�
by
Joe Vialls
30 January 2004
From
Vialls Website
recovered through
WayBackMachine Website
�
Deliberately restricting your potassium intake makes you very ill,
and
thus vulnerable to hundreds of highly profitable medical "cures" |
The title immediately suggests to the reader that a giant
pharmaceutical atrocity has been inflicted on the poor natives of
some far off third-world country, by a predictably greedy drug
multinational, but this is simply not the case.
�
By far the largest
number of deaths and permanent crippling disabilities from potassium
deficiency occur in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and
several other western nations.
How this horrific state of affairs came into being and was
perpetuated thereafter, is a very long and frequently confusing
story, meaning that we must start at the very beginning if we are to
have any real chance of understanding the lethal implications.
�
We
first need to understand what potassium is, how much our bodies need
on a daily basis to stay healthy, and what happens to us when our
body's critical store of potassium is inadvertently or deliberately
depleted.
Unlike toxic sodium [table salt], potassium is essential to our
health. Potassium is present in all cells and is critical to
cardiovascular and nerve function, regulating the transfer of
nutrients into cells and facilitating muscle energy. This wonder
mineral also regulates water balance, assists recuperative powers,
and aids rheumatic or arthritic conditions by causing acids to leave
the joints, thereby easing stiffness.
�
At the same time:
-
potassium is
vital for the elimination of wastes
-
is a natural pain desensitizer
-
helps control convulsions, headaches and migraines
-
promotes
faster healing of cuts, bruises and other injuries
Because of its very high electrochemical activity, potassium is on
the move all the time, and we need vast quantities to replenish that
lost every day. When we exercise and sweat, we lose potassium
through urine. When we are under extreme stress for a variety of
other reasons, potassium loss can treble instantly.
�
But as renowned
nutritionist Adelle Davis points out, it is toxic sodium that causes
the greatest problems.
"Persons eating [sodium] salt as they wished
excreted nine times more potassium than when their salt intake was
limited, and human volunteers kept on diets deficient in potassium
retained so much salt that they developed high blood pressure."
If Mother Nature was to deprive you of potassium completely, hard
scientific evidence proves you would be dead in less than three
weeks.
�
But in many ways this would be a merciful release when
compared with the infinitely more painful and far slower death
caused by slow potassium deprivation, the preferred method of the
FDA (American Food & Drug Administration ) and AMA
(American Medical Association). Proper scientists agree the daily potassium
requirements of an average adult lie between 3,200 and 4,100
milligrams, but the average potassium intake of Americans through
the food chain is only 1,500 to 2,100 milligrams per day,
representing an overall average shortfall of 1,850 milligrams.
Obviously humans can survive at these savagely depleted levels,
because Americans manage to eke out about 70 years each, before this
basic potassium deficiency overwhelms them and they finally die,
sometimes in great pain from a number of directly related illnesses
including,
It is scientifically beyond
question that all would live longer and suffer less pain if they
received the necessary quantity of potassium each day, which is
where the American Food & Drug Administration should do a John
Wayne job, and ride gallantly to the rescue.
Alas, the Food and Drug Administration has not and will not do so,
because of sustained lobby pressure by the pharmaceutical
multinationals. Despite having full and unrestricted access to the
real scientific data providing hard proof of widespread potassium
deficiency bordering on a pandemic, the FDA has deliberately avoided
specifying a "Recommended Dietary Allowance" [RDA], while
simultaneously passing a law restricting the potassium content of
all alternative medicines to a mere 100 milligrams.
This is your first clue to understanding how it is that we get so
ill, and then willingly swallow billions of dollars worth of useless
'patent medicines'. Remember, just to keep up with the average
shortfall of 1,850 milligrams of potassium per day, you would need
to swallow at least 19 pills from your local health food shop, and
no ordinary person could possibly afford that in the long term.
In order to keep their medical doctors in line, both the FDA and AMA
have circulated a number of truly frightening stories about
potassium. Most common among them is that the potassium will 'react'
with one of a wide range of synthetic pharmaceutical medicines,
frequently resulting in death. This is actually true, but it is the
poisonous synthetic medicine which causes the lethal cross reaction
that kills you, not the natural potassium so essential to your
health.
�
Then there is the even scarier rumor that
'too much'
potassium will kill you by stopping your heart from beating, as in
the case of a lethal injection execution.
Too much of almost anything will kill you, including simple water
and air, especially if applied too quickly or by the incorrect
route. When Timothy McVeigh was strapped to a gurney and put to
death, the third chemical injected directly into his vein was a
'chaser' containing 50 milliliters of concentrated potassium
chloride, which finally stopped his heart. If you are stupid enough
to try this at home, you will die just as quickly, and in order to
put this deliberate FDA and AMA scare mongering into the proper
perspective, it is necessary to explain why.
The normal route for potassium to enter the body is by way of the
mouth, either in the form of food, or sometimes as a solution made
up of 100% water soluble potassium chloride dissolved in fruit
juice.
�
As the potassium passes through the digestive tract, the
cells extract what they need and any excess is then passed out of
the body, partly as solid waste, but mostly through the kidneys as
urine. It is a perfectly normal biochemical process that the body
itself knows how to handle very well, without any outside help from
medical doctors. However, if you inject the potassium directly into
a vein, you bypass the body's biochemical safety processes and stop
the heart.
Exactly the same can be said of concentrated hydrochloric acid,
always present in our stomachs in order to digest food, but
incapable of harming us because of the body's sophisticated
biochemical defenses. However, if you injected this same
concentrated hydrochloric acid from the stomach directly into a
vein, you would die even more quickly than you would from injecting
potassium.
You can only be scared by a medical doctor if you allow yourself to
be scared, and you will no doubt gain added confidence where
potassium is concerned later in this report, when we examine the
extraordinary case of the
Yanomami Indians of South America.
�
The Yanomami were fortunate enough to escape the attention of western
medical 'science' for thousands of years, and still shun it now.
These fascinating people receive virtually no sodium [table salt] at
all, but every adult consumes around 8,500 milligrams of potassium
every day. They are incredibly fit and have no history whatever of
arthritis, osteoporosis, hypertension [high blood pressure], angina
or stroke.
�
We will return to the Yanomami a little later on.
Far too many of the 'illnesses' we suffer today can be laid at the
door of potassium deficiency, though hordes of pharmaceutical and
medical apologists will probably reject this, claiming that medical
'research' proved long ago that simple deficiency cannot cause
life-threatening conditions. Sadly the apologists will be defeated
by historical fact, chronicled long before your local pharmaceutical
multinational decided to use your body as a private playground for
the benefit of its shareholders.
Scurvy is caused solely by Vitamin C deficiency, and is thus
predictably cured quickly by large quantities of Vitamin C.
�
There
are thousands of documented cases, especially in the British Royal
Navy, where sailors became known as "Limeys" because of the vast
amounts of citrus fruit provided free by The Admiralty. Rickets is
less well known, but is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D, rapidly
corrected by the generous application of Vitamin D and calcium.
�
Embarrassing though this may be for modern pharmaceutical salesmen
and medical doctors, these bald facts are there in the history books
for all to see.
�
So why not admit potassium deficiency?
The beginning of the end for obtaining essential minerals from fruit
and vegetables happened in the middle of the 19th Century, when
German chemist Baron Justus Von Liebig analyzed human and plant ash,
and determined that nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium [NPK] were
all the minerals plants needed.
�
He claimed that if fed synthetically
to plants, farmers could force plants to grow and support healthy
humans. Thus Von Liebig became the father of synthetic manure, which
in turn spawned superphosphate, the mother of all deceptive
fertilizers.
�
Though NPK and superphosphate are able to create a
synthetic soil environment sufficient to stimulate plant growth, the
resulting fruits and vegetables are always seriously deficient in
trace minerals, with some containing none at all. Baron Von Liebig
watched the deficiencies his invention caused with horror, and
recanted before he died, but it was all too late. By then, the big
investors had moved in for a quick kill.
Running in tandem with the depletion of potassium in fruit and
vegetables during the 19th Century was an even bigger problem. Until
then, salt of any kind had been so highly valued on most continents,
that at one point in history it was actually used as money. In
Europe, Asia and Africa most of the salt moved by the camel trains
over thousands of miles was
sylvite, otherwise known as
potassium
chloride.
�
Great chunks of sylvite were dotted along the trading
routes for the beasts of burden to lick at, thereby restoring their
electrolytes lost through sweating and other exertion. But when the
railroads opened up America from east to west, they started carrying
vast quantities of cheap salt produced in giant pans on the two
coasts.
�
Unfortunately for Americans this was sea salt, comprised of
98.8% sodium chloride, the favorite of fishes but a deadly enemy of
man. And so it was that in less than seventy years, western man had
his healthy potassium replaced almost entirely by unhealthy sodium.
It was not until the early 20th Century that medical 'science'
started to determine what it considered were healthy 'normal' levels
for blood pressure, serum potassium and so on, using data drawn from
the population as a whole. The problem is that medical 'science' was
by then dealing with seriously damaged human beings, who had already
been subjected to the ravages of sodium for nearly fifty years.
�
So
what seemed normal to American medical 'researchers' in the early
20th Century, would have horrified the Yanomami or any other
self-respecting tribe one hundred years earlier.
�
But because
American medicine got off on the wrong foot, it stayed on the wrong
foot, and slowly built a giant pyramid of myths based largely on
ignorance and fatally flawed biochemistry.
Despite the best efforts of the fledgling pharmaceuticals and
medical 'science' in general to belittle the problems, by the
nineteen thirties it had become obvious to most Americans that
something was seriously amiss with their soils, with their crops,
and with their rapidly deteriorating personal health.
�
During the 2nd
Session of the 74th Congress in 1936, the United States Senate
published Document #264, which really laid the problems facing
American nutrition on the line.
�
Verbatim extracts from Document 264
are provided at the bottom of this page, but for the specific
purposes of this report, here are the three most important
paragraphs.
"The alarming fact is that foods [fruits, vegetables and grains] now
being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain
enough of certain minerals are starving us - no matter how much of
them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to
supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health
because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them."
�
"The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of
them aren't worth eating as food... Our physical well-being is more
directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems than
upon calories or vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch,
protein or carbohydrates we consume."
"It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of
the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a
marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually
results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack
or one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement
may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives."
So sixty-eight years ago, the American Government knew full well the
problems facing the people, but the stuffed-shirt medical fraternity
did absolutely nothing to help.
�
In fact, driven ever onwards by the
extravagant fiscal needs of pharmaceutical shareholders, medical
'science' and its subordinate doctors stood reality on its ear, and
proceeded to steadily undermine what little good health the general
community had left.
Learned doctors published papers on the 'potassium-sodium balance
needed by all humans', when a quick field trip to almost any Indian
Reservation would have reversed their absurd findings in seconds.
�
More and more sodium found its way into every kind of food
imaginable, and blood pressures started to rise sharply. By the
nineteen-forties, relatively new diseases such as arthritis,
hypertension and angina started to climb through the roof, to be met
with a veritable shock wave of expensive 'patent medicines' to help
with the new 'disease' problems.
A handful of alert doctors recognized the problem for what it really
was, and started giving their patients massive doses of potassium
[between 5,000 and 20,000 milligrams per day] in order to bring
their blood pressures back down to normal, and to relieve problems
with angina and other heart complaints. In fact these treatments
were entirely successful, but the use of a basic mineral that could
not be patented by the pharmaceutical companies was frowned on, and
medical research grants in this field mysteriously started to dry
up.
�
By the late sixties such research has
been suppressed, as you can see from the [limited] general
references provided at the
bottom of this page.
The pharmaceutical multinationals were by now exerting increasing
pressure on the medical fraternity, providing all kinds of
'assistance' during their university training, with copious
quantities of fancy-sounding scholarships and research grants. Both
were vital in helping to get medical doctors to "see things the
right way", meaning of course that profitable drugs were the
answer
to all ills.
�
As more doctors peddled more drugs to their patients,
pharmaceutical corporate profits rose sharply, allowing perks for
the doctors to be extended to include 'training seminars' at luxury
hotels and golf complexes, along with other varied forms of discreet
bribery.
By the seventies, all meaningful references to serious mineral
deficiencies had been removed from the curriculum, with medical
students taught that patients could obtain all the minerals they
needed from a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, although their
university tutors knew this was a complete lie.
�
Deficiencies
manifesting as cramps, arthritis, osteoporosis, hypertension, angina
and strokes etc, became 'diseases' that could be treated by a truly
dazzling array of brightly colored and highly profitable
pharmaceutical drugs.
It was all a terrible illusion of course, but the show had to go on.
As toxic sodium increasingly overwhelmed healthy potassium, the
resulting potassium deficiency caused hardening of the cardio
vascular system, and 'essential hypertension' [high blood pressure
of 'unknown' origin] became the order of the day. Incidences of
angina, stroke and heart attack increased dramatically, as did
stress, with the latter feeding on the former.
�
Because of a lack of
space, this report will only cover the effects of potassium
deficiency on the cardio-vascular system. Other directly related
horrors such as arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes etc. will have to
wait for another day.
Modern medical 'science' has tried to explain away the critical and
frequently lethal human sodium-potassium imbalance with an artfully
designed theoretical model generally referred to as the 'Potassium
Pump', in which the medical buzzword is 'balance'.
�
To quote one
medical article,
"Potassium is pumped into the cell by active
transport systems, which concomitantly pump sodium out of the cell.
The preferential segregation of sodium and potassium across the
cell's biological membrane is important in maintaining osmotic
balance".
What osmotic balance?
�
The Yanomami and other tribes prove
that ancient man had no need for toxic sodium, proving to all but a
certifiable cretin that the potassium pump is an emergency one-way
biochemical protective mechanism, designed to drive toxic sodium out
of the cells before it can cause mayhem and premature death.
Despite the Yanomami's overall levels of sodium being incredibly
low, researchers who examined more than 10,000 of these cheerful
people found that there was a direct correlation between marginally
increased sodium intake and increased blood pressure.
"... a highly
significant statistical relationship was observed between sodium
excretion and systolic blood pressure for the 10,079 participants.
The higher the urinary sodium excretion [and, therefore, the sodium
intake], the higher the blood pressure."
The reader should remember that for the Yanomami Indians, normal
blood pressure averages out at 95/60 and does not increase with age.
�
Try comparing this with the AMA western 'normal' blood pressure of
120/80, which then goes up in incremental steps as you ingest more
sodium and lose more potassium while getting older. Of course, the
medical apologists will claim this is because we are more civilized,
have evolved, and are thus 'different', but rest assured this is
pathetic rubbish.
The only significant difference between the Yanomami and Americans
or Australians, is that the Yanomami are stuffed full of healthy
potassium, while we are stuffed full of toxic sodium.
�
The
researchers also noted that another benefit for the Yanomami related
to their lack of obesity.
"Adults of industrialized populations have
an increase in weight with age. The Yanomami Indians did not
increase their weight with age."
Short, but to the point. Somebody
remind me to add "obesity" to my shopping list of potassium
deficiency-related ailments.
Those western ladies with a slight weight problem, should resist the
temptation to pack their bags and rush off to the headwaters of the
Orinoco River.
�
Yanomami husbands are hot on protocol, and do not
take kindly to the lady of the house sneaking off into the bushes
for a quickie with one of the young bucks. If caught in such a
situation, the wife can expect her husband to fire a sharp hunting
arrow into the fleshy part of her buttocks. Not enough to kill, but
certainly enough to stop her lying on her back for several weeks
thereafter. Some choose to call this behavior "barbaric", while
others suggest that it merely reinforces strong family values.
�
And
oh, yes, before I forget, the favorite supper dish is barbecued
frog.
Of course, to prove that any of this Yanomami potassium stuff is
relevant to western folk, medical 'science' demands that you must
have western guinea pigs for 'controlled trials'.
�
I am one of those
guinea pigs, though the trial was controlled strictly by me without
independent medical observers, which means that my testimony is
suspect at the very least, and I should probably not to be believed.
Quite frankly I don't give a damn about that, but the information
might be of use to someone out there who either already has
cardio-vascular problems, or is seriously interested in avoiding
cardio-vascular problems at any time in the future.
�
For more than 25 years I suffered from 'essential hypertension', in
other words high blood pressure that the medical fraternity cannot
explain. During that period about eight different medical doctors
gave me a staggering variety of 'patent medicines', none of which
produced a steady reduction of blood pressure, though on two notable
occasions the medicines caused 'bad reactions' which dropped my
blood pressure so low and so suddenly, that my wife could barely get
a reading.
�
At no time during this 25-year period did any of the
medical doctors suggest that it might be a good idea to measure my
serum electrolyte levels, in order to check for potassium
deficiency. As you might expect, this entire sequence put me off the
medical profession in a very big way.
Towards the end of 2003 I started getting the classic signs of
'angina', which, over the next six weeks, rapidly progressed into
'unstable angina', a textbook case involving an accelerating or
"crescendo" pattern of chest and back pain that lasted longer than
ordinary 'angina'. This was accompanied by acute breathlessness,
especially after even moderate exertion or a small carbohydrate
meal.
�
The fact that the medical profession did not know the cause of
'angina' infuriated me, because everything on the planet is caused
by something else.
My basic knowledge of chemistry indicated that I might be suffering
from a sodium overdose, so although in extreme pain and at times
barely conscious, I managed to hook up to the Internet and do a few
basic Google searches. The only sodium overdoses I could find were
those caused by various synthetic drugs, so I reversed my search
pattern and tried "potassium deficiency" instead.
�
It was then that I
discovered my medical 'angina' symptoms precisely matched those
exhibited by a person suffering from an acute potassium deficiency.
This information came as no great surprise. On the face of it, I had
uncovered the underlying cause of medical 'angina', the latter
credited with the sale of more than a billion dollars worth of
synthetic 'patent medicines' every year.
The problem was knowing what to do next. In Australia I was limited
to 100-milligram potassium pills from the health food shops, or to a
product called "Slow K" available from some pharmacies. Basically
Slow K is a slow-release 600-milligram chunk of potassium chloride,
which allows a 'non-lethal' dose of potassium to be administered
under the direct control of the pill, rather than under the control
of its recipient.
�
The problem here is that all chunks of salt are
biochemically "hot', meaning that as the sugar coating wears off the
outside of the pill, the chunk of undissolved salt is exposed, and
can then come into direct contact with delicate internal tissues. In
my casual view, this could easily cause some sort of perforation or
an ulcer.
Clearly what I needed was an industrial quantity of potassium in
free flowing 100% water soluble form, which would allow me to first
dissolve the potassium in water and fruit juice, thereby ensuring
that no salt 'hot spots' could later cause problems in my digestive
tract.
�
In the end I settled for a kilogram of
AR [Analytical
Reagent] grade potassium chloride salt from a chemical warehouse,
mercifully not yet under the direct control of the American FDA, or
the Australian AMA.
Cost wise this was also a plus, because the whole kilogram set me
back a mere US$30.00 including taxes, which is cheap enough when you
realize that my potassium chloride purchase contained approximately
620 grams [or 620,000 milligrams] of the same potassium the FDA has
restricted to 100-milligrams per dose in the health food shops. You
do the math. Pop down to your local health food provider and ask for
a quote on 6,200 x 100-milligram potassium supplements. Be ready to
write a very large check.
By this stage there was so much pain so often, that I made a
personal executive decision to attempt to slowly try to absorb a
minimum of 50 grams or 50,000 milligrams of potassium, representing
about 1/5th of the 250 grams total that an adult male should contain
within his body.
�
Simple common sense suggested that such an acute
deficiency, with the extreme symptoms I was suffering, could hardly
be caused by a minor reduction in whole body potassium, and, quite
frankly, I also wanted the stop the overwhelming pain before it had
a chance to accelerate into a fatal stroke or heart attack.
With this in mind, I dissolved 4 grams [4,000 milligrams] of
potassium chloride in water and fruit juice, slowly swallowed the
lot, and then kept grimly repeating this process every eight hours.
After about five days [or 60,000 milligrams] most of the pain had
gone, but I was still incapable of truly coherent thought. It was
not until I was well past the 110,000-milligram mark that my
faculties truly returned, though by then I was so exhausted I could
no longer write or use the computer.
Expressed in the same terms used by the FDA, in ten days I had
slowly ingested 68.2 grams of dissolved potassium [68,200
milligrams], or sixty-eight times the maximum quantity permitted
under American law. However, it should also be noted that this
figure represents only five days of the maximum quantity
administered by licensed American doctors to their hypertensive
patients during the nineteen forties, before their research funding
was mysteriously and abruptly withdrawn.
�
When viewed in the latter
context, my actions do not seem unreasonable.
At the end of the ten day period, all of my 'unstable angina' pain
and breathlessness had vanished completely, and along with it most
of the 'essential hypertension' that plagued me for more than
twenty-five years. Nowadays I take a daily maintenance dose of 2,000
milligrams potassium per day [3,200 milligrams of AR grade potassium
chloride salt], plus 200 milligrams of
magnesium orotate to minimize
losses.
Though medical doctors might rave about me illegally 'giving medical
advice without a license', I am doing no such thing.
�
In the first
place potassium is a naturally-occurring mineral essential in our
diets for normal development, which places it firmly in the
'nutrition' rather than 'medical' basket. Secondly there is no way
that any government agency can prevent determined people from
getting their hands on potassium chloride if they really wish to do
so.
�
The material is produced in bulk and used for hundreds of
applications. For example, about every third oil rig drilling in the
Rocky Mountains probably has about 25,000 pounds of the stuff,
neatly stacked in sacks at the edge of the rig site.
There are less difficult ways of obtaining potassium, especially in
America where there are a range of "No Salt" products, most of which
simply replace sea salt with potassium chloride.
�
Fruit and
vegetables grown in strict organic rotation on properly maintained
soil will probably contain significant quantities of potassium,
though it is very difficult to check precisely. Although I have the
necessary knowledge required to test for potassium in a range of
different substances, I lack the laboratory equipment needed to do
so consistently.
On a closing note, try not to believe the advertising garbage that
keeps telling you the banana has the highest level of potassium
known to man, because it is a lie. If grown side by side on suitable
soils, the humble jacket potato has more than four times as much
potassium as the banana, weight for weight.
�
This might bring a wry
smile to the face of many an Irishman, whose ancestors were forced
to live on a 'poor' diet of potatoes in Ireland more than a century
ago. The reality is that those potatoes, so very high in potassium,
gave the Irish the huge strength and endurance they needed to build
bridges and lay railroads half way round the world.
�
Looking back
briefly on the
Yanomami Indians, it is not hard to see why.
�
�
�
�
Verbatim Unabridged extracts from the 74th Congress 2nd Session
Senate Document #264
1936
"Our physical well-being is more
directly dependent upon minerals we take into our systems than
upon calories or vitamins, or upon precise proportions of
starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume."
"Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain
dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until
depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper
mineral balance?"
"The alarming fact is that foods (fruits, vegetables and grains)
now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer
contain enough of certain minerals are starving us - no matter
how much of them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits
and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he
requires for perfect health because his stomach isn't big enough
to hold them."
"The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some
of them aren't worth eating as food... Our physical well-being
is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our
systems than upon calories or vitamins or upon the precise
proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume."
"This talk about minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact,
a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new
that the textbooks on nutritional dietetics contain very little
about it. Nevertheless, it is something that concerns all of us,
and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes."
"You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot - that one
is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned?
But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet
be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system
requires and which carrots are supposed to contain."
"Laboratory test prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the
grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are
not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless
explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods
that would starve us!)"
"No man today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his
stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health,
because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are
turning into big stomachs."
"No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist
merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or fixed
proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that
our diets must contain in addition something like a score of
minerals salts."
"It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99%
of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that
a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals
actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any
considerable lack or one or another element, however microscopic
the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our
lives."
"We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are
indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of
importance for normal function of some special structure in the
body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency.
It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the
body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals
they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system
can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins
are useless."
"Certainly our physical well-being is more directly dependent
upon the minerals we take into our systems than upon calories of
vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein of
carbohydrates we consume."
�
"This discovery is one of the latest
and most important contributions of science to the problem of
human health."
�
Further References
-
Bryant, J.M. Proc. Soc. Exp.
Biol. Med. 67, 557, 1948
-
Burnett RB Yeap BB Chatterton BE
Gaffney RD 1996 Chronic fatigue syndrome: is total body
potassium important? Med. J. Aust. 164; 384.
-
Dall JLC Paulose S & Ferguson JA
1971 Potassium intake of elderly patients in hospital.
Gerontol. Clinic 13; 114
-
Davis, Adelle. (1965) 'Let's get
well'. Unwin Paperbacks.
-
del Castillo, E. B., et al.,
Medicine 6, 471, 1945
-
Egeli, E.S. et al., Am. Heart J.
59, 527, 1960
-
Grim ce et al 1970 On the higher
blood pressure of blacks: A study of sodium and potassium
intake and excretion in a bi-racial community. Clinical
Research 18; 593
-
Keith, N.M., et al., Am. Heart
j. 5, 80, 85, 1943
-
Keith, N.M., et al., Proc. Staff
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