Essential Nutrients, Part 4: Reversal of Deficiencies
Impressive work is being done with vitamins, minerals and EFAs in the treatment of degenerative diseases. Much is being learned, and people are being relieved of degenerative afflictions that resist treatment with drugs, surgery, and radiation.
Gaps in Knowledge
Although the basic essential components of human health are now known, the practice of healing through the use of essential nutrients is still poorly organized. This lack of organization keeps human health from being systematically learnable.
The systematic study of biochemical nutrition is still young, and there are gaps in knowledge that need to be closed before we have all the information. Health, one of the key topics most vital to the well-being of every human, is not taught in schools, colleges, or universities. Nowhere in the world can a person earn a degree in a course of studies that explores the nature of human health. In our short-sighted, crisis-oriented approach, knowledge of health has lagged far behind knowledge of disease. The technology of food alteration is carried on without regard to its effects on human health, and has remained undefined and standardless.
Organization of the parameters of human health into a coherent discipline should be systematically and rigorously pursued. The benefits to health of such a teaching tool cannot be overestimated.
Essential Fatty Acids
Our body’s content of EFAs fluctuates with the EFA content of our diet. An optimum dose of LA may be between 9 and 18 grams per day, and varies with body size, state of health, stress, season, and climate. Health effects of EFAs (especially w3s) have been studied less thoroughly than those of vitamins and minerals. Therapeutically, large amounts of w3 EFAs are being used to treat many degenerative diseases. Success requires that the other essential nutrient factors are also present in the amounts required for optimal cell functions. For successful therapy, junk foods and toxic substances must be removed from the food supply. Vitamin E is important to prevent rancidity of EFAs in our body. In some functions however, such as the treatment of malaria, short-term deficiency of vitamin E may make w3 fatty acids more effective killers of the malaria-causing protozoa.
EFA requirements vary with the total fat content of our diet, but should be about one-third of total fats consumed. A low-fat diet requires less EFAs, and a high-fat diet requires more. Traditional diets that maintained health without degenerative diseases contained 15 to 20% of calories as fats. Due to genetic differences, large variations in different individuals’ optimums are to be expected.
Vitamins
Vitamins have been used successfully in therapy, with impressive clinical results, for many years now. The total body content for most vitamins is difficult to assess accurately, because vitamins (unlike minerals) degrade rapidly. They may also be meaningless, since concentrations of vitamins normally vary from tissue to tissue. Serum levels of vitamins and metabolites of vitamins in urine are measured therapeutically.
A few people do not absorb or metabolize vitamins well. These people may benefit from taking ‘activated’ forms of certain vitamins; for example:
- activated B1 = thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP);
- activated B6 = pyridoxine-5-phosphate (PSP);
- activated B12 = dibencozide.
If nutrients are not absorbed, they can be injected intramuscularly or intravenously. A three-hour intravenous drip of essential vitamins and minerals can give a person quite a lift in energy and disposition. Some nutrition-oriented doctors routinely administer them to people in their mid-40s or older.