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Man — The Upstart
Published in Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 26, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 11-16, Spring 1974.
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It is impossible to correct the blood sugar levels of people without correcting other levels of blood ingredients, because after long use of sugar all of the ductless glands become involved. These ductless glands, or endocrines, control the levels of all acids, cholesterol, and other substances. This is a very important statement and is contrary to general thinking up to this date but is the result of over 30,000 cholesterol tests, and many more than that of calcium, phosphorus, sugar, and differentials.
The ductless, or endocrine glands, produce hormones; these hormones go directly into the blood and to every cell in the body. These hormones are produced in unbelievably small amounts but these small amounts are very powerful. Hoskins states that the thyroid gland produces only 3 grains of thyroxine a year. It was found a few years ago that the normal person produces approximately from 15 to 18 units of insulin a day. How much the other glands produce is unknown, but as little as 1/100 mg. of testosterone a day can make the difference between life and death of some people. One rat unit, which is 1/12000 mg., of estrogen daily can make much difference in the health of people. A peculiar fact is that these same hormones in doses ten thousand times larger than the above can have less effect upon the person taking them than these minute doses.
The endocrinograph indicates to us where to look for possible deficiencies of the glandular output of each gland. One gland at a time is augmented by a minute amount of the glandular product selected for trial to determine correctness or incorrectness of the need of that gland.
This is repeated for each gland suspected of having a deficient output of its hormone. Sometimes only one glandular product is needed but there may be other glandular deficiencies.
To correct most cases so as to procure a good body chemistry an average of six blood tests is needed after which only one blood test a year may be needed to insure continued good health.
Although our purpose in improving the efficiency of the body chemistry is to prevent dental decay and the associated troubles affecting the teeth and mouth, the side effects noted may be even more important. It is for this reason that an up-to-date physician should learn more about body chemistry. The public must understand that no doctor ever healed anyone; that the patient’s body must heal itself. The final outcome rests upon the degree of the efficiency of his body chemistry.
It has been noted by Sheldon and others that certain types of individuals are prone to certain diseases. These types are classified as to dominance of endomorphic, mesomorphic, or ectomorphic characteristics. The endomorphic is usually much heavier than the normal individual who has balanced characteristics of all these classifications. The mesomorphic is a muscular person, and the ectomorphic is a very thin, angular person.
The endomorphic person is subject to stomach and intestinal disturbances, the mesomorphic to cancer, and the ectomorphic to nervous troubles. Each type is subject to the disorders of the endocrine system, resulting in proneness to degenerative and assimilation diseases, if the diet is not all it should be.
This disorder of the endocrine and exdocrine systems can be corrected by a good diet selected to fit the individual and by supplementation of those endocrines which are deficient in hormone output, or by inhibition of those endocrines which are excessive or abnormal in output.
Because milk contains the hormones of the animal which gives the milk, we recommend that milk be not used for the human being after being weaned. We believe that the high incidence of cancer in milk drinkers supports our theory that milk can be harmful to adults. Nature provides milk to the young of mammals but never intended that it should be used after weaning.
Of late years, fat in the diet has received adverse criticism because of its supposed relationship to cholesterol. We find that unsaturated fats are beneficial as well as the natural fats found in good meat. It is inefficient body chemistry that lets the cholesterol levels get out of bounds. Only minor changes in these levels are due to the kind of fat used, providing we use natural fats or oils. We exclude hydrogenated fats because these fats are not natural. Our bodies have had no experience in handling such fats, and their use can cause abnormal changes in the chemistry.
We have developed a method of determining the endocrine pattern of an individual. Before we had such an endocrine pattern, it took us much time and many blood examinations to determine his pattern.
Both men and women have male and female characteristics; the more female characteristics they have, the longer life expectancy, the more male characteristics they have, the shorter the life expectancy. Since the average female has more female hormones than the average man, the average woman’s longevity is seven years more than the average man’s.
The man who is more male than the average man has even less expectancy than the average man. It is the excessive maleness which contributes to most of the heart cases. This same extra maleness makes the possessor more aggressive than others, makes him or her a leader, and in general more successful in whatever is undertaken than the average person. These people contribute much to our government, business, and professions. They are important people and shouldn’t die just when they become most valuable. Their excessive maleness can be balanced by the proper amount of female hormones. This does not destroy their abilities or drive, but does prolong their lives.
Another important by-product of our research on dental ills is the effect of an overactive anterior pituitary gland. In dental cases with an overactive anterior pituitary, we find some diabetic tendencies or outright diabetes. This disease when due to this gland gets better or well with the treatment given to correct this malfunction. The hormone from this gland converts glycogen to blood sugar in the liver. When it is overactive, sometimes the blood sugar is high because of this too rapid conversion.
An overactive anterior pituitary often is the cause of periodontal disease or pyorrhea. It does this when it causes the phosphorus level of the blood to be too great to balance the calcium level of the blood.
On the other hand, an underactive anterior pituitary may cause obesity. In general, we find an underactive anterior pituitary to be combined with an underactive posterior pituitary gland. When such is the case, generally the obesity is greater.
An underactive posterior pituitary gland is very commonly found in our women patients. When it is extremely underactive, we find many cases of spontaneous abortion and inability to have children. We have reason to think that the disfunction of this gland is mainly due to heredity and sugar. This gland very often is responsible for periodontal disease refractory to local treatment.
Periods of depression are often found in such women, which are alleviated with minute doses of pituitary hormones.
A form of diabetes is caused by insufficient posterior hormone. It is called diabetes insipidus. These people urinate a great deal and often. They also drink a great deal of liquids.
Since every gland has an opponent, the adrenal cortex gland is often overactive when the posterior pituitary is underactive, In many such cases women are inclined to have too much hair on the upper lip and cheeks.
We haven’t mentioned the thyroid because nearly everyone knows at least a little about this gland. It can be underactive, normal or overactive, and sometimes toxic. It is difficult to tell by the ordinary means at the disposal of physicians whether this gland in a particular patient is underactive or overactive. When not needed, any of these hormones can do harm, or when too much of a hormone is given, harm is done. The danger of doing so can be detected by blood tests.
Along with the sugar level of the blood, the calcium and phosphorus levels from the standpoint of body chemistry are all important. When the sugar level is normal and the calcium-phosphorus levels have the relationship of 10 of calcium to 4 of phosphorus and the other tests fall into their proper levels, the body chemistry is excellent. The body then has the ability to do its work efficiently, premature aging stops, a feeling of well-being is characteristic, and the ability to defend one’s self from sickness prevails. All that is necessary is for the patient to follow the food pattern which has been found to supply his needs and to continue taking those hormones that have proved to be essential until such time as lesser amounts are required. In some cases, such a procedure need not be permanent for glands, like people, tend to get well if given a chance.
We see articles in magazines and newspapers frequently about quack diets in which the so-called faddists are held up to ridicule.
The statement is made that the American diet is the best in the world. The American Medical Association is quoted as the authority as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In particular, the head of the nutrition department of one of our most honored universities is quoted to this same effect.
The A.M.A. does not speak for all of its members, for there are members of them that know something about nutrition. These doctors have had to learn about it the hard way. They did not learn about nutrition in medical school for no real course is given in any of them to this date.
The real training of a physician is in the mechanics of medicine (surgery), and in the treatment of acute disease (chiefly of bacterial origin). They give no courses in the prevention of disease other than epidemic disease, which also is due chiefly to bacteria or virus.
The physicians do a wonderful job in the lines in which they are trained, but when they speak as if they were authorities on health, most are apt to just think they know something of the subject. This is a human trait, and the public is mostly at fault. The public generally has the idea that an M.D. diploma confers knowledge on all subjects. The diploma is really a license to practice, and practice is what they do. Some learn by practice and go on to become excellent physicians. Some never learn by practice. The detail man furnishes most of their postgraduate education. Only a few have observation powers enough to link cause and effect.
The Food and Drug Administration is set up to enforce the laws pertaining to foods and drugs. It makes the laws. But the administration is governed chiefly by the consensus of the American Medical Association.
It is just too bad that the medical students are not given a more rounded education so that the consensus of the membership might be broadened to include preventive medicine in its broadest aspect.
Here again we run into an almost impregnable wall. Where would they get teachers? The natural source would be the universities, but here again we run into another wall, a wall built by those commercial interests who profit by keeping the public in the dark about the dangers to health of the products they make or sell.
This is done by a foundation created by these commercial interests with millions of dollars to spend on research, who make grants to nearly every university in the country for research. The fear of losing these grants is a powerful force in limiting the scope of their research. It wouldn’t be advisable to inquire too much into the products made by members of the foundation.
The head of the nutrition department of one university, which receives what is probably the largest donations from the foundation, even goes so far as to extol the supposed merits of the products made by the foundation members. As a result of this situation, the health of the American public is not what it should be.
According to the U.S. Public Health Survey which encompassed 10,000,000 people, 32% of Americans will eventually have cancer, about 50% of people will die of cardiovascular disease; about eleven million people will have arthritis; about 98 ½ % of Americans will have or do have dental caries.
There are many other diseases of degenerative nature which could be listed, for which there are no preventive methods being made known to the public, yet it is being generally acknowledged by scientists that the answer lies in the breakdown of the body’s own defensive ability, in other words, inefficient body chemistry.
Everyone should have the privilege of knowing what he could do about correcting or keeping a good body chemistry insofar as diet is concerned. It is only a half truth that a person can obtain the best of foods in the U.S.A., he can also obtain the worst possible foods in the U.S.A. So long as he can’t tell to which category the things he buys belong he is in a bad way. But the foundation that keeps him in ignorance about foods makes the manufacturing members prosperous.
In every field but medicine, science has made wonderful strides. In these fields there are no roadblocks. In the field of degenerative disease there has been practically no advance in a hundred years in spite of hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually for research.
No progress can be made in this line as long as our scientists are not permitted to work where the answers are to be found.
Man makes laws–some good, some bad. Special interests, who might be hurt financially, make many of the bad ones. There are other laws, such as the laws of nature. These are God’s laws. It is the object of science to find out what these laws are, and when learned to teach them to all that will read or listen. In medicine it seems as if we are learning more about breaking nature’s laws than obeying them. When nature’s laws are broken the penalties follow without exception, hence the problem of degenerative disease. Man pays the penalty. Ignorance is no excuse. The penalty must be paid anyway.
It is so simple to have a good diet. All one must do is omit some man-made products, some of these products are those that contain sugar. Its scientific name is sucrose. It is made by cooking natural sugars. Omitting sugar alone would remove 90% of the injurious substances in the diet.
Milk should be shunned by children and other people beyond the weaning age because of the hormone content. Have you ever wondered why some boys look like girls or why young people are often taller than their ancestors? Remember that milk is obtained only from the female animals and that the hormones in milk contain the growth hormones and the hormones peculiar to the female.
If the creature called man is not to disappear from this planet and quite soon, he must revert to his ancestral diet, a diet to which he has adapted through thousands of generations. No animal can adapt to the modern way of eating. Many species of animals and plants have disappeared because the environment changed faster than these organisms could adapt.
We do not expect to convert all people to their ancestral way of eating, but we do expect that some people will profit by our teaching so that a nucleus of survivors of this civilization may found another civilization if the time comes that such is needed.
We hope that the following books will be read and used: “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” by Weston Price, D.D.S., which can be obtained from the Price-Pottenger Foundation; “Degeneration Vs Regeneration,” by Page Foundation and “Body Chemistry in Health and Disease,” by Page Foundation.