Niacin

 

Niacin. A no more dramatic disease has ever come to the medical profession than pellagra, according to Dr. Tom Spies, one of the world’s greatest medical authorities in the field of nutrition. Pellagra has been known throughout the world for centuries, yet, it was not until the early 1930s, that Dr. Spies and several others managed to cure severely ill pellagra patients. The cure was a simple one: enormous doses of brewer's yeast, combined with a diet “high in calories, protein, minerals and vitamins.” By 1935, Dr. Spies had found that the one ounce of brewer’s yeast he had been giving was not enough, and, when he doubled and tripled this amount, the cure was almost miraculous, symptoms of pellagra are a red, sore tongue, skin troubles, digestive troubles, along with diarrhea and nerve disorders so severe that patients may become insane, Said Dr. Spies: “No tissues of the body are entirely exempt if the disease is permitted to run its natural course, untreated.” Pellagra can be induced in laboratory animals by giving them a diet deficient in niacin. 

It can also be induced by giving them a diet consisting largely of corn products, because corn, although it is an excellent food in other respects, is deficient in one amino acid (tryptophan) and niacin. Although this does no harm in a diet including other protein-rich foods, someone who is living mostly on foods made from corn is risking pellagra. The disease was widespread during the Depression of the 1930s in the southern part of the U.S., where cornbread, hominy, grits, and other corn products formed a large part of the diet. Dr. Spies writes in Clinical Nutrition, that there are three groups of people who are most likely to be susceptible to pellagra. 

First, those who do not eat a nourishing diet, either because they do not have enough money to buy nourishing foods, because they do not know which foods to eat, or because they have peculiar notions about food and put themselves on diets that are deficient in the B vitamins. The second group consists of those who have organic diseases which have changed their eating habits or have made their needs for certain foods much greater. People with tuberculosis, disease of the digestive tract, cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, certain. kinds of kidney disease, diabetes, amoebic dysentery, pneumonia, hookworm, influenza, typhoid fever, malaria, and other diseases interfering with the eating of foods containing the B vitamins and the absorption of these vitamins from foods. 

The third group are chronic alcoholics who neglect all food and try to live on alcohol. Often the sufferer from pellagra is piteously thin and starved-looking. But it is just as likely that he is overweight, for, if he is eating a diet high in refined carbohydrates and fats, he is not getting enough of the B vitamins to protect him from pellagra, although he may be getting enough calories to make him fat. Many modern American mothers who make little effort to study nutrition and allow their children to live on soft drinks, potato chips, and candy are guaranteeing a future for these children in which they will be threatened with pellagra—if they manage to escape such diseases as TB, diabetes and heart trouble. 

Mothers and children must be made aware of the overwhelming importance of foods high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. How can you cure pellagra? In the words of Dr. Tom Spies: “113 grams of wheat germ daily (about one-fourth pound), 57 grams of brewer’s yeast daily (about 4 tablespoons) or a concentrate of niacin which would, of course, have to be given by a physician.” In cases where the patient cannot absorb food effectively from his digestive tract, the B vitamin can be injected. Unfortunately, pellagra did not pass into oblivion in the 1930s. It is still very much with us in the 1970s. A headline in the Washington Post for April 2, 1971, read: “Mental patients hit by pellagra.” The article went on to say that “Maryland’s health chief said that he personally discovered in December that patients at state mental hospitals were receiving inadequate daily amounts of vitamins in their meals, causing many of them to contract pellagra. 

The deficiencies apparently had existed for years and years,” stated Dr. Neil Solomon. The patients were immediately given vitamins, but Dr. Solomon explained that, because of budget cutting, there would not be enough money to feed mental patients properly during the coming years. There were, at the time, 10 - 300 patients in mental hospitals in the state. Dr. Solomon, a specialist in nutrition, said he had noticed a tremendous number of patients “had red, swollen tongues and lesions (sores) on exposed parts of their bodies.” The hospital attendants—and presumably all the doctors and psychiatrists in attendance had not noticed anything wrong with the patients, the Post article continued. When Dr. Solomon visited the hospital Kitch ens and studied the menus, he found that meals were deficient not only in niacin but also protein, iron, and calcium, “An unspecified number of patients had pellagra,” he noted, He went on to say that he had no idea how many mental patients had gotten pellagra in the past or how many had died of it. 

The same could be said for other deficiency diseases. The state had been spending 72 cents per day per patient to feed the mentally ill in six institutions, and An additional 28 cents per day had brought the menus to at least a nutritionally sound basis. Dr. Solomon is, apparently, just one of a handful of doctors in the entire medical profession who is concerned about what patients eat Speaking at a symposium on hunger and malnutrition sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Jes Mayer, professor of Nutrition at Harvard University, and President Nixon’s advisor on nutrition, said: “Our studies at Harvard among residents suf gests that the average physician knows a little more about nutrition than the average secretary —unless the secretary has a weight problem, and then she probably knows more than the average physician.” He said that only a half dozen or so medical schools in the country include a nutrition course for their students. 

Continued Dr. Mayer: “Nutrition education should be centered on foods—their size, shape, color, caloric value, etc. We must relate such vital information to the everyday uses of people.” In 1963, the Council on Foods and Nutrition of the American Medical Association issued a report on nutritional education in medical schools in which they opined that the medics were not really learning anything much about food and nutrition, and they suggested hiring one professor in each school whose main interest might be nutrition. Even Dr. Fredrick Stare of Harvard, writing in Nutrition Reviews, said that very little attention is directed to nutrition teaching in medical schools. In the American Journal of Public Health in June 1966, Dr. Robert Shank stated that the situation was very bad. In 1967, Dr. J. F. Mueller said that there is great dissatisfaction among nutritionists in general with “the quality of nutrition education in medical schools.” Dr. Robert H. Barnes of the University of Washington concurred. 

Writing in Nutrition Today, 1968, Dr.-Barnes, after studying what. went on in a local hospital, said that he found that the terms by which doctors order diets for their patients are completely meaningless and indicate that the doctors have no idea of what the diets are supposed to do for the patients or why they should be put on such diets. Said Dr, Barnes: “No portion of the human body seems to confound physicians more than the gastrointestinal tract, Writing a diet for a patient ailing in this dark and mysterious region seems to Fill us with bewilderment.” Cancer researchers bave often used vitamins A, C, and E in their search for a cure for this mysterious disorder. 

We now have a report from the University of California at Los Angeles, where six researchers have determined that the abnormal growth of cancer cells may be due to a lack of niacin. Dr. Robert A. Smith and his co-workers have not as yet used animals or humans in their research, however, they indicate that animal studies will be begun. Working in tissue culture with cells derived from colon and kidney cancers in humans, the UCLA team found that there is a marked difference between cancer and normal cells. The cancer cells were depleted of nicotinamide, the physiologically active form of niacin, they said. A Montreal, Canada professor believes that niacin is important for improving memory in af ing people, He also gave them carbon dioxide to inhale.

He is quoted in Science News for April 1966 as saying that impairment of the manufacture of new protein in the body may be responsible for badly functioning memories. The B vitamin may help to encourage this activity. In another vein, Dr. Grace A., Goldsmith of Tulane University reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association on October 11, 1965, that niacin appears to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood, In experiments with rabbits, the B vitamin protected against hardening of the arteries and reduced its severity.  Two New York physicians, who treated 41 patients with large doses of niacin, reported similar results with respect to cholesterol. The patients were suffering from high levels of cholesterol in the blood and hardening of the arteries. 

In all cases, the Jarge doses of niacin brought about a reduction in cholesterol without any change in diet. If you are bothered by large amounts of cholesterol deposits, why not ask your doctor to investigate the use of niacin? Taking an isolated B vitamin on your own in large quantities sometimes produces slight side effects because it is being used as a drug. Idiopathic hypogeusia is the unlikely name given to a new condition that doctors have recently uncovered. It means the inability to taste anything. Several articles in medical journals have reported on this disorder, and they are mystified as to what could possibly cause such a condition, in a letter to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. R. P Green of Saskatchewan, Canada announced thy the condition is “part of a very old disease which, causes the perception to change—perception dysfunction, as a result of a niacin deficiency. The disease produced is pellagra and “the cur is niacin.” 

Dr. Green goes on to point out that lack of taste is only one possible effect on sensation caused by a lack of this B vitamin. In his expert experience with 800 cases, impairment of the senses of taste and smell are problems, he said. He told his physician readers that many patients come to a doctor with complaints for which there seems to be no physical basis. Ask them questions about their sense of taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch and you can diagnose the disorder, he said. He gives his patients a perceptual test that reveals their impairment of one sense or another. Then he suggests a diet, that includes plenty of niacin. “The results in cases of recent! onset is nothing short of miraculous,” he said “Patients whose aberrations have extended over! months and even years respond more slowly but yet very satisfactorily in the main.” 

Laboratories used to report considerable work with animals on the effects of vitamin dosage on the symptoms of old aye. But this kind of pre-season has rather gone out of style, especially since our official scientific bodies make pronouncements that old people need no more vitamins than younger folks, and taking more vitamins than you “need” will do nothing for health. We are, therefore, glad to find in a European scientific journal the account of some convincing research along these lines. The scientists used three groups of rats and placed all of them on the same diet. Then they gave the first group a vitamin preparation containing twice the minimum daily requirements for rats. The second group received only niacin. 

The third group got no vitamins at all. However, all these rats were eating the customary good, nourishing diet that is fed to valuable laboratory animals to maintain the best possible health. The first group of animals showed better food assimilation, better health, and growth than the rest of the rats. The first group and the group that got the B vitamin were more active physically than the others. The first group had a higher fertility rate and lowest blood cholesterol. Those who received the multiple-vitamin had the longest lifespan. Next came those who got only the niacin, while the rats that had no vitamin supplement had the shortest life span. After the animals died, their tissues were examined in the laboratory. 

Deposits in the blood vessels—the kind that leads to hardening of the arteries—were much less noticeable in the rats that got the vitamin supplement. Other organs, too, showed less degeneration than that of the non-supplement animals. To test their findings still further, the scientists gave a multiple-vitamin preparation to a group of 65 to 90-year-old people for a month. They report that, when the oldsters were tested, they showed an increase in oxidative processes and protein metabolism. 

There was also “improvement in their general condition,” even though 80 days is not a very long time for such a study. This research was reported by V. V. Efremov in the Journal Vestnil Akademii Meditsinskikh Nauk, USSR, Volume 21 (10), 1966. It was abstracted in Chemical Abstracts, 1968, on page 9111. As far back as 1925, J. Goldberger had determined that pellagra is a deficiency disease. In 1937, C. A. Elvehjem and his associates discovered that nicotinic acid (niacin) is involved in preventing the disease. In the chart on page 236, we give you the main sources of niacin in the human diet. The recommended dietary allowances are infants (5 to 8 mg, daily); children (8 to 15 mg, daily; males (17 to 20 mg. daily); and females (19 to 15 mg. daily). Pregnant women (15 mg daily); lactation (20 mg, daily).

Riboflavin

ON MARCH 9, 1972 the Congressional authors of the new cancer attack law introduced a $ 1.3 billion bill to intensify the battle against heart, lung, and blood vessel diseases. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass,) and Rep. Paul G. Rogers (D., Fla), the co-sponsors, said that the proposed legislation was aimed at arresting diseases which annually cause more than half the deaths in the United States. Under the legislation, there would be community-based centers for screening and education as part of a disease-control program. In addition, there would be 15 new clinical research facilities for pulmonary disease.  

In the past, too little attention has been paid to the prevention of diseases, rather than trying to cure the disease after the patient has contracted it. And there is every indication that most of our major ills may be nutritionally based. Such things as cancer, heart disease multiple sclerosis, alcoholism, cataracts, mental disorders —yes, even aging—may be due to an imbalance of nutrients in our bodies or perhaps a damaging shortage of one or more vitamins or minerals. Riboflavin, or vitamin B2, is only one of the substances that may turn out to be at the forefront of this fight. A yellowish nitrogenous polyhydroxy alcohol, B2 was isolated as a vitamin in 1933 by R. Kuhn, P. Gyorgy, and T. Wagner-Jauregg. It occurs in considerable portions in egg white and whole eggs, milk, whey, brewer yeast, liver, whole grains, and soybeans. Dr. Otto Heinrich Warburg, a physician, two-time Nobel Laureate, and a former director of the Max Planck Institute of Cell Physiology in Germany, was a pioneer in the investigation of oxidation and reduction. 

One of the works leading biochemists, Warburg theorized that cancer cells produce energy by the fermentation of sugar, rather than, as often suspected, by the normal respiratory process. He further believed that the key to cancer prevention was in the protection of cellular respiration through the utilization of riboflavin and niacin. Dr. Warburg, who died in August 1970 at the age of 86, was also one of the first to discover the high production of lactic acid (an acid found in the blood and connected with muscle fatigue) by cancer tissues.  Hopefully, other researchers are continuing Dr Warburg’s important research. Dr Albert B. Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine that bears his name, told the Fifth International Symposium on Comparative Leukemia Research at Padua, Italy in 1971, that more research is needed on the role of nutrition in the possible prevention of cancer. 

He told Congress that crash programs to develop a miraculous cancer vaccine cure, rather than a method of prevention, are doomed to failure. We usually think of anemia as having to do with a lack of iron in food. And there is more serious anemia caused by certain very toxic drugs. As we learn from medical journals, pernicious anemia can be prevented and cured by taking vitamin B12, along with certain substances that help the stomach absorb it. According to two Baylor University researchers in Texas, however, a deficiency of riboflavin can cause anemia, Eight volunteers were put on a diet from which all riboflavin was carefully excluded. Then they were given vitamin supplements to make sure that they had enough of all other vitamins and minerals, The volunteers rapidly developed anemia, resulting in disorders of the blood cells and of the bone marrow where certain blood cells are manufactured. 

When vitamin B2 was given again, the anemia was halted. Cataract, which is generally thought to be a disorder of old age, affects over five million Americans between the ages of 80 and 60, Cataract is a fogging of the eye lens and may eventually result in complete blindness, The medical treatment is an operation which removes the cataract; then special glasses are prescribed. Unfortunately, many of the operations are not successful. Cataracts can easily be produced in laboratory animals by depriving them of riboflavin. In one experiment all the rats whose diets contained no vitamin B2 got cataracts. But it was only early in life that the deficient diet produced the effect in other words, the rats were young when they got the diet that was lacking in the B vitamin. 

Guinea pigs and man are just a few of the animals that cannot manufacture their own vitamin C. So diets deficient in vitamin C can produce scurvy. These same diets can also produce cataracts. A diet low in protein has also been linked to this eye disorder. Adelle Davis, who has written many excellent books, including Let’s Get Well, stated: “My files contain dozens of unsolicited letters from persons who have recovered from cataracts after their diets were more adequate, often while they were preparing for surgery. People sometimes take only a riboflavin supplement and then wonder why their eyes fail to improve. An anti-stress diet high in protein, riboflavin, vitamin C, vitamin E, pantothenic acid, and all nutrients is essential before good results can be expected.” (Additional information on the relationship be. Tween Cataracts and Nutrition is published in Vitamin C, the Powerhouse Vitamin, Conquers More Than Just Colds, which is listed in the bibliography at the end of this book). 

Four important studies of aging people seem to demonstrate two related facts: 1. Lack of essential nutrients may be a very common cause of aging; and 2. Older folks may in truth be far less than they need of many essential food elements. Geriatrics for March 1968 published an article by three Chicago researchers on the actual circumstances of our approximately 20 million senior citizens where eating and nutrition are concerned. They asked questions about the kind of diet being eaten by the elderly and the reasons for it. Their conclusions are significant. First, they point out that, although babies differ greatly in their individual physiological make-up, old folks differ far more, since they have a lifetime to accumulate all kinds of damage from accidents, surgery, disease, poison’ from drugs, and pollution, along with bad habits such as smoking and eating unwisely. 

So, if we agree that each of us is different in our needs, we must go further with older folks and decide that each of them is even more varied from all other old folks in his present condition and needs. Then, too, we must admit that most old folks suffer from at least one chronic disorder. According to these scientists, about 75% of all people between 65 and 74 years of age have chronic conditions and the incidence is even higher in those over 75. And, as we learned at the White House Conference on Aging in 1971, disease is not the only problem our senior citizens face. Lack of money and means of transportation, loneliness, and inadequate nutrition are some of the others. A 1955 dietary survey revealed that homes with homemakers over 60 and older have poorer diets in regard to all nutrients than households with younger cooks. Riboflavin, calcium, and vitamin C were the essentials most often lacking. Iron and thiamine are also usually in short supply. As people age beyond 65, their diets become progressively worse. Tea, toast, cereals, and sweets are most often favored. Some of the results of such badly planned diets are widespread anemia due to lack of iron and a bone condition that is almost universal-osteoporosis-which many nutrition experts believe is caused chiefly by lack of calcium and vitamin D. 

Since obesity and overweight are rather common among old folks, it seems apparent that the day's calories which should be spent in high ten foods (rich in vitamins and minerals) are often wasted instead on non-nourishing foods which contribute little but excess weight. Those on reducing diets tend to lack vitamins and minerals since it is hard to plan such diets which will supply all the needed nutrients. The conclusion these authors came to was that perhaps one-third or more of all people 65 and over have diets containing less than the recommended amounts of essential nutrients, especially vitamin B2, vitamin C, and calcium. Another study, made by six physicians at a British hospital catering only to old people, was published in Gerontologica Clinica (Volume 10, 1968). 

They examined 80 elderly patients who had lived in the hospital for a long time, They looked for signs of vitamin deficiency in the majority of patients. Only seven of the 80 appeared to be relatively free of such symptoms. To make sure that the symptoms indicated vitamin deficiency and nothing else, they divided the group into two groups and gave one group a vitamin supplement, and the other a simple pill which contained nothing. The group getting the vitamin supplement showed improvement within six months, and much more improvement within a year. The group which received no vitamin supplement showed no improvement. Especially interesting was the fact that apparently unrelated symptoms of bed sores yielded to the vitamin supplement. Said the authors: “One feature that has been observed in this study is the slow rate at which certain of the pathological (disease) changes can be reversed by even high doses of vitamins. It would seem that, like many other conditions, early changes are reversible but that if these remain untreated for a sufficient length of time then irreversible changes occur”.

 In a third article bearing on this subject, three Connecticut doctors studied 50 men and women at a nursing home for the aged trying to discover whether they suffered from being unable to absorb the food they ate. These older folks suffered from what the doctors called “The usual diseases of old age, such as osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), general mental confusion, and so forth.” Nine of them showed symptoms of severe wasting. That is, they were excessively thin, apathetic, and suffering from severe mental abnormalities. Is it possible, the doctors asked in this study, that one reason for the condition of these old people is just that they do not absorb enough nutrients from their food to bring them good health? They found that this, indeed, was the case. Many of the patients were unable to absorb important essential nutrients like protein, vitamin A, and fat (which influences the absorption of all fat-soluble vitamins—A, D, E, and K). 

The investigators also found that all of them were suffering, to some degree, from an inability pie? 50 to handle starches and sugars. That is, their blood sugar levels were disordered. They tended {to be diabetic. The patients who appeared to be wasting away were found to be the least able to absorb their food properly. The fourth article that we refer to appeared in the April 1966 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Written by a Belgian physician, a specialist in the problems of hows older people, it takes the form of a new theory Diet on why we age. No one really knows, of course, just why or how we get old or why some people seem to age so much faster than others. Piecing together information from many different sources, Dr. H. LeComte presented his new theory of aging: that we age because we have serious deficiencies in essential nutrients. 

Severe premature aging is caused by serious deficiencies; less pronounced aging is caused by lesser deficiencies and so on. “From this, we conclude that the so-called ‘normal aging’ is caused by small (maybe not to be diagnosed, but, nevertheless, real) deficiencies,” he said, He tells us that the illness or illnesses of an elderly patient can be far more easily cured if he is amply supplied with all the things in which he has been deficient. Then he tells us that there is a large group of older folks who appear to be healthy but who complain of “all sorts of troubles of which fatigue is the most important.” These complaints, he said, are the results of one or several deficiencies and they can be treated by supplying the essential nutrients in plentiful amounts, (Another theory on why we grow old_ is explored in the book, Vitamin E, Wonder Worker of the ’70’s?”, listed in the bibliography). 

In order to determine how much of each vitamin and mineral we need each day, every household should have a copy of Recommended Dietary Allowances, 7th Edition, 1968, available from the Printing and Publishing Office, National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave., Washington, D. C. 20418. It costs $1.75. The next edition is due out in 1978. For example, how much riboflavin do you need each day? For infants, the official daily recommendation is from 0.4 to 0.6 milligrams; for children, from 0.6 to 1.2 milligrams; for males, it is 1.3 for boys up to 1.7 for adults; for women, the range is 1.3 milligrams for girls to 1.5 milligrams for adults; pregnancy requires 1.8 milligrams daily and for lactation 2 milligrams each day.  A chart on page 234 gives some of the major sources of riboflavin.

Thiamine

 

A survey released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on February 23, 1968, showed that 20% of all American families were eating what the USDA classified as a "poor" diet. The Department's food experts had interviewed 7.500 families and gathered information on all food either bought or home-produced in the preceding week, plus all snacks and meals they had eaten away from home. They graded the food on the basis of the National Academy of Sciences recommendations for daily requirements of calories, protein, minerals calcium and iron, and vitamins A, thiamine, riboflavin, and vitamin C. The USDA called a diet "poor" if it supplied less than two-thirds of one or more of the nutrients. For the purposes of this book, we will only mention the statistics as they relate to thiamine and riboflavin. In the Northeast, 9% of the diets were deficient in thiamine; 8% in the North Central, 7% in the South, and 10% in the West. For riboflavin, it was 5% in the Northeast, 6% in the North Central, 7% in the South, and 6% in the West.

Another survey, this one made by Dr. Arnold Schaefer when he was with the Public Health Service, showed shocking evidence of widespread malnutrition in the U.S. The survey had been amassed after thorough physical examination of over 83,000 persons. Because the news of widespread malnutrition became unpleasant to a number of politicians, Dr. Schaefer was forced to resign his post, after more than 15 years of service, and was forbidden to comment on the 10-state survey. It was through the efforts of Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and others that we have been fed additional information from time to time.

At one point it was noted that 9% of those surveyed were short on thiamine, while 19% were getting too little riboflavin. In another report, 11% of all those examined above the poverty level in one state turned out to be deficient or low in vitamin C. The figures on riboflavin are much worse. Below the poverty level, state after state ranges from 5,3% of those deficient or low in vitamins, up to 31,6% in South Carolina. Above the poverty level, the figure is 23%. So far s ages go, the largest percent of those deficient and low in vitamin B2 occurred among children below six years of age- 48,2% in South Carolina. 

Beriberi was believed to have been conquered many many years ago. But the British Medical Journal for April 10, 1971 reports on two cases of beriberi which occurred in Blackpool, England. Beriberi, the disease of thiamine deficiency, is still prevalent in areas of the world where white rice is eaten almost exclusively, with little in the way of meat, fish, or vegetables, which might contribute enough thiamine to prevent the disease.

According to the Heinz Handbook of Nutrition,  there may be conditions even in the U.S. where so little thiamine is included in the diet that beriberi may result. Chronic alcoholics substitute drinks for foods that contain thiamine. And other conditions increase one's demands for this essential vitamin: pregnancy, breastfeeding, fevers, hyperthyroidism, or disease which interferes with proper absorption or utilization of food (like diarrhea, colitis, etc) or disorders of the liver.

What are the typical symptoms? The earliest are vague: lack of initiative, lack of appetite, depression, irritability, poor memory, tendency to tire, easily and to be unable to concentrate. Then there are vague abdominal and heart complaints. These are symptoms often associated with our senior citizen, especially those who live alone and prepare their own meals.   

As the deficiency grows worse, nerves are affected, chiefly in the legs. The victim suffers from neuritis and from a feeling of "pins and needles" in the toes, along with a burning sensation. Arms and fingers are generally affected next. The heart suffers injury resulting in shortness of breath and irregularities of heartbeat. There may also be accumulations of fluid, causing puffy swelling in ankles. The only remedy is large amounts of thiamine injected, if there is evidence that it will not be thoroughly absorbed.

The two British Beriberi patients were admitted to a psychiatric ward. The first was an 80-year-old widow who had lived alone since the death of her husband. She was depressed, slept poorly, ate little, was hopeless about the future, and thought frequently of suicide. She was underweight, and had a rash on her face and on parts of her hands and arms exposed to sunlight this is another symptom of beriberi. Her chest X-ray showed an enlarged heart.

The second patient was only 48. He has suffered from stomach ulcers and had part of his stomach removed. Because of his wife's death several years before, he also was depressed and apprehensive. He ate little. He could not sleep without barbiturates. His legs were wasted. His ankles showed swelling with fluid. 

Both patients were given thiamine by injection and within three weeks depression and swelling had cleared and they had gained weight. They were well physically and mentally and were discharged from hospital. One can only hope that they were told how easily and inexpensively the symptoms could be prevented, a diet which includes plenty of the foods in which thiamine is abundant plus food supplements containing plenty of all the B vitamins.

The British physician who treated these patients says that the disease may be commoner in England than is generally supposed. He says that vitamin deficiencies there are usually brought on by other factors disorders of the digestive tract and the mind, alcoholism, poor choices of food, and among the elderly, social isolation, which leads to loss of appetite and loss of desire to prepare nourishing food.

 He goes on to say, "Thiamine deficiency is frequently misdiagnosed and it is noteworthy that the first patient was initially treated for congestive heart failure. Beriberi would probably be frequently recognized if the possibility were considered in at-risk patients, particularly those in psychiatric and geriatric wards....".

In a later issue of the British Medical Journal (May 1, 1971), a London physician reports still another case. This was a 64-year-old man with a three-week history of shortness of breath and cough. He appeared to have all the symptoms of heart failure. His lungs showed infection. He was given large doses of antibiotics. His ankles were badly swollen and the swelling did not go down. He was given several diuretics, those drugs which usually cause urination and the disappearance of accumulation of water in tissues. There were no results.

Someone thought of beriberi. Ha was immediately given thiamine by injection. The swelling disappeared. The man lost considerable weight which had been largely unwanted water. And he was cured. The physician then asked about his diet. It seems he was a heavy drinker, ate a very poor diet, and had a mild deficiency in iron. All this would indicate that he was not eating nearly enough foods rich of thiamine. The recommended daily dietary allowances for thiamine, as released by the National Academy of Sciences in 1986, range from 0,2 milligrams for infants to 15 milligrams for growing teenage boys. Adults generally require from 1 to 1,4 milligrams each day. 

Other cases of beriberi have been reported in the British Medical Journal. Recently, two patients were admitted to a London hospital with the disease. Both patients were suffering from severe heart and respiratory symptoms. No one at first thought of beriberi as a possible diagnosis, of course.

The first patient was a young college student who had arrived in Britain only nine months before and was apparently living on a small budget since his diet had been "monotonous and much of it was carbohydrate". He had severe breathlessness, weakness, and pain in the chest and upper abdomen. His face and ankles were swollen. He was restless and agitated.

The doctors went to work on him and dosed him with many kinds of drugs, tested all aspects of his condition, and remained puzzled. Then someone suggested beriberi. It didn't seem possible, since he did not have some of the most important symptoms of this condition, in terms of heart damage. But they gave him thiamine. Almost immediately his condition began to improve. The swelling disappeared and the breathlessness and the pounding heart righted themselves. "Over a period of several days all clinical evidence of circulatory and renal abnormality cleared", the doctors reported.

They sent him home, apparently without any advice on diet, since nothing of this sort is mentioned in the article. He didn't return for follow-up, so presumably, he is back on his high carbohydrate diet which will undoubtedly produce the same condition again, as soon as he has exhausted his store of thiamine.

The second case was a 62 years old man, breathless, with swollen ankles, confusion, a poor memory. He lived alone, ate irregularly, and drank a lot of beer. He also had several symptoms of scurvy, the disease of vitamin C deficiency. 

 The doctors gave him thiamine and vitamin C and he began to improve at once. "All abnormalities of cardiopulmonary function resolved after thiamine therapy", said the two doctors.

In their discussion of these two cases, the doctors, Neil McIntyre and Nigel N. Stanley point out that what happened in these two patients did not show the usual symptoms of beriberi affecting the heart. Nevertheless, the B vitamin worked its miracle.

These two sensible doctors suggest, finally, that, since the treatment is completely harmless, it might be a good idea to give thiamine in any case where the patient has had heart failure without any clear evidence as to the cause! Why not indeed? And what might be even better, is why not try giving all the B vitamins as well as vitamins C, A, and E in large doses to all hospital patients the moment they come in the door, without waiting to diagnose, treat, or give drugs! Isn't it possible that many disorders that bring people to hospitals are the result of plain nutritional deficiency day after day and year after year?

Medical journals occasionally describe modern cases pf pellagra, the disease of niacin deficiency. Deficiency in just one vitamin is uncommon. When the diet is so unbalanced that one vitamin is missing, others are bound to be missing, others are bound to be missing, too.

What kind of diet might produce beriberi or pellagra? A diet that relies almost completely on refined and processed cereals white, unanriched bread, and any of a number of popular breakfast cereals. To prevent these easily preventable disorders, one should make certain to eat enough meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, and green, leafy vegetables like spinach and chard. The other sources are wholegrain cereals and breads really wholegrain.

Interestingly enough, in the early days of vitamin research when pills were not available, doctors cured cases of pellagra and beriberi with brewer's yeast, wheat germ, bran, and liver. So include them in your meals as often as you can. Yeast can be added to everything you bake and every suitable dish like casseroles, soups, salads, etc. Wheat germ is great, eaten with milk and honey as a breakfast cereal. Its whopping big content of protein and minerals makes it a stick-to-the-ribs breakfast equivalent to bacon and eggs. The bran which is removed from whole grains to make refined flours is available as a cereal a food noted for its ability to preserve "regularity".

A worried Texas physician asked in the Journal of the American Medical Association, on February 6, 1967, "What are the usual causes of burning sensations in the soles of the feet in elderly persons? 

The JAMA editor talked about muscle cramping, impaired circulation and possible diabetes, and deficiency in thiamine and pyridoxine.

Nutritional Disorders of the Nervous System,  by John D. Spillane, describes the burning feet complaint of people with pellagra and prisoners of war who are given far too little of the B vitamins. Old folks have a tendency to eat foods that are easy to buy, prepare, and chew like white bread, refined cereals, and sweets. This is bound to result in B vitamin deficiency.

Three Australian physicians report in the July 10, 1971 issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal, on a 48-year-old alcoholic patient with brain deterioration due to long years of heavy drinking. Two weeks before he came to the hospital he found he had difficulty in walking. He staggered and could not coordinate the movement of his legs. Other symptoms pointed to quite serious brain damage the kind that heavy drinking eventually produces. He was given a richly nourishing diet and very high doses of thiamine. This was 200 milligrams by injection and 300 milligrams by mouth every day. Remember, the recommended daily allowance for a man is 2,4 milligrams daily.

So this alcoholic was getting more than 500 times the amount specified for a non-alcoholic. He was also given massive doses of riboflavin and niacin. Within about three weeks he was able to leave the hospital and was given thiamine to take in massive doses. His symptoms improved and he was able to walk almost normally. Had he been able to stay on the wagon, the physicians are sure he could have recovered completely. We will have more to say about alcoholism and B vitamin therapy later.

A University of Alabama medical researcher has discovered a significant relationship between the amount of thiamine in one's meals and the frequency of complaints related to heart disease and the possibility of heart attacks.

It has been known for some time, report Dr. E. Cheraskin and his colleagues, writing in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in November 1967, that there is a definite relation between the amount of carbohydrate food eaten -especially refined carbohydrates- and the frequency of these heart complaints. It is also well known, they go on, that thiamine is part of the complicated process that goes on in our bodies to change carbohydrate foods into energy.

To discover whether it's possible to relate conclusively a lack of vitamin B to a tendency to heart attacks, Dr. Cheraskin asked 74 dentists and their wives to participate in a study. Each of them was asked a series of questions which we reproduce here, all having to do with heart and artery health. Then he asked each of these people to keep records of what they ate and he checked their food intake for its content of thiamine.

TEST QUESTIONS ON HEART AND CIRCULATORY COMPLAINTS FROM THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL

1. Has a doctor ever said your blood pressure was too high?
2. Has a doctor ever said your blood pressure was too low?
3. Do you have pains in the heart or chest?
4. Are you often bothered by the thumping of the heart?
5. Does your heart often race like mad?
6. Do you often have difficulty breathing?
7. Do you get out of breath long before anyone else?
8. Do you sometimes get out of breath just sitting still?
9. Are your ankles often badly swollen?
10. Do cold hands or feet trouble you even in hot weather?
11. Do you suffer from frequent cramps in your legs?
12. Has a doctor ever said you have heart trouble?
13. Does heart trouble run in your family? 

He found, interestingly enough, that more than one-fourth of these folks were getting less thiamine in their meals than the officially recommended daily allowance. He then divided the dentists and their wives into two groups those getting rather high amounts of the B vitamin, and those getting lower amounts. Then he checked on the heart and artery complaints of the two groups and found that, on an average basis for the whole group, those folks who were eating less thiamine had more heart and artery complaints than those who got more thiamine. In fact, almost twice as many had complaints in the group which got less thiamine.

Then Dr. Cheraskin reminded himself that age may have a considerable amount to do with health since any disorder tends to become worse as we grow older and less able to withstand it. so he decided to check the age of the different people having heart complaints and compare this with the amount of thiamine in their diets. He found that the older people who ate the least thiamine had the most complaints. The younger people who ate food containing most thiamine had the fewest complaints.

But he also found that the older people who ate food containing the most thiamine had fewer heart and artery complaints than young people whose meals tended to be short on the B vitamin. He warns us that these figures do not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the amount of thiamine you get every day is directly related to whether or not you have circulatory trouble. He thinks that more experiments must be done in which thiamine supplements are given to many people and their circulatory problems are checked before and after the vitamin is given.

We have several further comments on what we consider is an extremely valuable piece of research. First, since it is well known that thiamine is essential for the body's use of carbohydrates that is, starch and sugar it seems quite likely that anyone who eats a lot of food high in starch and sugar in such foods as grains and sugarcane. There is enough thiamine in both of these natural foods to provide for all the body's needs for digesting and assimilating the starches and sugars.

But when most of this thiamine is removed, as modern processors do when they refine cereals, make white flour out of whole grain flour, and white sugar out of sugarcane, the folks who eat these foods are almost bound to be short on thiamine unless they provide it in some other way.

Then, too, when we eat lots of such depleted foods as white flour and white sugar, we use up space in our menus that should be devoted to more nutritious foods. So we probably get far less thiamine in other foods, since we simply don't have room left to eat enough of these nutritious foods, stuffed as we are with refined carbohydrates.

The child or the overweight reducer, for example, who eats some refined sugar between meals in the form of soft drinks or candy may manage to spoil his appetite for the next meal, and, at the same time, he has given his digestive apparatus a problem it can't solve a lot of sugar or starch without the wherewithal to handle it. And, by spoiling his appetite for the next meal, he gets even less of the important nutrients which he might have gotten in meat, wholemeal bread, vegetables, nuts and seeds, etc. He just didn't have the appetite to eat them. The sugary snack spoiled it.

It seems reasonable that, the longer such a state of affairs goes on, the greater will be the strain on those parts of us that depend on thiamine for easy, successful functioning. The heart and arteries, for example. So as we grow older, the circulatory complaints increase as our shortage of thiamine increases. But not e, too, that if we have continually gotten enough thiamine, according to Dr. Cheraskin's investigation, our circulatory machinery tends to stay in good order, better order, in fact, than that of younger people who are short on thiamine.

We generally think of cirrhosis of the liver as the classical disease of alcoholics. But many other conditions contribute to the ill health of these unfortunates. Archives of Internal Medicine for October 1967 presented the case of a 36-year-old man suffering from heart failure and acute failure of the kidneys. He was found to be severely deficient in thiamine. So long had the deficiency been going on that his doctor thought that the man was suffering from beriberi. This man had depended on alcohol for the calories to keep himself going. He had stopped eating nourishing food.

Since pure carbohydrate, which is what alcohol is, makes heavy demands on the body's store of thiamine, it is no wonder that the patient eventually degenerated into beriberi patient. A massive dose of thiamine brought his kidneys back to normal, suggesting that the heart condition, brought on by the lack of thiamine, had caused the kidney condition.

Never underestimate the power of the B Vitamins and their essential place in your meals and food supplements.

Understanding the B Complex of Vitamins

A Newborn baby lay in convulsions, which many drugs and sedatives had failed to relieve. She was given a single injection of a harmless substance. The convulsions stopped at once. Doctors discovered the child needed injections and tablets daily for the next eight years to prevent further trouble. A child with cyctic fibrosis was taking a powerful antibiotic to prevent infections. Neuritis of the nerves of the eye developed as a side effect of the drug. she was given some pills and the neuritis disappeared. The life - saving antibiotic could be administered without harm so long as the other medication was maintained. 

A 62-year-old woman came to an Alabama hospital with alarming symptoms. She had no appetite, suffered from nausea and vomiting, mental depression, pallor, muscle pains and heart pains. She had tingling sensations in hands and feet and a scaly dermatitis. She suffered from anemia, exhaustion, swollen ankles, extremely high cholesterol levels and a liver disorder. She had been on a highly nourishing diet to restore her health after a lifetime of heavy drinking. What was wrong? An injection of one harmless substance cured all her symptoms within a few days.This story was told in the American Journal Clinical Nutrition.

Seven young women taking oral contraceptives came to a Florida physician suffering from a desperately  serious form of anemia. So long as they took The Pill, the anemia grew worse. The physician gave them a harmless substance in a pill. They improved almost at once and could continue taking The Pill in good health so long as they continued to take the doctor's pill as well. What was it? A wonder drug? This story appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A five-month-old baby was vomiting persistenly and had an extensive skin rash which was spreading in spite of many medications his physician gave him. His breathing was abnormal; he appeared to have acidosis. Put on a new diet, he went into shock. The physician gave  him a bit of one harmless substance. The vomiting stopped immediately and within a few days the baby was completely well. The Lancet printed this account.

An acute alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens had not worked for three years, had been alcoholic for six years. He was taken to a New York hospital with an accumulation of fluid in his lungs. In the operating room a tube was inserted into his stomach. Into the tube was poured a liquid food. Within 48 hours the man was walking around, needing no further treatment than the prescribed feeding at regular intervals. After three months he had gained 30 pounds, was working steadily. Magic? Magic doesn't get into medical journals and that's where this story was reported.

A brain-injured child had had seizures every day for three years. His doctors had given him tranquilizers in an efforts to control the seizures, with no success. Ha was given some tablets and eleven day later had his first day completely free from seizures. A second child who had suffered from many seizures every day for two years was completely free from them within three days and was a healthy, happy child four years later. The doctor who treated him believes there many be as many as 20 million American children suffering from varying degrees of mental illness who could be helped with this same therapy. A psychiatrist reported this story in Schizophrenia, Volume 3, Number 2. 

An 80-year-old widow, living alone since her husband's, was depressed, hopeless, suicidal. She suffered from insomnia, was underweight, had an enlarged heart and a peculiar rash on those parts of her face and hands that are exposed to sunlight. She came to a British hospital, as given injections for three weeks, went home, completely well and cheerful.

A patient who had suffered for 20 years from inability to work, loss of interest in surroundings, loss of appetite, food allergies, dizziness, fainting spells, headaches, shortness of breath and nervousness was treated with  certain diet, plus some tablets. Within five days his acute symptoms disappeared, and three months later he was free from all symptoms and leading a well-adjusted life. This story was reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A 10-year-old girl, once bright and alert, began to complain of abdominal pains and headaches. Her school grades deteriorated, she became cranky and difficult, refused to play the piano which she had always enjoyed. She heard "voices", felt afraid of many harmless things. People's faces seemed peculiar to her. Buildings appeared to be falling on her. Her physician gave her some tablets and within a month she was once again a bright, happy little girl.

These stories are not fiction. The tablets and injections given, in many instances, are members of the B complex of vitamins, completely harmless and beneficent. The diets accompanied some of the treatments are diets high in protein and the B vitamins. No wonder drugs are involved; no magic spells. All the stories appeared originally in highly reputable medical and scientific journals, which is where we found them when we were doing research for this articles.

There are many more stories of this kind-just as dramatic, just as convincing. In most of these cases, the B vitamins were given in what is called "megadoses" that is, amounts much larger than one would ordinarily get at meal times or in food supplements. In some cases, it appears that the vitamin or vitamins involved work like drugs. In others, it is apparent that the individual had need for far more of this particular vitamin then the rest of us need.

In every cases, the vitamin treatment is harmless, with none of the unpleasant side effects which accompany many drugs. Itis possible for you to use this information to help yourself or members of your family? With caution, yes, so far as the B vitamins are concerned, for they are water soluble, which means that, they are easily and quickly excreted and pose little threat of harm.

It is also our hope that this article, in some small way, can convince more doctors to use vitamins, especially the versatile B Complex, to alleviate much needless suffering.

Better still, with full knowledge of the B Complex, you can probably prevent such wide spread disorders that we discuss from ever appearing. That is the purpose of this article to help you to become acquainted with the B vitamins, what their role is in maintaining good health, what foods they are most abundant in, and how you can use them to secure abundant health for yourself and your family.

When we speak niacin, riboflavin and thiamine-three of the harmless substances referred to above-we are discussing three of the 11 B vitamins. Unfortunately, most of us known very little about this B complex,  team of vitamins that work together like mountain climbers, each helping the other out when the need arises. This, then, is one of the few articles on all of the B vitamins, their sources, their need in human nutrition, and some of the important research work being done with them. Although it is possible that more B vitamins will eventually be discovered, U.S. scientists now recognize only eleven. They are:

• B-1-Thiamine     
• B-2-Riboflavin
• B-3-Niacin
• B-6-Pyridoxine
• Pantothenic Acid
• Biotin
• Folic Acid 
• B-12-Cobalamine
• Choline
• Inositol
• PABA (Para-amino-benzoic acid) 

As you see, some of the B vitamins have numbers and some do not. Also, they skip from B3 to B6, then to B12, etc. Biotin was once called vitamin H. Some articles list B15 which, we are told, is being used most effectively abroad to prevent some serious conditions. One early classic book, Vitamins in Medicine, by Dr. Franklin Bicknell and Frederick Prescott, also listed vitamin B12a, B12b, B12c, B13 and B14.

The complexity of vitamin research is well demonstrated by the fact that other substances keep turning up in the B Complex of vitamins which one researcher or another in this country (U.S.) and abroad chooses to call a new vitamin. One such is vitamin B4 which prevents a disease of poultry, B5 which is essential for health in some animals, B8 also called adenylic acid, B14 which seems to be related to vitamin B12. Whether or not any or perhaps all of these may turn out eventually to be bona fide B vitamins remain to be seen. We know, however, that all these exist in the same foods.

Perhaps we should also add that some biochemists do not regard choline, inositol and PABA as vitamins, although they are part of the B Complex.

Vitamins -any vitamin- do not suddenly appear in a laboratory labeled vitamin B1 or B2. The biochemist does not pick up a cup of brewer's yeast must be vitamin B1 and the little pieces vitamin B2.

Until about 50 years ago, no one knew there were such thing as vitamins, although scientists and physicians knew, in general, that there were some substances in certain foods which could prevent certain deficiency diseases. If the substances were destroyed by heat or soaking or some other process, the disease would not be prevented, no matter how much of the depleted food was eaten. This was what the early scientists had to go on, and they made plenty of mistakes.

Dr. Casimir Funk, who died at 83 in Albany, N.Y. in November 1967, discovered vitamins in 1911. He had theorized that chemical substances, which he called vitamins (from the Latin word "vita" for life and "amine" for chemical compounds containing nitrogen) were capable of preventing deficiency diseases such as scurvy, pellagra and rickets, and indeed were essential to the sustenance of healthy life, according to the Dec. 1, 1967 issue of Time. The assumption that all vitamins contained nitrogen later proved to be wrong, and the "e" was dropped from "vitamin".

Moving from the Pasteur Institute in Paris to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London in 1910, Dr. Funk pursued the causes of beriberi, the vitamin B deficiency disease that attacks the nerves, heart and digestive system. Beriberi was particularly prevalent in those days among Eastern people whose diet consisted mainly of polished rice.

Funk put test pigeons on a rice diet, the Time article continued. "First he fed them polished rice; then natural rice, with all its bran coating they thrived; when they did not they suffered from polyneuritis. Obviously, the bran-fed pigeons were getting a nutrient that the other were not. Funk concentrated the nutrient, now known as vitamin B1".

After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1920, Dr. Funk went back to Europe, where he continued his research in Poland nd France. He returned to the U.S. at the start of World War II. "Funk continued his cancer research. All the while, he maintained more than a proprietary interest in nutrition, served as a research consultant to the U.S. Vitamin and Pharmaceutical Corporation, and helped to develop artificial vitamins", Time said.

Until 1926 scientists generally believed that vitamin B was a single entity. Then several scientists showed that there were at least two kinds, one of which could be destroyed easily by heat, another which was not destroyed by heat. Soon after, scientists in laboratories in many parts of the world began to isolate different parts of these substances, and, of course, called them by whatever name they happened to think of. Vitamin B2 was called riboflavin, except that in Europe that called it lactoflavin (because it is abundant in milk), and in the U.S. it was called vitamin G for a long time.

What is now pyridoxine has been labeled Factor Y, Factor I, Factor H, adermin and Factor B6. The term "vitamin B complex" at present refers to all vitamins split off from the original vitamin B nd identified chemically or by their biological effects. Bicknell and Prescott define a B vitamin s "an organic substance which acts catalytically in all living cells and which is essential for the nutrition of higher animals". A catalyst is a substance which causes biochemical changes to take place. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Handbook, Food, defines vitamins as "one group of substance that in relatively small amounts are essential for life and growth".

By "catalytically", Bicknell and Prescott mean that B vitamins are involved in many of the incredibly complex workings of the body. And we do mean complex. In the official National Academy of a science's book, Recommended Dietary Allowances,  the B vitamin biotin is listed as taking part in about 15 or 20 processes involving many different enzymes. Scientists, you see, are not content with just observing that lack of biotin causes certain body symptoms. They must know, too, exactly what biotin does in the body that prevents these symptoms from occurring. Needless to say, scientists have only begun to untangle the mysteries. It may be hundreds of years before all the complexities are understood, or perhaps they never will be.

What we do know, basically and thoroughly, about the B vitamins is that they are indeed a "complex" which means that they are closely related to one another, that they work together and they occur, generally speaking, in the same groups of food.

Thiamine,  s we have learned, is the vitamin which prevents beriberi. It is also essential for proper nerve function. Its deficiency brings neuritis, paralysis, atrophy of muscles, edema or swelling. Symptoms disappear magically when thiamine is given.

Riboflavin can bring about a variety of symptoms hen it is absent or deficient: mouth inflammation, sores at the corners of the lips, visual fatigue, a "sandy" feeling of the eyes, in ability to endure bright lights. Seborrhea,  scaly skin disease, is also a symptom of riboflavin deficiency.

Niacin is responsible for the health of skin, nerves and digestive tract-a big order for a substance needed only in milligrams. Pellagra is the deficiency disease when niacin is lacking. It produces three conditions: diarrhea, dermatitis, and dementia- and death if it is not treated. Niacin is also known as nicotinic acid. Nicotinamide, the physiologically active from of niacin, is also called niacinamide. 

Pyridoxine was recently listed by the National Academy of Sciences as being essential to human life and an official recommended dietary allowance was made. Lack of pyridoxine can also cause seborrhea, convulsions in babies, mouth disorders similar to those caused by lack of other B vitamins and nerve symptoms.

Biotin has no number officially. Nor does our NAS set a daily recommended dose, although biotin is assumed to be essential to man. Symptoms of lack of biotin are: lassitude, lack of appetite, depression, muscle pain, scaling dermatitis, nausea, anemia, high blood levels of cholesterol and changes in heart rhythm.

Choline is officially regarded as a vitamin, although no official recommendation for daily intake has been made. In animals, it protects against abnormalities in pregnancy and lactation.  Lack of it brings anemia, cardiovascular disease and muscle weakness to various animals.

Pantothenic acid, discovered by Dr. Roger J. Williams of the University of Texas, is also involved in many enzyme activities within the body. Lack of this vitamin produces apathy, depression, instability of heart action, abdominal pains, increased susceptibility to infection, impaired function of the important adrenal glands which bulwark us against stress, and certain nerve disorders involving "pins and needles" feelings and muscle weakness. (Do these sound like symptoms of anybody you know?)

Folic acid is closely related in function to vitamin B12. Lack of it produces a kind of anemia (macrocytic) which can be fatal. Symptoms also include inflammation of the tongue, diarrhea, lack of ability to absorb food. It is listed in Recommended Dietary Allowances as folacin.

Vitamin B12  is the substance that occurs along with the rest of the B vitamins. Says Food, "It is required for the growth and proper nutrition of animals, but its role in human nutrition is not known". Hence it is not officially a vitamin. Adelle Davis in her book, "Let's Get Well, says that, in the absence of enough choline and inositol, lecithin cannot be formed in the body. Lecithin is that important emulsifying substance which keeps cholesterol from forming unwanted deposits on the insides of the blood vessels. So, although inositol is not officially listed as a B vitamin, it appears that one day it may be.

Para-amino-benzoic acid is sometimes considered a B vitamin, although is is not recognized officially as such. Miss Davis tells us it was available some time ago only on prescription. She tells marvelous stories about its ability to restore color to white hair and says that anyone wanting healthy hair should take large amounts of folic acid, PABA and pantothenic acid daily, as well as use every day wheat germ, liver, brewer yeast and yogurt.

Food states that the sometimes-mentioned vitamins B13, B14, and B15 have not been classified as vitamins and have not been provided to be essential to human health. As you can see, these are substances which occur along with the B vitamins, which one scientist or another has isolated and is studying. If someone can come up with proof that one or another of these is actually essential to human life and can prevent the appearance of certain deficiency symptoms, then this substance will probably (after many years of official inquiry) be designated as a vitamin. And that's the way these things are handled.

As we have said, it is unbelievably complex, as everything in nature is. The one certain lesson we can learn from studying the B complex is the lesson our food technologists have never learned and apparently incapable of learning. Nature likes things whole. Nothing worthwhile is achieved in natured with fragments. Lifting all of the B complex of vitamins from our wholegrain cereals-when they are milled and processed- then returning only bits of three of the B vitamins synthetically is probably the worst possible thing we would do, for the imbalances thus created are unimaginably complex. Many of the trace minerals are also lost in this refining process.

It may take centuries to discover the amount of harm we have done to human health by thus fragmenting one of man's basic foods-bread. Yet this is done by our giant smiling industry when they produce white flour, white rice, and all the highly processed breakfast cereals.

All the B vitamins occur together in the same foods, although one food may contain a bit more of one, a bit less of another. These foods are:

• Liver and all organ meats
• Eggs
• Milk, cheese
• Meat, fish, poultry
• Green, leafy vegetables
• Whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes
• Foods yeast

You can readily see that a diet consisting of just these foods alone is a complete diet if you add fruits and other vegetables for their vitamin A and vitamin C content. The foods in which the B complex of vitamins are most abundant are also those foods which contain the most protein, so a diet consisting of the foods listed above, plus fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins A and vitamins C, is the best possible diet to follow.

You can also see that, as soon as you begin to dilute this excellent diet with foods made from white refined flours and refined cereals, you lose B vitamins as well as precious minerals. As you add white sugar and foods made from it, you cut down severely on the vitamin B content of your diet, for all vitamins have been removed from the sugarcane to make white sugar. You also create imbalances because Nature has arranged that the B vitamins are essential for the body to process starches and sugars. Yet B vitamins are lacking in these depleted foods. And still, we are told that one-half of all food eaten in the U.S. is made up of white flour, processed cereal food, and white sugar.

A recent study sponsored by the Agricultural Research Service of the Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the American Institute of Baking and the Purdue Research Foundation, shows that most of the B Complex and vitamin E are lost when wheat is processed into white flour and then made into bread, cake, pasta, etc.

The milling and bleaching of hard and soft wheat for bread and cake strips away 90% of the vitamin E, the report stated. The loss is about 60% in the milling of durum, a variety of hard wheat, for pastas, but there is a further loss in the final processing into macaroni and similar products. As for pyridoxine, the highest loss for the B Complex, less than 15% of the vitamin B6 was retained in bread, 7% in cake, 10 to 20% in crackers, and 25% in macaroni.

Speaking before the Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment in Washington on August 26, 1970, Dr. Henry A. Schroeder of Dartmouth Medical School said: "Most of the trace elements essential for health are removed from processed foods. Unfortunately, they are not restored to the food. The milling of wheat into refined white flour removes 40% of the chromium, 86% of the manganese, 76% of the iron, 89% of the cobalt, 68% of the copper, 78% of the zinc and 48% of the molybdenum, all trace elements essential for life or health", says Dr. Schroeder, a world-renowned expert on trace metals.

The B complex must be kept whole, as it is in whole grains, in whole seeds, nuts, eggs, liver, yeast. When you are buying a B Complex vitamin supplement, make sure it contains all of the B vitamins, As well as some yeast, liver or other rich sources of B vitamins, so that you will also be getting all the other vitamins that may be there but undiscovered, as yet.

Jamie Foxx Wellness Journey

Jamie Foxx's wellness journey is testament to his dedication to leading a balanced and fulfilling life amidst the demands of his career. From his early years growing up in Terrel Texas, to his rise to fame in Hollywood, Foxx has always been mindful of the importance of taking care of his physical and mental well-being.

Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Foxx displayed a natural talent for music and entertainment. Raised by his grandparents, he found solace in performing, honing his skills as a musician and comedian. These formative years laid the foundation for his later success in the entertainment industry.

As he embarked on his career, Jamie Foxx faced numerous challenges and obstacles. Yet, through perseverance and determination, he navigated the competitive world of show business, eventually landing roles in television and film. His breakthrough came with his memorable stint on the iconic sketch comedy show "In Living Color," where he showcased his comedic prowess and charisma.

However, with fame came increased pressure and scrutiny, prompting Foxx to prioritize his health in order to sustain his success in the long term. Thus, he adopted a holistic approach to mellnes incorporating regular exercise, proper nutrition, and self-care practices into his daily routine.

Foxx fitness regimen is a combination of cardiovascular workouts, strength training, and flexibility exercises. He believes in staying active to keep his body strong and agile, allowing him to tackle the physical demands of his roles on screen. Additionaly, he places a strongemphasis on nutrition, fueling his body with nourishing foods that provide sustained energy and support overall well-being.

Beyond physical fitness, Jamie Foxx is a vocal advocate for mental health awareness. He openly discusses his own struggles with anxiety and stress, aiming to break the stigma surrounding needed, emphasizing the importance of self-care and mindfulness.

In essence, Jamie Foxx's wellness journey is  journey of self-discovery and growth. It's about finding balance in a hectic world, prioritizing health and happiness, and inspiring others to do the same. through his actions and words, Foxx continues to set a positive example for his fans, showing that true success lies not only in career achievements but also in nurturing the body, mind, and soul.

Conclusion

In life, including in one's career pursuits, it is crucial not to neglect one's personal health, which encompasses physical well-being, mental wellness, and maintaining a spirited commitment to living a comprehensive healthier lifestyle. This entails paying attention to a diverse array of vital nutrients required by the body, with  particular emphasis on vitamin B. By prioritizing holistic health practices and ensuring a balanced approach to self-care, individuals can navigate the challenges of their professional endeavors while fostering long term vitality and resilience.

Another article has discussed "Body, Mind and the B Vitamins" a review containing: amazing B vitamins and how they fight physical illnesses, mental illness, depression, and the stresses of modern life.

Discover the Shocking Symptoms of Overindulging in Nettle Seeds

 

I. Introduction

1. What are nettle seeds?
2. Importance of moderation in consumption

II. Understanding Nettle Seeds

1. Nutritional profile
2. Traditional uses
3. Modern applications

III. Overindulgence: The Hidden Danger

1. Potential side effects
2. Impact on health
3. Signs of overindulgence

IV. Shocking Symptoms of Overindulgence

1. Digestive issues
2. Allergic reactions
3. Neurological symptoms
4. Cardiovascular effects

V. Managing Overindulgence

1. Seeking medical help
2. Moderation and balance
3. Alternative remedies

VI. Conclusion

1. Recap of dangers
2. Importance of awareness and moderation

I. Introduction

1. What are nettle seeds? Nettle seeds are the tiny, nutrient-packed seeds derived from the common stinging nettle plant (scientifically known as Urtica dioica). Despite their small size, these seeds are rich in essential vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids, making them a valuable addition to a healthy diet. They are typically harvested from mature nettle plants and can be consumed in various forms, including raw, dried, or ground into a powder.
2. Importance of moderation in consumption. While nettle seeds offer a plethora of health benefits, it's crucial to consume them in moderation. Like many natural remedies and supplements, excessive intake of nettle seeds can lead to adverse effects. Overindulgence may overwhelm the body's natural processes and cause digestive discomfort, allergic reactions, or other health issues. Therefore, it's essential to exercise caution and balance when incorporating nettle seeds into your diet to reap their benefits without risking negative consequences.

II. Understanding Nettle Seeds

1. Nutritional profile, Nettle seeds boast an impressive nutritional profile, packing a punch of essential vitamins, minerals, and other beneficial compounds. They are particularly rich in vitamins A, C, and K, as well as minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc. Additionally, nettle seeds contain high levels of protein, dietary fiber, and healthy fats, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. This nutrient density makes them a valuable source of nourishment for overall health and well-being.
2. Traditional uses, Throughout history, nettle seeds have been valued for their medicinal properties and have been used in various traditional healing practices. Ancient cultures across the globe utilized nettle seeds to treat a wide range of ailments, including arthritis, allergies, and fatigue. They were often consumed as a tonic to boost energy levels, improve circulation, and support overall vitality. Additionally, nettle seeds were believed to have diuretic and detoxifying properties, making them popular for cleansing and purifying the body.
3. Modern applications, In modern times, nettle seeds continue to be revered for their health benefits and are increasingly used in alternative medicine and natural health remedies. They are commonly consumed as a dietary supplement in various forms, including capsules, tinctures, and powdered extracts. Nettle seed supplements are touted for their potential to support immune function, reduce inflammation, and promote overall wellness. Additionally, nettle seeds are sometimes incorporated into topical products, such as creams or ointments, for their purported skin-soothing and anti-inflammatory properties. With growing interest in holistic health and natural remedies, nettle seeds are gaining popularity as a versatile and potent herbal supplement for promoting vitality and well-being.

III. Overindulgence: The Hidden Danger

1. Potential side effects, Consuming nettle seeds excessively can lead to various potential side effects. These may include digestive issues such as bloating, gas, and diarrhea. Additionally, some individuals may experience allergic reactions, manifesting as itching, swelling, or difficulty breathing, especially if they have sensitivities to plants in the Urtica genus. Neurological symptoms like dizziness, headaches, and confusion can also occur with overindulgence. In rare cases, cardiovascular effects such as elevated blood pressure, palpitations, or irregular heart rhythms may manifest. It's essential to be aware of these potential side effects and consume nettle seeds in moderation to avoid them.
2. Impact on health, Overindulging in nettle seeds can have a significant impact on health. Excessive consumption may lead to disruptions in digestive function, allergic reactions, neurological disturbances, and cardiovascular issues. These effects can range from mild discomfort to severe complications, affecting overall well-being and quality of life. It's important to recognize the potential risks associated with overindulgence and take steps to maintain a balanced intake to support optimal health.
3. Signs of overindulgence, Recognizing the signs of overindulgence in nettle seeds is essential for preventing adverse effects. Common signs include digestive discomfort such as bloating, gas, and diarrhea. Allergic reactions, characterized by itching, swelling, or difficulty breathing, may also occur, particularly in individuals with sensitivities to similar plants. Neurological symptoms like dizziness, headaches, and confusion can indicate excessive intake. Additionally, cardiovascular symptoms such as elevated blood pressure, palpitations, or irregular heart rhythms may manifest in rare cases. If experiencing any of these symptoms after consuming nettle seeds, it's crucial to seek medical attention promptly and adjust consumption levels accordingly.

IV. Shocking Symptoms of Overindulgence

1. Digestive issues, Overindulging in nettle seeds can lead to various digestive issues. Excessive consumption may cause bloating, abdominal discomfort, gas, and diarrhea. These symptoms occur as the body struggles to process the high amount of seeds ingested. Digestive issues are common signs of overindulgence and indicate the need to reduce nettle seed intake to avoid discomfort and promote digestive health.
2. Allergic reactions, Some individuals may experience allergic reactions to nettle seeds, particularly if they have sensitivities to plants in the Urtica genus. Allergic reactions can manifest as itching, redness, swelling, or hives on the skin. In severe cases, allergic reactions may lead to difficulty breathing, chest tightness, or anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic response. Individuals with known allergies should exercise caution when consuming nettle seeds and seek medical advice if allergic symptoms occur.
3. Neurological symptoms, Consuming excessive amounts of nettle seeds may lead to neurological symptoms. These symptoms can include dizziness, headaches, confusion, and difficulty concentrating. Neurological symptoms may occur due to the interaction of compounds present in nettle seeds with the central nervous system. It's important to recognize these symptoms as potential signs of overindulgence and adjust consumption levels accordingly to prevent further neurological discomfort.
4. Cardiovascular effects, In rare cases, overindulgence in nettle seeds may lead to cardiovascular effects. These effects can include elevated blood pressure, palpitations, and irregular heart rhythms. Excessive consumption of nettle seeds may affect cardiovascular function, particularly in individuals with underlying heart conditions or predispositions. If experiencing cardiovascular symptoms after consuming nettle seeds, it's essential to seek medical attention promptly to assess and address any potential risks to heart health.

V. Managing Overindulgence

1. Seeking medical help, If you experience adverse effects or symptoms of overindulgence after consuming nettle seeds, it's crucial to seek medical assistance promptly. A healthcare professional can assess your condition, provide appropriate treatment, and offer guidance on managing any potential complications. Don't hesitate to reach out for medical help if you're concerned about your health after consuming nettle seeds.
2. Moderation and balance, Maintaining moderation and balance in consuming nettle seeds is essential for preventing overindulgence and associated health risks. Instead of consuming large quantities of nettle seeds at once, aim to incorporate them into your diet gradually and in appropriate portions. Pay attention to how your body responds to nettle seed consumption and adjust your intake accordingly to maintain a balanced and healthy approach.
3. Alternative remedies, If you're concerned about the potential risks of consuming nettle seeds or experience adverse effects, consider exploring alternative remedies for addressing your health needs. There are numerous natural supplements and herbal remedies available that may offer similar benefits to nettle seeds without the risk of overindulgence. Consult with a healthcare professional or herbalist to explore alternative options that align with your health goals and preferences.

VI. Conclusion

1. Recap of dangers, In summary, overindulging in nettle seeds can pose various dangers to health. These dangers include digestive issues such as bloating and diarrhea, allergic reactions, neurological symptoms like dizziness and confusion, and cardiovascular effects such as elevated blood pressure. It's essential to be aware of these potential risks and take steps to avoid overconsumption to safeguard your health and well-being.
2. Importance of awareness and moderation, Maintaining awareness of the potential dangers of overindulging in nettle seeds is crucial for promoting health and preventing adverse effects. By staying informed about the risks associated with excessive consumption, individuals can make informed decisions about their dietary habits and intake of nettle seeds. Practicing moderation and balance in consuming nettle seeds is key to reaping their benefits while minimizing the risk of negative consequences. By incorporating nettle seeds into your diet mindfully and in appropriate amounts, you can support your health and well-being effectively.