A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
Nutritional dogma has blocked the use of nutrients as supplements for nearly forty years. The main tenets of this dogma are simple. They are based on what was known about nutrition and nutrient supplements before foods were so devitalized that it did not matter. When only whole, natural foods were available and minimally processed, one's natural appetite for good food which tasted good was an adequate guide, provided these foods were available. Thus, natives of the Arctic were healthy before their food was corrupted by the introduction of sugar, lard, white flour and alcohol. One can state that the healthier the food supply the less damaging are modern nutritionists' food rules or guides. The dogma is: (1) a balanced diet will obviate the need for supplements, (2) vitamins are only needed to cure vitamin deficiency diseases such as scurvy or pellagra, (3) any excess of vitamin over Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) is a waste and harmful. We now know these guides are misleading and wrong. Today, when nearly 80 percent of our food supply is processed, we need to have modern food guides to compensate for this degradation in nutritional value.
The basic rule is, the more we devitalize our food, the more intelligent do we have to be to compensate for these changes. We have not been very successful so far, or else we would not have half our population (at least) suffering from one or more degenerative diseases.
The confrontation between old guard nutritionists and modern Orthomolecular nutritionists has been violent and unrelenting. The old guard are supported by professional nutritionists, especially those employed by large industry. They still deny pure sugar is harmful as a food. They are also followed by the medical profession which, having had little or no training in nutrition and having had no experience in Orthomolecular nutrition, naturally left the field to nutritionists. In a bizarre twist of logic, these nutritionists advise their readers to seek out their physician for advice before taking nutrient supplements. This is a remarkable example of the blind leading the blind. In my opinion, most doctors know much less about nutrition than do their secretaries. One would be better seeking the advice of any mother who has raised several healthy children.
In the past it has taken the medical profession about forty years before new ideas were accepted. Thus, after Sir James lind proved citrus fruits prevented scurvy, the British navy allowed 100,000 sailors to die of scurvy over forty years before it began to issue limes. Almost every current orthodoxy was once considered quackery. Sometimes it takes much longer. Thus Dr. Coley, who first began to use a bacterial vaccine in 1895 for cancer, was declared a quack by the American Cancer Society a few years ago. A similar vaccine is now being used at the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York City. Occasionally it takes less time. Our discovery that niacin lowered cholesterol was reported in 1955. Within a few years it was confirmed. But only thirty years later was niacin established as a safe substance which also decreased mortality and increased life expectancy by two years in a vulnerable population of coronary patients.
The winds of change are blowing more strongly, but not yet at hurricane force...
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