Vitamins and Minerals Influence the Health and Vibrancy of Nearly Every Organ in the Body!

by: Joel D Wallach, B.S, D.V.M., N.D.

Most catastrophic diseases of animals and humans (i.e.: cancer, cardiomyopathy heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, Osteoporosis, and birth defects) can be prevented and many of them clinically cured for the small price of a soft drink each day!

The simple truth is that all animals and all humans who die of "natural causes" die of nutritional deficiency diseases. However, if you ask a doctor, "should I take a vitamin mineral supplement?" he would probably answer almost verbatim as did a very famous antagonist of the concept of nutritional supplements in the April 6, 1992 issue of fine magazine: "Popping vitamins doesn't do you any good," sniffs Dr. Victor Herbert, a professor of medicine at New York City's Mount Sinai medical school. "We get all the vitamins and minerals we need in our diets. Taking supplements just gives you expensive urine."

A Missouri interpretation of the "expensive urine viewpoint is "you're just peeing away your money if you take vitamins and minerals, because you can get everything you need from the four food groups.

In an April 1992 editorial in the New York Times by Natalie Angler, another view by the "mainstream" was expressed. 'Long consigned to the fringes of medicine, the study of how vitamins and minerals affect the body and help prevent chronic diseases is now winning broad attention and respect among mainstream medical researchers.

"Scientists who thought the major benefits of the nutrients were to prevent the classic deficiency diseases like rickets and beri-beri are learning that most of the vitamins and minerals play far more fundamental and long-term roles in the body than anybody had ever suspected.

"They are gathering provocative evidence that vitamins and minerals influence the health and vibrancy of nearly every organ, and that these enigmatic chemicals may help forestall or even reverse many diseases of aging, including cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, a flagging immune system, neuro-degeneration and other chronic disorders."

I don't know about you, but personally, I would rather "pee out" fifty cents to a dollar a day worth of excess vitamins and minerals as an economical "insurance policy" for body maintenance. Otherwise, as sure as God made little green apples; I would be investing in the lifestyle of an allopathic doctor.

When you pay the doctor bill, not one penny of that payment goes to better understand, manage, prevent or cure catastrophic diseases of children, breast cancer in women or prostate cancer in men.

"The field is currently undergoing a paradigm shift," says Catherine Woteki, director of the Food and Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We are now entering the second wave of vitamin and mineral research," explains Jeffery Blumberg, associate director of the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University "The first wave was the discovery of vitamins and minerals and their role in combating nutritional deficiencies such as rickets and beri-beri. That occurred in the first half of the century. Now we're in the second wave. You don't need to take Vitamin C to prevent scurvy in this country today. But you could need it for optimal health and the prevention of some chronic disease."

There are 90 essential nutrients we all need in our diets every day to prevent degenerative diseases and maintain the basic integrity of our flesh. By definition, each of these essential nutrients, when deficient in our diets, will result in one or more diseases. These include 60 essential minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 essential amino acids and 3 essential fatty acids.

Veterinarians know that 98 percent of all birth defects in animals can be prevented with "preconception nutrition," even those thought to be genetic in humans by the allopathic medical field. Veterinarians are able to prevent Down's Syndrome, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, heart defects, cleft lips, cleft palate, clubbed and deformed limbs by assuring optimal nutrition to the female animal for 60 to 90 days before conception. When the embryo begins to develop after fertilization, it develops fully protected in an optimum nutritional environment.

In contrast to the practice of preconception nutrition in animals, we humans wait until our women have conceived and have perhaps missed one, two or three menstrual periods before "prescribing" prenatal vitamins.

The human brain, spinal cord and heart (both physically and biochemically) form in the first 28 days of pregnancy and if the "prenatal" vitamins and minerals are not prescribed until the 30th day of pregnancy, there is no way the embryo will be protected.

A 1995 report by the California Birth Defects Monitoring program revealed that allopathic "prenatal care" has little impact on reducing the rate of birth defects. Despite large scale screening programs, the rate of birth defects continues to go up. In a study of 1.6 million births throughout the state of California between 1983 and 1990, it was revealed that babies with birth defects are 16 times more likely to die before the age of one.

"No one has ever had this kind of data before, so this is a benchmark study," said Liz Steirman, regional coordinator of the monitoring system. "It's surprising how common birth defects are-one in every 33 births. It's tragic for families and it has an incredible impact economically".

We can prevent the enormous cost and unnecessary human tragedy of birth defects by encouraging all sexually active women to faithfully take daily supplements containing all 90 essential nutrients.

Commercial animal rations are fortified with all known essential nutrients to prevent 98% of all birth defects and degenerative disease. Can we as humans accept any less?

A specific look at cancer reveals an abysmal history and an even worse current batting record for the allopathic medical field when it comes to preventing or curing cancer using their surgery radiation and chemotherapy protocols.

Despite their" heroic" efforts and billion of dollars of tax payers' money pumped into the War on Cancer since 1971, the overall rate of cancer in America has gone up 18 percent- there are no cures and there are no vaccines as promised. Typical of their position, they now want $60 billion and a position on the Presidential Cabinet for an allopathic M.D. as a Cancer Czar!

In contrast to the out and out failure of classic allopathic approaches to cancer prevention, a five-year study of 29,000 human subjects in Hennan Province in the People's Republic of China clearly demonstrated the value of vitamin and mineral supplementation. The project was the effort of the National Cancer Institute, not the National Enquirer! They divided the human subjects up into various small groups and gave them different vitamins, minerals or combinations of vitamins and minerals at double the American RDA for five years.

The results of the Hennan Province study were clear-little or no effect was observed when single nutrients were used in the pitifully small doses of the RDA. However, one group given double the RDA of three nutrients (beta-carotene, Vitamin E and the trace mineral Selenium) at the same time for five years showed significant benefit. Deaths from all causes were reduced by 9%, deaths from all cancers were reduced by 13% and deaths from the most prevalent form of cancer in Hennan Province, stomach and esophageal cancer, were reduced by a whopping 21%!

By projecting that we could eliminate the 18% increase in the rate of cancer in America, and factoring in the 21% decrease in cancer that was shown in the Hennan Province, PRC study, we could potentially see a net positive benefit of 39% in reduction of cancer for the faithful use of Beta Carotene, Vitamin E and the trace mineral Selenium even over the short period of five years.

The hue and cry and the driving force by the American public for the use of nutritional supplementation for disease prevention and treatment is the new "demographic imperative." A rapidly aging population has redirected our focus from treating and vaccinating against infectious diseases, to caring for chronic degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and arthritis, which have driven health-care costs ballistic.

We have known since 1957 that adult onset diabetes is caused by a Chromium and Vanadium deficiency, yet medical doctors continue to omit these essential trace minerals from their protocols. Could the fact that each diabetic patient treated with the standard "medical approach" nets the medical profession more than $250,000 over 30 years be a factor?

"There's a growing appreciation of the need to find the most economical way to treat and prevent chronic disease," says Dr. Charles Butterworth, Jr., of the University of Alabama. "Food and vitamins and minerals are not that expensive." According to Tuft's Blumberg: "We could save billions of dollars (and an enormous amount of unnecessary human misery) if we could delay the onset of chronic disease by as little as 10 years."

The United States government dietary guidelines recommend a complicated meal plan-three to five servings daily of vegetables, two to four servings of fruit, as well as eleven servings of carbohydrates (breads, rice, pasta and grains) and two to three of red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dried beans. The medical professional has dubbed this simple-minded nutritional approach the "Mediterranean Diet," which it backs with great confidence.

Unfortunately, Americans are not even coming close to these recommendations. A poor showing of only 9% of American adults faithfully consume five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Despite this alarming statistic, the allopathic medical clinician doggedly sticks to the myth that "you can get all the vitamins and minerals you need from your four food groups."

Assuming the infallibility of "four food groups" was correct, we have another problem. The world's farm and range soils are critically depleted of nutritionally essential minerals as a result of intensive agricultural "mining" of these minerals from the soil.

American soils are no better off than any other countries. In fact, according to U.S. Senate Document 264 (published in 1936), "The alarming fact is that foods-fruits and vegetables and grains-now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us-no matter how much of them we eat!"

The Earth Summit Report delivered in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992 again raised the red flag of minerally depleted soils by comparing levels of nutritional minerals in the world's farm and range soils with levels recorded 100 years ago. African soils were depleted 74%, Asian soils 76%, European soils 72%, South American soils 76% and the soils of the US and Canada were depleted by 85%!

The warnings of the 1936 U.S. Senate Document 264 and the 1992 Earth Summit should be enough to support the logic of a governmental health warning and a recommendation for complete food supplementation of each of the 90 essential nutrients, especially the 60 known essential minerals.

Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health says, "At this time, don't take megadoses. I'm not ruling out that in two or three years we might change our mind."

Complete vitamin and mineral supplementation promises to unfold as one of the greatest health stories of the 21" century.