David Crawford

The adhesiveness of blood cells known as platelets, which clump together to initiate a clot, can be markedly reduced in a few hours by giving coronary patients pure linolenic acid-less than a half teaspoon-linseed or soy oil rich in this essential fatty acid. As little as 1 tablespoon of linseed oil or 2 tablespoons of soy oil daily prevented the tendency of the blood to clot, but a half cup of com or safflower oil, rich in linoleic acid, had little or no effect.

Adding any nutrient to the diet which allows lecithin to be produced in normal amounts helps to alleviate atherosclerosis. Although arachidonic acid is necessary before lecithin can be synthesized, saturated animal fats, hydrogenated cooking fats, and most margarines contain little or no essential fatty acids; hence they cannot increase lecithin production.

The blood cholesterol of healthy volunteers fell when they ate unrefined starches, but substituting sugar caused their blood fats and cholesterol to increase markedly. In the United States the consumption of such foods as potatoes, dry beans and peas, and whole-grain bread and cereals has unfortunately decreased steadily while the sugar intake has increased and paralleled the rise in atherosclerosis.

American physicians have underestimated this vitamin to the extent that most of the research on scar tissue prevention and removal has been done in other countries. A few Americans, however, have made outstanding contributions.

Dicumarol, given to retard blood clotting, inactivates vitamin A; and its effectiveness can be increased by giving this vitamin. The toxicity of isoniazid, used in treating tuberculosis, is prevented by vitamin.

Pain is often a greater stress than a drug. Although our own medicine chest is a Mother Hubbard's cupboard, drugs have saved millions of lives. Hospital patients now receive an average of seven different drugs and some are given as many as Self-medication, the refilling of prescriptions without a doctor's advice, and the demand for prescriptions against a physician's better judgment are certainly unwise.

The adrenal cortex is even more sensitive to dietary deprivation. A pantothenic-acid deficiency causes the glands to shrivel and to become filled with blood and dead cells; cortisone and other hormones can no longer be produced, and the many protective changes characteristic of stress do not occur.

Mild abnormalities may call for only a few dietary improvements, but serious illness, when stresses are piled upon stresses, causes the nutritional requirements of the entire body as well as of the pituitary and adrenal glands to be increased. Any deficiency becomes worse in proportion to the number, kind, and intensity of stresses.

Any condition that harms the body, breaks down, or causes the death of cells is defined as stress. If the diet is adequate, repair quickly occurs, but when rebuilding fails to keep pace with destruction, illness is produced. Disease results from multiple stresses such as anxiety, overwork, perhaps bacterial or viral attack, and inadequate diet, sleep, and exercise.

The activity of the thyroid gland is controlled by the hormone of the pituitary gland. The thyroid gland may be inactive or excessively active. Inactivity of the thyroid may result in the condition called cretinism which is associated with a deficiency of the thyroid gland in early childhood, and the condition called myxedema which comes on later in life