teeth and demineralization of bones which cannot be overcome with any amount of vitamin D alone. Both calcium and vitamin D must be abundantly supplied, absorbed, and retained if dental and skeletal health is to be maintained. Although phosphorus is combined with calcium in bones and teeth and is possibly more important than any other mineral in the body.

Many authorities believe that the deficiency of calcium is more widespread than that of any other nutrient; milk is the only dependable source in the American diet. There is, of course, calcium in sour milk, cultured buttermilk, yogurt, and any food prepared with milk. The calcium is lost in the making of cheese. Churned buttermilk contains little calcium because cream is a poor source.

A certain amount of calcium can be obtained from mustard and turnip greens, soybeans and blackstrap molasses, but these foods are rarely eaten daily. The quantity needed to meet an adult’s calcium requirements per day from the following foods, listed in medical textbooks as good sources of calcium, would be 72 apples, 80 bananas, 42 oranges, 11 cups of carrots, 33 eggs, 77 potatoes, Or 214 dates; the quantities of other foods listed are even more ridiculous. Certainly there are healthy peoples who do not drink milk, but each has a source of calcium; the Hawaiians’ source is poi; the Orientals’, soybean curds. The Eskimos, the African natives and formerly the American Indians obtained calcium from bones of fish, small game, and birds. Dr. Michael Walsh found that Mexican Indians, “starving” by our standards, had a calcium intake equivalent to eight quarts of milk daily; this calcium was obtained from the soft limestone used in grinding corn for tortillas. In America the calcium needs of a person who does not drink milk are not met unless he takes a calcium salt, a poor substitute indeed for milk.

Many calcium salts are available. Calcium gluconate and calcium lactate, or calcium combined with the sugars glucose and lactose, usually absorb more readily than does dicalcium phosphate or calcium chloride. Bone meal, or ground bone, is often poorly absorbed. Fine bone powder, however, is quickly dissolved by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach and hence is absorbed readily. Cereals, homemade breads, and many other foods can be advantageously fortified with powdered bone.

Although calcium salts are not harmful, only a limited quantity can be absorbed even under ideal conditions. Taking larger quantities is somewhat like dropping beads through the hole in a spool of thread; the spool is not harmed, but the procedure borders on stupidity if expensive beads are lost. Physicians sometimes fear that taking calcium salts may cause kidney stones. The formation of such stones, however, appears to result from a combination of innumerable physiological abnormalities including too alkaline urine, possibly the lack of vitamin A, and a number of combined factors such as an undersupply of unsaturated fatty acids and/or protein or excessive phosphorus which allow minerals to be lost in the urine.