1^

ylfnRKEROF
HETITb?
BY RUTH ADAMS KFRA.
VITAMIN E,
WONDER
WORKER OF
THE '70's?

by Ruth Adams
and
Frank Murray

Larchmont Press
NEW YORK
 Second Printing,
January 1972.

Copyright© 1971 by Larchmont

Press, 25 W. 45th St.,
New York, N.Y. 10036.
All rights reserved. No part
of this book may be reproduced
without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Printed in USA,
 Contents

Foreword 5
Introduction 11
Vitamin E in the Hands
of Creative Physicians 17
Once Again Vitamin E
Proves its Worth and Versatility 33
Some Theories on Why We Grovir Old 37
The Power of Vitamin E 43
Vitamin E and a Rare Disease 47
Vitamin E Treats a Painful
Circulatory Condition Successfully 52
An Important Finding in
Relation to Vitamin E 59
Vitamin A and E Protect Lungs
Against Air Pollution 63
More Uses of Vitamin E 68
Too Little Vitamin E for Our Babies? 75
Two Important Books on Vitamin E 80
What's Important Is Preventing
a Heart Attack 87
Are You Getting Enough Vitamin E? 104
How Much Vitamin E Do You Need? 115
What Is Vitamin E? 125
Bibliography 126
Index 127
3
 Foreword
People deserve to know about vitamin E but
they have great difficulty in learning about it
from doctors of medicine, v^ho, in their turn,
have very Httle acquaintance vidth it at first
hand. For at least 36 years now we have done
our best, by personal care, by lectures, by dis-
plays of photographs of treated cases, and by
scientific articles in medical journals to increase
general on the subject and to
information
persuade physicians to use it. These efforts we
will continue, of course, but time nms out and
doctors are stubborn. We are glad to see an-
other direct approach made to the pubUc.
There is no reason why people should suffer im-
necessarily while doctors argue. Mercy and
ethics demand something better.
Why has it been so persuade the
difficult to
medical profession of the virtues of alpha
tocopherol? There are many reasons, some ra-
tional, some absurd. Vitamin E was first called
an anti-sterility vitamin because it prevented
the re-absorption of embryos in pregnant rats.
This is a misuse of the term '*steriHty," of
course. Had other species been used as test ob-
jects, it would have been called the anti-
dystrophy vitamin or the anti-encephalomalacia
vitamin. But rats were the animals chosen for
 Vitamin E
study and hence, it has always seemed
its initial

ridiculous to use a "sterihty vitamin" for the

treatment of bums or angina or blood clots or
epidermolysis-bullosa.
The clinical uses of alpha tocopherol were
on observations made outside of
largely based
a medical school. Therefore, they lent no
prestige to such a school. Indeed, they jeopar-
dized the basis of medical fund appeals, for
they demonstrated that millions of doUars were
not needed for research if one had "Hght." It
should be pointed out that we have never re-
ceived grants from the great sources of research
money and have done our work on a frayed
shoestring.
We have never used controls except the pa-
tient's previous experience— after all, the only
relevant control— and our critics have been
quick to notice this. These same critics now
reahze that, in important problems, controls
usually cost too much and settle very»Uttle, e.g,
BCG vaccine or anti-coagulants or low choles-
can be illegal, as a
terol diets. Besides, controls
group in Brooklyn inserting hve cancer cells
into the circulation of convicts recently foimd
out. They are unethical in private patients, as
ours have exclusively been, for these people
are being deceived used as controls, if they
if

receive no help while paying fees for help.

What doctor wants to be a control, unless he
is a Walter Reed or Purkinje? We would sooner

emulate Roiix in his diphtheria studies.

6
 Vitamin E
The team worked on the cardiovascular
that
values of alpha tocopherol consisted of an
obstetrician, two internists and a medical stu-
dent—none having academic status although
well trained. How
could a gynecologist reheve
angina or claudication? (People have forgotten
that Banting was an orthopedic surgeonl ) The .

studies were done in a small Canadian city, and

not in New York or Baltimore, or London, Eng-
land. The work had great diflBculty in getting
published, although the senior investigator had
published scores of papers before. It stiU can-
not see the Hght in the pages of the J.A.M.A.,
although it has appeared in the official organs
of the American College of Physicians and of
the American College of Surgeons. But since 90
per cent of American doctors read only the
J.A.M.A., what does not appear there is either
unimportant or untrue and simply did not
happen. Do you beheve in medical censorship?
Once we did not. But now we call attention to a
remarkable instance of this, on page 47 of this
book, a story that I have told and pubHshed be-
fore.
We were finally forced to find publication in
our own medical journal, something unheard of
since Ramon y Cajal had pubHshed 60 copies
of his own medical journal, Revista Trimestral
de Histologia Normal y Patologica, 80 years
ago. He did so in order to get his views before
the medical profession, and this led to his
Nobel prize. We have never looked back since
7
 FOREWOBD
our "Summary" first came out in 1948. Now
12,000 copies of it go out once or twice a year
to medical men, investigators, hospitals, med-
even to a few doctors of
ical schools, Hbraries,
philosophy and dentists, aU over the world
from Lima to Helsinki to Hong Kong. It is
famiharly called the **bible" in some labora-
tories, indeed.
WeU, the nobiHty of our profession turned
thimibs down on our silly claims in 1947-8-9
and have been frozen in that concrete since.
How can the "Brahmans" be so wrong? How
can they recant? How can they justify not
trying this agent on bums, for instance, where
all present therapy faUs so far short of perfec-

tion? How could they defend themselves

against the suits of patients if we were right?
What can they do to rehabilitate the original
workers of our team after pointing out that we
were not only wrong but were also less than
honest? I would not Hke to be fenced into their
comer now. For the sake of the reputation of a
usually noble profession, one could hope we
were wrong and that organized medicine had
been correct.
But now the matter has been taken out of
our hands. The coimiarin curtain has been
shattered. The matter is now beyond the power
of official medicine to settle. The people have
taken over. Now, as I have said elsewhere, a
man on the street can treat his heart disease
better than the ablest cardiologist, the diabetic
 Vitamin E
realizes that he
not being treated unless lie is
is

taking alpha tocopherol, and the man with gan-

grene hopes that he will not need amputation if
he takes a simple food factor. The medical pro-
fession has a bear by the tail. Many times we
have warned important doctors of this ap-
proaching crisis. Now, gentlemen, it is here.
I hope this book will educate the public to
things that alpha tocopherol can and cannot
do. It is merely powerful
not a panacea. It is

and versatile. Himdreds of thousands of books

have been sold describing its properties. It can
never be suppressed now. Somehow and soon,
I hope, doctors everywhere will feel free to use
it, especially on bums. It hurts me to think that
I described its use for bums
ago as 1949
as long
at the New York Symposium on Vitamin E,
and that tocopherol still would not be tried i£
Hiroshima were repeated in Cairo or Jerusalem
tomorrow. What misery and grafting and ex-
pense and hospital beds could have been saved
had it been used in Nagasaki or were it even
widely used now. I prefer not to think of such
things. It lessens my esteem for my medical
brethren and of mankind generally to think
about all this.
I suppose this guerilla warfare will continue,
but some day soon American military authori-
ties will concede to the jungles of Asia and
some day soon American medical authorities
will concede to the irresistible firepower of
vitamin E, leaving American doctors free to use
9
 VlXAMIN E
it. How we have been to live in Canadal
lucky
I know how long we would have lasted in
territory controlled by the American Medical
Association. How many valuable ideas in medi-
cine must have died aborning because its
authorities made the going too heavy and yoimg
men simply gave up. Fortunately, we have not
given up and, fortunately, books like this main-
tain public interest in alpha tocopherol. We
hope this interest grows, and that millions of
people will find new healing in vitamin E.

EVAN V. SHUTE, F.R.C.S.(C)

Medical Director,
The Shute Institute for
Clinical and Laboratory Medicine
London, Canada

May 17, 1971

10
 Introduction
For centuries babies in many countries of the
world— but especially northern countries-
suffered from a mysterious disease which de-
formed and crippled their bones. Doctors did
not even recognize it as a disease which could
possibly be cured or prevented until 1645, when
an Oxford physician wrote a description of it,
caUing it "rickets." From that time until the
middle of the 1920's (300 years!), the cause of
this disease was a complete mystery.
Some physicians thought that rickets resulted
from an infection, as tuberculosis does. Many
very knowledgeable scientists thought this xmtil
well into the 20th century. Others thought that
the cure might He in sunlight, good food and
exercise. Still others prohibited sunUght and
insisted that babies be wrapped tightly in
swaddling clothes. This was necessary, they
said, to straighten their twisted legs by con-
fining them to tight bandages.
Some doctors gave vegetable oils, others
prescribed certain cereals. Some infants ap-
peared to avoid rickets if they had large
amounts of fresh butter every day. In some
northern countries, cod hver oil was given to
babies as a certain preventive of rickets. What
was it in the oil that brought about the cure?
11
 )

Vitamin E
No one knew. Finally, about 1924, a doctor
announced that cod liver oil contains a vitamin
which cures and prevents rickets. This is vita-
min D. (Recently, a researcher has suggested
that vitamin D is all, but a
not a vitamin at
hormone. We get the vitamin from
fish Hvers,
he says, because the fish manufactures it for
its own use, as they do other hormones 1

But even after the vitamin was discovered

and it was shown that babies were weU who
were given the vitamin, or were given cod Hver
oil which contained the vitamin, there were still

physicians— some of them among the official

spokesmen medical associations—who re-
of
fused to credit this simple vitamin with curing
and preventing the terrible disease which had
prevailed over most of the world for about
2,000 years.
During the time of the Crusades, a disease
appeared among those travelers which brought
death to many. It was called sciurvy. Starting
with hemorrhages and large patches of bruised-
looking flesh, it progressed to agonizing pain
over bones and Hgaments, the teeth loosened
and feU out, the gums bled. And, finally, the
sufferer died.
When Vasco Da Gama sailed around the
Cape of Good Hope in 1498,100 men
he lost
out of a crew of 160. They perished from
scurvy. Jacques Cartier, who explored Eastern
Canada in the mid-1500*s, suffered great losses
from scurvy among his men, until an Indian
12
 Introduction
showed him how to brew a tea from pine
needles which brought about an ahnost instant
cure. By 1593, EngHsh history tells us that,
after 10,000 English seamen had died of scurvy.
Sir Richard Hawkins discovered that he could
prevent it by giving his men oranges and
lemons every day.
But the cure was forgotten. And scurvy killed
sailors and soldiers once again for almost 200
years, imtil a British surgeon took dietary his-
tories of sailors and discovered that fresh lem-
ons and oranges would prevent this scourge
of all navies. It was not until 1933 that the sub-
stance in citrus fruit and pine needles which
cures scurvy was named ascorbic acid— or vita-
min C. Centuries upon centuries of needless
suffering could have been prevented had any-
one been able to identify the cause of these
two prevalent plagues— rickets and scurvy—
as plain, simple vitamin deficiency, and had
they been able to provide those foods which
would supply the vitamins.
Today, vitamin science is highly sophisti-
cated. Scientists and researchers may devote
their lives to the study of just one aspect of
one vitamin. They have all the facilities of a
modern laboratory, and animals or hiunan
volunteers for experiments. News about vita-
mins and their almost miraculous preventive
powers is widespread in medical and scientific
Uterature.
Yet in some aspects of vitamin research,
13
 Vitamin E
there seems to be evidence that our scientists
are making some same mistakes today
of the
that physicians made about sciurvy and rickets
in what we usually refer to as the Dark Ages of
science and medicine. The story of vitamin E is
an example. There is abimdant, well-docu-
mented evidence that this vitamin cures or
prevents a number of disorders, some of them
among the most prevalent diseases our modem
society knows. Heart and circulatory disorders
take a greater toll in illness and death than any
others in all modem Western countries.
Doctors and researchers probe and speculate,
write learned articles and make speeches.
Without knowing a great deal about diet and
usually without much probing to discover what
their patients' diets have been, they prescribe
drugs, exercise, low-fat diets, low-cholesterol
diets,no smoking, no drinking, and so on.
However, a wealth of neglected evidence in
medical journals shows that the simple lack of
vitamin E in one's diet may have a great deal
to do with the occurrence of heart and circula-
tory disorders. Distinguished doctors in many
parts of the world are using vitamin E to treat
these patients. They prescribe it usually in what
is called "massive" doses— that is, far larger
doses than one would get in food. Since the
official position is that all of us get plenty of
vitamin E menus, there is official
in our daily
neglect of research on this vitamin, which
might show its beneficent effects in many cases.
14
 Introduction
Vitamin E
has also been used to treat and
prevent countless other disorders. Reports of
these cases have appeared in respected medical
journals throughout the world—mostly in coun-
tries other than the United States. In this book,
we tell you about these treatments, for it

seems to us that the average individual, trying

his best to avoid illness, especially the in-
capacitating circulatory disorders, should know
all there is to know about treatment, which is

generally without risks, entirely wholesome and

safe. And inexpensive.
Such is the nature of vitamin E that there is
no reason for the victim of a disorder to avoid
any treatment his physician may recommend.
But, in addition to this, he can avail himself of
the added benefits of vitamin E at very httle
additional expense. Most doctors who scoflE at
the possibihty that vitamin E can help are per-
fectly willing for their patients to take it, along
with whatever treatment they are giving. "It
can't hurt you," they usually say, "so go ahead
and try it."

The case histories that we give in this book

are amply documented. In each case, we are
discussing material that has appeared in an
authoritative medical or scientific journal. If
your own doctor is reluctant to refer to the
original articles, at least insist that he read
this book.
It was not until 1922 that the existence of a
vitamin substance like vitamin E (or alpha
15
 Vitamin E
tocopherol as it is called, scientifically) was
even suspected. Three University of California
scientists turned up a pecuhar deficiency in
some animals they v^ere testing and the story of
vitamin E began. But it was not until after
World War II that Dr. Evan Shute and Dr.
Wilfrid Shute, of Canada, came into the picture
and began to use vitamin E in daily practice.
They met with stony silence on the part of
oflBcial medicine and a refusal to regard their

carefuUy documented evidence as convincing.

Dr. Evan Shute beHeves that this is because
the treatment is simple and inexpensive. It is
not possible to patent a vitamin preparation as
one can do with a drug, so no vast industry
stands to make much from vitamin E
profit
therapy. Fortimately, the Shute brothers have
They work
persisted, in spite of this neglect.
with physicians from many countries and have
seen their vitamin E therapy justify all of the
claims they make for it. We hope that the
readers of this book wiU agree with us that it is
worthwhile to know these facts about vitamin
E and to use them in daily life, to arrive at a
more healthful way of life.

16
 CHAFFER 1

Vitamin E in the
Hands of Creative
Physicians
Of all of the substances in the medical re-
searcher's pharmacopoeia, perhaps the most
maligned, neglected and ignored is vitamin E.
In spite of this apparent ostracism in the United
States, however, some of the world's leading
medical authorities are using alpha tocopherol
—more commonly known as vitamin E—to suc-
cessfully treat and cure a host of mankind's
most notorious scoiuges.
For those medical researchers who are at
work trying to treat and prevent heart attacks—
our No. 1 killer— and to help many more thou-
sands who are dying of related circulatory dis-
orders, vitamin E is playing a major role. And
for many athletes, vitamin E (in the form of
wheat germ oil, specially formulated oils for
stamina and endurance, vitamin E capsules
and perles etc.) has long been as indispensable
as cahsthenics.
"There are over 570,000 deaths from heart
attacks each year," says a pubUcation of the
American Heart Association, "many thousands
17
 Vitamin E
of them among people in the prime of life—
and growing indications that heart disease may
be a disease of prosperity."
In scientific minds, vitamin E may be related
and reproduction, said an article in
to fertility
Medical World News for April 18, 1969. But a
famous ball player, Bobby Bolin of the San
Francisco Giants, credits the vitamin with keep-
ing his pitching arm in condition. He developed
a sore shoulder in 1966, resulting in a poor
pitching season for two years. He began to take
vitamin E. The article said that he expected to
be a "regular starter" at the beginning of the
1969 season, and that vitamin E was responsible
for the good news.
It isn t surprising that many athletes have
discovered the benefits of taking Vitamin E reg-
ularly. The vitamin is in short supply in most
of our diets. Vitamin E is an essential part of
the whole circulatory mechanism of the body,
since our use of oxygen. When you
it affects

have plenty of vitamin E on hand, your cells

can get along on less oxygen. This is surely
an advantage for an athlete, who expends large
quantities of oxygen. And, according to recent
research at the Battelle Memorial Institute,
which we wiU discuss in greater detail in a later
section of this book, vitamin E, along with
vitamin A, are important to anyone who Hves
ia the midst of constant air pollution.
From The Summary, a scientific journal pub-
Hshed by the Shute Institute ia Canada, a pub-
is
 Vitamin E and Creative Physicheans
lication we will frequently refer to in this book,
we learn additional facts about vitamin E. Dr.
Evan Shute, who heads the clinic, and Dr.
Wilfrid E. Shute, his brother, have pioneered
in work v^th vitamin E for more than 20 years.
The Summary condenses and abstracts for doc-
tors and medical researchers some of the ma-
on relevant subjects that has appeared in
terial
medical journals throughout the world.
For instance, a Hungarian doctor reports on
the encouraging effects of vitamin E in children
bom with certain defects. Of all vitamin defi-
ciencies, she beheves that vitamin E is the most
important in preventing such occurrences. She
has given the vitamin with good results in quite
large doses to children who would otherwise
be almost incapacitated. Mothers, too.
She tells the story of a woman who had three
deficient children, two of them with Dovvm's
Syndrome or mongolism. When she was preg-
nant for the fourth time, the physician sent her
away for a rest—"tired, aging, torpid" as she
was, with **a diet rich in proteins, Hver, vegeta-
bles and with large doses of vitamins,
fruit
especially vitamin E, and thyroid hormone."
She returned in six weeks to give birth to a
perfectly healthy babyl
As for another insidious disorder— chronic
phlebitis—Dr. Evan Shute says that most doc-
tors have no idea of how common this con-
dition is. It should be looked for in everyone,
he says, certainly every adult woman. After
19
 Vitamin E
describing the symptoms— a warm swollen foot
and an ache in the leg or foot which is relieved
by raising the feet higher than the head—he
tells his physician readers, "Look for chronic

phlebitis and you will be astoimded how com-

mon it is. Treat it with vitamin E and you will
be deluged with grateful patients who never
found help before."
Describing a symposium on the subject of
vitamins E, A and K, Dr. Shute tells us that
speakers presented evidence that vitamin E is

valuable in doses of 400 miUigrams daily for

treating claudication— a circulatory condition
of the feet and legs— and that a similar dosage
helps one kind of ulcer.
High dosage of vitamin E
improves survival
time of persons with hardening of the arteries
and should always be given to such patients,
according to Dr. Shute. He adds that there are
some 21 articles in medical Hterature, aside from
the many he himself has written, showing that
vitamin E dilates blood vessels and develops
collateral vessels—thus permitting more blood
to go through, even though the vessel is nar-
rowed by deposits on its walls.
An article that appeared in Postgraduate
Medicine in 1968 by Dr. Alton Ochsner, a
world-famous lung surgeon, states that he has
used vitamin E on every surgical patient over
the past 15 years and none has developed
damaging or fatal blood clots.
Dr. Shute goes on to say that at the Shute
20
 Vitamin E and Creative Physicians
Clinic all surgery patients are routinely given
vitamin E both as a preventive and as a curative
measure.
He quotes an article in Annals of Internal
Medicine, saying that thrombosis or clot for-
mation *1ias become the prime health hazard
Western w^orld/'
of the adult population of the
Dr. Shute adds these comments: "Here is a real
tragedy. Twenty years after we introduced a
simple and safe clotting agent, alpha tocophe-
rol, to the medical world, everything else is

tried, including (dangerous drugs) and the

anti-coagulants, v^th all these the results are
extremely unsatisfactory. When v^ the med-
ical profession use vitamin E as it should be
used for this condition?"
He quotes a statement from the Journal of
the American Medical Association showing that
the average teenage girl or housewife gets only
about half the amount of iron she should have
from her diet in the United States. Then Dr.
Shute says, "Another nutritional defect in the
best fed people on earth! In one issue the
JAMA shows the average American is often
deficient in iron and vitamin A. Now what
about vitamin E?" He, of course, has pointed
out many times that this vitamin is almost
bound to be lacking in the average As we
diet.
mention elsewhere in this book, up to 90%
of the vitamin E content of various grains is lost
during the flaking, shredding, puffing processes
that are used to make breakfast cereals.
21
 Vitamin E
Dr. Shute then quotes a newsletter on the
U.S. Department of Agriculture survey reveal-
ing that only half of all American diets could
be called "good." He comments thusly, "One
continually reads claptrap by nutritionists con-
tending that the wealthiest country in the world
feeds everybody well. This obviously isn't true.
It is no wonder that deficiency of vitamin E
is so common when even the diet reconmiended
by the National Research Council of the U.S. A.
contains something like 6 milHgrams of vitamin
E per day before it is cookedl"
In another issue of The Summary, we learn
how two Brazihan researchers are working on
heart studies done on rats that were made de-
vitamin E. Of 26 rats, only six normal
ficient in
ones were found. AU the rest showed some heart
damage when they were tested with electro-
cardiograms and other devices.
Two German researchers report on the action
of an emulsified vitamin E solution on the heart
tissues of guinea pigs. They foimd that the
vitamin protects the heart from damage by
medication, and helps to prevent heart insuf-
ficiency. Dr.Shute adds that this paper indi-
cates that vitamin E should be investigated
further in hospital cHnics.
Animals deficient in vitamin E produced
young with gross and microscopic defects of
the skeleton, muscles and nervous system.
They had hareHps, abdominal hernias, badly
curved backs and many more defects. This was
22
 VlTA2vnN E AND CREATIVE PHYSICIANS
reported in The Journal of Animal Science,
Volume page 848, 1963.
22,
Two American obstetricians report in tlie
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
that they know of no way to prevent serious
damage and death for many premature infants.
Dr. Shute comments, "These authors apparently
have not seen our reports on the use of vitamin
E in the prevention of prematurity." He goes
on to say, "No comparable results have ever
been reported."
A report in the journal. Fertility and Sterility,

indicates that in six percent of patients studied,

the cause of abortion and miscarriage lay in
the father s deficient sperm, not in any deficit

of the mother's. The authors studied carefully

the medical histories of many couples who had
been married several times. Dr. Shute com-
ments, "We have long advocated alpha toco-
pherol for poor sperm samples, especially in
habitual abortion couples."
A Romanian farm journal reports that ex-
tremely large amoimts of vitamin E, plus vita-
min A, were given to 77 sterile cows. Within
one to one and a half months, their sexual cycles
were restored and 70 percent of them con-
ceived.
A German veterinarian reports in a 1960
issue of Teirarztliche Umschau that he uses
vitamin E for treating animals vnth heart con-
ditions. A one-year-old poodle with heart
trouble regained complete health after 14 days
23
 Vitamin E
on vitamin E. A three-year-old thoroughbred
horse with acute heart failure was treated with
vitamin E two weeks, after which time its
for
electrocardiogram showed only trivial changes
even after exercise. The vet uses, he says, large
doses of the vitamin.
And an Argentinian physician reports in
Semana Med. that vitamin C is helpful in ad-
ministering vitamin E. It works with the vitamin
to retain it in body tissues. Dr. A. Del Guidice
uses the two vitamins together in cases of
cataracts, strabismus and myopias. He also
noted that patients with convulsive diseases are
much helped by vitamin E—massive doses of it
—so that their doses of tranquilizers and seda-
tives can be lessened.
A letter from Dr. Del Guidice to Dr. Shute
teUs of hi5 success in treating monoglism in
children with vitamin E. For good results, he
says, it must be given in large doses from the
age of one month on. He continues his treat-
ment for years sometimes, and claims that
spectacular results can be achieved in this tragic
disease.
Two Japanese scientists report in the Journal
of Vitaminology that hair grew back faster on
the shaven backs of rabbits when they applied
vitamin E locaUy for 10 to 13 weeks.
And again from Argentina comes word of
vitamin E
given to 20 mentally defective chil-
dren in large doses. In 75 percent, the intelli-
gence quota was raised from 12 to 25 points,
24
 Vltamin E and Creative Physicians
"with improved conduct and scholarly abiUty.
Less attention fatigue was noted in 80 percent,
and 90 percent had unproved memory." A short
experience v^th neurotic adults showed that
vitamin E brought a definite reduction in
phobias, tic, obsessions and other neurotic
symptoms.
In one issue of The Summary, Dr. Shute
prints a letter of his to the editor of the British
Medical Journal (July, 1966) urging this dis-
tinguished man to consider vitamin E as a treat-
ment for pulmonary embolism. He says, "I have
used nothing else for years and no longer even
think of embolism (that is, blood clots) in my
patients, even in those vnth records of previous
phlebitis. Dosage is 800 International Units a
day." He adds a PS to readers of The Sum-
mary: "The Editor could not find space for
this letter unfortunately."
A British Medical Journal editorial comments
on our present methods of treatment for blood
clots in leg veins. Raising the foot of the bed,
bandaging the legs and getting the patient on
his feet doesn't seem to be very helpful, says
the editor. Using anti-coagulants seems to help
some, but we should speedily develop some
new methods of treatment. Dr. Shute comments
that one would think that vitamin E has a clear
field,since nothing else is very effective. It is

easy to use, he goes on, safe and effective.

Each issue of The Summary contains many
articles that have appeared in world medical
25
 Vitamin E
literature on vitamin E and related subjects.
In other countries, vitamin E is treated quite
seriously in medical research, is routinely used
in hospitals and clinics. In our coimtry, such
use is rare.
In still another issue of The Summary, we
find ample evidence that vitamin E is not being
neglected. Dr. Shute never claims that vitamin
E is a miracle drug. He admits freely that
some cases do not respond. But, he asks, why
deny the immense benefits that vitamin E might
bring to some people just because other indi-
viduals may not have the same response? Here
are other cases:
1. Four Hungarian physicians reported in
1961 on diabetic ulcers bordering on gangrene
in a 10-year-old. A large dose of vitamin E
(1,200 units) given periodically, along with
100 units daily brought improvement, which
failed when the vitamin was stopped.
2. Two West German physicians reported
in 1962 (Die Kapsel) on many conditions helped
by vitamin E: sterihty, abortion, premature
births and stillbirths, lactation troubles, meno-
pause, disturbed menstruation, blood clots,
angina pectoris, hardening of the arteries,
ulcers,eczema, psoriasis and as an aid to insuHn
in diabetes. The dose of insulin can often be
reduced when enough vitamin E is taken, they
say.
3. A German physician reports in a cosmetic
journal that vitamin E is useful in some skin
26
 Vltamin E and Creative Physicians
disorders. His clinic uses vitamin A and vitamin
E in treating acne.
4. An Italian doctor tells in ToliclinicO'
Sezione Practica of 10 diabetics treated for
diabetic retinitis, an eye disorder. He used enor-
mous There was notable improvement in
doses.
vision in some cases, a remarkable fall in blood
pressure in others.
5.Three Italian physicians gave 20 aged pa-
tients 200 to 400 milligrams of vitamin E a
day, by mouth and by injection, and reported
their results in Acta Gerontological The eyes
of five were slightly improved, of 11 definitely
improved, one much helped and three did not
improve. In some cases blood pressure dropped
to normal, headaches, dizziness, spots before
the eyes improved.
6. A German physician reported in
1952 that
vitamin E lowered blood pressure in a group of
100 chronic hypertensives. He used 60 milli-
grams of vitamin E daily, reduced it grad-
ually to 10.
7. An American
doctor reported in an earlier
issue of The Summary on seven kinds of eye
disorders treated with vitamin E. He gave a
large dosage, he says, and had good results in
many cases except glaucoma.
A German doctor gave vitamia E and
8.
vitamin A for hardening of the arteries, espe-
cially of the eyes. He
got improvement in sight
in 66% of his patients. Therapy must be con-
tiuued for at least six months, he says, and
27
 Vitamin E
preferably for a year. We why
not forever?
ask
9. Dr. Shute himself reported on vitamin E

preventing premature births in 1954. He writes,

with characteristic vigor, "the interest (among
physicians) very vague and until recently
is

has concentrated on the care of the pimy new-

bom as if prematurity itself were an imavoid-
able Act of God, perhaps occurring when the
Creator was too drowsy to keep tract of His
Clock.** Dr.Shute gives vitamin E to mothers
threatening to dehver too soon with success, in
76% of the patients he reports on here.
10. Three Himgarian physicians teU of giving
"massive doses'* of natural vitamin E to infants
with acute thrombophlebitis, with excellent re-
sults. They have had similar good results giving

it to adults with chronic thrombophlebitis.

11. An American foot doctor reports in the

Journal of the American Podiatry Assn, on 72
patients who complained of foot and leg prob-
lems: cold feet and legs, night cramps, chronic
phlebitis, varicose ulcers, diabetic ulcers, tired
feetand legs. Sixty-five of them showed im-
provement with 600 units of vitamin E daily, re-
duced gradually. Improvement began in about
six weeks.
12. The Midwestern paper
sports editor of a
reported in 1962 on the use of vitamin E and
wheat germ oil by athletes. One runner who
celebrated his 64th birthday in 1962 ran a mile
in five minutes, 30 seconds. He attributed his
stamina to vitamin E. Another great "miler**
28
 Vitamin E and Creative Physicians
used wheat germ in his diet when he was break-
ing mile records. Swimmers and runners of
international repute also use wheat germ. When
American athletes were poUed at the Olympic
Games in Rome in 1960, it turned out that 88%
of them used wheat germ, 86% used wheat germ
oil and 84% used vitamin preparations of some

kind. Some used aU three. It is not mentioned

in Dr. Shute's report, but a great exponent of
vitamin E, as well as all natural foods, is Mur-
ray Rose, the winner of four Oljonpic gold
medals in svdmming. On occasion when there
is a special demand for muscle work, as re-
ported in his book, "Faith, Love and Seaweed"
(published in 1964 by Prentice-Hall), Minray
Rose takes 200 to 1,500 units of vitamin E as
the occasion requires.
13. Two American physicians reported in
Clinical Research in 1963 on a patient of 46
who showed muscular weakness"
**progressive
for four years. Giving him 300 milligrams of
vitamin E daily produced a slow but striking
improvement. After 12 weeks, therapy was
stopped and soon the troubles began again.
The condition of this man s muscles closely re-
sembled that of rabbits deficient in vitamin E,
say these physicians.
14. Two Japanese physicians reported in Med-
ical World News in 1966 that they found
arthritis patients could take hormone drugs for
their disorder with fewer side efEects when they
were also given 150 to 600 miUigrams of vitamin
29
 Vitamin E
E daily. The authors believe that the vitamin
might be used to prevent the bone-softening
effect that these drugs often produce.
15. An American doctor reported in Arizona
Medicine in 1959 that he gave vitamin E for
many reproductive tract disorders: menopause
symptoms, bleeding from fibroid timiors, phle-
bitis and to prevent reciuring strokes.
The physicians at the Shute Institute use vita-
min E in their practice the way other physicians
use drugs. For example, several women who had
suffered miscarriages were given vitamin E
and carried their babies to a successful birth.
In certain other cases, the husband was given
vitamin E before conception took place. (He
was also required to stop smoking). Following
this treatment, a number of couples who had
been imable to have children for years finally
achieved the famiHes they wanted.
Says Dr. Shute, "The optimum time to pre-
vent abortion (that is miscarriage) is before
conception occurs, as the sperm is easier to
improve than the inaccessible, untouchable
egg." In other words, it may sometimes be wiser
to treat the husband with vitamin E, rather
than, or in addition to, the wife. When an
imperfect baby has been bom to a couple, the
husband is given vitamin E before any later
pregnancies. Normal children are usually the
result. The mother's nutrition is not the only
thing to be considered.
Menstrual difficulties in women respond to
30
 Vitamin E and Creative Physicians
treatment by vitamin E. Also disorders of the
menopause and later. Vitamin E suppositories
are used at the Shute Institute for treating senile
vaginitis, an irritating, painful disorder. Vita-
min E ointment used for itching skin in
is

various parts of the body. Bums and frostbite

are treated v^th vitamin E ointment, with con-
sistently good results.
The Shute physicians find that one of the
most valuable uses of vitamin E is in the treat-
ment of phlebitis, inflammation of the veins of
the leg. Says Dr. Shute, "Chronic phlebitis can
be treated only w^ith vitamin E. This agent
simply has no rivals in the management of this
condition. It reheves pain, tenderness, aching
and prevents varicose veins from w^orsening—
probably from developing."
An analysis of the Shute patients who are
diabetics showed that 25% lowered their intake
of insulin by 10 units or more when they began
to take vitamin E. The vitamin helps many
cases of angina pectoris—the sharp, stabbing
pain characteristic of a certain kind of heart
disease.
These are just a few of the case histories that
Dr. Shute reports, at his own expense, in The
Summary. The book is not available for non-
medical people, since it is vmtten in highly
technical terms. However, we suggest that you
recommend these pubUcations to your doctor,
if you or someone you know is suffering from

a disorder that might be treated successfully

31
 Vitamin E
with vitamin E. The address is: Dr. Evan Shute,
Shute Foundation for Medical Research, Lon-
don, Ontario, Canada.

32
 CHAPTER 2

Once Again
Vitamin Proves E
its Worth and
Versatility
Serendipity the word used by scientists to
is

describe a discovery which starts out to prove

one thing and proves something else in the
process. It appHes to many discoveries pertain-
ing to vitamins and minerals, since physicians
in general have little experience with these
helpful substances in their practice. But some-
times, when they try them, they achieve other
things just as important as their original ob-
jectives.
Science News September 13, 1969 reports
for
justsuch a case. Two Los Angeles physicians
were using vitamin E to treat patients for
various skin conditions, including scleroderma,
epidermolysis and pseudo-xanthoma
bullosa
elasticum. Twenty-four of the patients had suf-
fered for a long time from cramps in their legs.
When they began to take vitamin E for the skin
condition, the cramps vanished. Two other pa-
tients suffered from a condition called "restiess
33
 Vitamin E
legs"— such discomfort in tlie legs that they
must be moved all the time. The vitamin E
cleared up this condition, too. The doctors
marvel in their report that "so far there has
been no really effective treatment for these
conditions'—imtil vitamin E, that is.
Says Science News, "One of the most com-
monly observed results of a deficient vitamin E
diet in many experimental animals ... is an
acute and degenerative change in the skeletal
muscles and, in some instances, in heart muscle.
When some of the doctors' dermatology patients
mentioned that they had suffered from severe
nocturnal leg cramps until they began taking
vitamin E, the doctors questioned others in the
thought that the cramps might be related to a
deficiency of the vitamin or a faulty utilization
of it in the leg muscles. The doctors hope, they
say, that many other physicians will be en-
couraged to carry out more detailed investiga-
tions along these lines."
It seems improbable to us that they will, since
articles about the effectiveness of large doses of
vitamin E in many kinds of muscle disorders
have appeared in world medical Hterature for
many years.
American medical and health authorities
adamantly refuse to admit that there is any
possibility of any American being deficient iu
vitamin E, so, they reason, how could the
vitamin possibly be used to treat any disease
condition? A recent release from the National
34
 Vitamin E Proves Its Versatiuty
Health disclosed that a large finan-
Institutes of
cialgrant has been given to an Arkansas physi-
cian to study hov^ vitamin E deficiency causes
muscular dystrophy in animals. This may, says
the release, help to clarify vi^hat is involved in
the human disease.
The release goes on to say, "muscular dys-
trophy in humans is not the result of vitamin E
deficiency. Such deficiency in humans is ex-
tremely rare, and probably nonexistent in the
United States."
The N.I.H. has obviously never heard of the
survey mentioned later in this book from the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Appar-
ently this is how many of our official agencies
reason. First, you decide that nobody shows
any evidence of vitamin E deficiency. Therefore,
everybody is getting enough of this vitamin.
Then you find out that a certain percent of the
population suffers from a disease which, in ani-
mals, comes from a vitamin E deficiency. Then
you decide that this couldn't be the real reason
for the human disease, since everybody is get-
ting enough of the vitamini Then you state of-
ficially that
the average adult needs 25-30
milligrams a day of vitamin E and, when com-
petent investigators reveal that even the best
planned diet wiU yield no more than Di milli-
grams daily, you just brush this aside by saying,
weU, that must be all we need, since nobody
has any symptoms of vitamin E deficiency!
More than 200,000 Americans have muscular
35
 Vitamin E
dystrophy. Since 1950 the National Institutes
of Health have been pouring money into re-
search on this disease. Presumably this research
is geared to the proposition that everybody in

this coimtry gets enough vitamin E in their

food.
As long ago as 1966, a respected medical re-
searcher, Dr. Roger J. WiUiams, of the Univer-
sity of Texas, stated that "underfed body cells,
in urgent need of special nutrients not con-
tained in ordinary diets, may be the cause of aU
apparently noninfectious diseases such as mus-
cular dystrophy." Dr. WiUiams beHeves that the
treatment necessary may be diets extremely
high in such vitamins and minerals, tailor-made
for the individual, to meet his inherited need
for far greater amounts of these than the rest
of us have.
Muscular dystrophy, a crippling and usually
fatal disease, aflBicts only a small portion of our
population. But what appHes toone kind of
muscle may apply to other muscle tissues as
well. The heart is a muscle. Heart attacks are at
present killing more Americans than any other
disease. Could not the reason be plain lack of
enough vitamin E to meet today's needs, espe-
cially since some of us may require more than
others?

36
 CHAPTER 3

Some Theories
on Why We
Grow Old
The search for the Fountain of Youth remains
as illusive today as when Ponce de Leon and
his followers set out for it on March 3, 1512.
Although cosmetology in the 20th Century is a
highly refined science, there is considerable evi-
dence that the youthful look that most of us
admire comes from internal, rather than ex-
ternal, sources. Of coinrse, a youthful appear-
ance is also enhanced if you are a pampered
movie star, if you are wealthy enough to afford
the many luxuries that go with looking beauti-
ful, if you are in an occupation that allows you

to eat and work without undue stress; and, last

but not least, if you have sturdy and beautiful
ancestors.
There is a new theory that, by preventing
fats from becoming rancid, we may be able to
alter our appearance, especially as far as aging
is concerned. Boiled down to its essence, this
is the crux of an important hypothesis presented
in the October 1968 issue of Geriatrics. Its au-
thor, Dr. A. L. Tappel, of the University of
37
 Vitamin E
California, did his research with the help of
grants from the PubHc Health Service and the
National Institute of Arthritis and MetaboHc
Disease. Can you think of a more reputable
source of information?
Dr. Tappel, in formulating his theory, pieces
together much valuable information gathered
over the years concerning the relationship be-
tween oxygen and fats. We know that Hving
things cannot hve without oxygen. Yet it is true,
too, that oxygen becomes a poison when it is
allowed to interact with certain parts of fatty
substances, causing them to spoil or become
rancid. We know how evil-smelling is the
all

odor of rancid fats. We know that fatty foods

must be kept tightly closed away from the air
so that they do not become rancid— in other
words, so that they do not mix with oxygen.
Recently, we have heard a lot about the
nutritional importance of the unsaturated fats,
mostly the polyunsaturated fats. This difficult
name means such fats are very sus-
just that
ceptible to change when they come into contact
with oxygen. Their unsaturation causes them
to combine rapidly with almost anything that
comes along. And oxygen, ever present, is taken
right in and made a part of the family. Result?
A rancid fat, for the oxygen performs what is
called Hpid peroxidation, in the course of which
certain substances are formed which appear to
be very harmful to cells and tissues.
Dr. Tappel's article goes into these changes
38
 Some Theories on Why We Grow Old
in detail. They and much
are very complicated,
more research needs to be done before we have
the full story. However, we know already that
polyunsaturated fats are needed in the human
diet in relatively large amounts— about 1% of
the total caloric intake. The function of these
nutrients is in the construction of certain es-
sential parts of cells. If these fats are oxidized,
or made rancid, at cell level, many harmful
resultscan ensue.
Since we must have the polyunsaturated fats
and since they are quite likely to come into con-
tact with oxygen at almost any time, how can
we damage? The
protect ourselves against this
answer is that we must have antioxidants which
will protect the fats from becoming oxidized.
There are a niunber of such antioxidants which
are regularly used as preservatives in fatty
foods sold at the supermarket. They are listed
on the label.
But the most important and the most natural
antioxidant vitamin E. Dr. Tappel tells us
is

that the harmful effects of oxidation at the cell

level are almost completely suppressed when
biological antioxidants are present. He tells us,

further, that vitamin E is the only well known

antioxidant which occurs naturally in those
parts of cells which are most likely to be dam-
aged.
Then he tells us that scientists have made
careful note of exactly damage con-
what this
sists of. And when they have compared it in
39
 ViTAJ^nN E
different tissuesfrom animals and people, they
have found that approximately the same dam-
age occurs when the animal has been dosed
with radiation, or when the animal is deficient
in vitamin E, or when the animal is old.
In other words, radiation and aging both
cause certain biological changes in cells. Lack
of vitamin E appears to cause these same
changes. Looking at an isolated cell under a
microscope, you would not be able to tell
whether the damage that has been done to it
was done by exposure to radiation, by the
simple process of aging, or by lack of vitamin E.
We know that excessive radiation produces
prematin-e aging of cells. Now it appears that
another cause of aging may be simply lack of
antioxidant to prevent cell damage. In other
words, lack of the best natural antioxidant—
vitamin E.
There are certain pigments, or age spots, or
discolorations which appear regularly in the
heart, brain and muscle of aged persons. The
heart muscle, for example, accumulates a bit
more of such damage every year. There seems
to be considerable evidence, according to this
researcher, that if the aging processes are to be
slowed, "major attention should be given to
naturally occurring biological antioxidants."
That means vitamin E.
Dr. Tappel tells us further that, "Surveys of
vitamin E in human beings generally show
that a significant percentage of the population
40
 Some Theories on Why We Grow Old
has a than optimum level of vitamin E.
less
Because the biochemistry of vitamin E defi-
ciency and the aging processes described here
run parallel, it is apparent that there should be
concern about low vitamin E levels in himian
beings. Continuing should explore
research
more fully the possibiHty that optimization of
vitamin E intake may slow these aging pro-
cesses."
There are, too, other substances which act as
antioxidants. When you sHce an apple or a
peach, the dark discoloration that appears in a
few minutes is caused by oxidation. It can be
prevented by dipping the cut fruit in a vitamin
C solution. Vitamin C is the vitamin needed
in the largest amounts in the hiunan diet,
says Dr. Tappel. It also acts with vitamin E to
increase the effectiveness of this vitamin. In
other words, you are getting too little vitamin
if

E, it may help to get larger amounts of vitamin

C for that will make the vitamin E go farther,
as it were.
So, says Dr. Tappel, it seems that **a nutri-
tionally optimum amount of vitamin C would
be important in any attempts to slow the aging
process."
There one other angle to this story which
is

makes it especially important at this time. Many

nutrition scientists have told us that the polyun-
saturated fats (instead of the hard, saturated
fats of animal origin) are important in reducing
cholesterol and are, therefore, useful in pre-
41
 Vitamin E
venting hardening of the arteries and the ac-
companying heart and artery ills. They have
urged lis to get more of them. Some doctors
are prescribing considerable amomits of the
polymisaturated fats.
The more polymisaturated fats you eat, the
more vitamin E you need—to prevent oxidation
and rancidity. So it is the height of folly to
take these medical preparations without, at the
same time, taking additional amounts of vita-
min E. Vitamin E is generally harmless and
there are few cases of any harm from taking
big doses. For anyone with high blood pressure
taking vitamin E for the first time, however,
some doctors beheve you should not take over
300 I.U. daily until you show you can handle
more.

42
 CHAPTER 4

The Power of
Vitamin E
Although vitamin E was discovered in 1922,
itremains virtually a step-child, insofar as treat-
ing and preventing various disorders is con-
cerned. A symposium on vitamin E was held in
September 1970 in Hakone, Japan, where many
leading scientists discussed the value of this
vitamin. As far as we can determine, the sym-
posium was ignored by the American scientific
community, since we can find no mention of it
in the leading medical journals.
In Dr. Evan Shute's The Summary in Canada,
of course, there is a full accoimt of the Japanese
conclave. Other symposiums have been held
over the years on vitamin E (1939 in London,
1949 in New York, 1955 in Venice). At the
latter meeting, scientists talked about the versa-
tility of vitamin E in dealing v^ith eye disorders,

heart and circulatory problems, diabetes, etc.,

and yet today no one who participated in that
meeting is working with the vitamin. They have
all given up and turned to other fields of re-

search, according to Dr. Shute.

Fortunately, some research is still being done
with this important substance. According to
43
 Vitamin E
two Japanese physicians, vitamin E gives val-
uable assistance to patients who are being
treated with hormones, sometimes called "ster-
oids." These powerful drugs, which alleviate
symptoms of pain and swelling, also produce
such extremely serious side effects that often
they must be discontinued. But when vitamin
E in quite large doses is given with them, side
effects are ehminated and eventually the doses
of the powerful drugs can be reduced or
stopped.
The two Kyoto Medical College professors
used from 150 to 600 milligrams of vitamin E
daily. They tell' the story of one 29-year-old
housewife who had rheumatism of the elbows,
arms, fingers and legs. Her condition was de-
teriorating with very high doses of the steroids.
And when the doctors tried to reduce the dos-
age, she returned to the clinic, barely able to
walk.
At this point they gave her vitamin E along
with the drugs. Seven months later, she was dis-
charged on a very small dose of the drug-
plus vitamin E. At present, they say, she is
"progressing. She is able to enjoy folk dancing
and bicycle riding." That certainly sounds like
real progress in a patient who had not been able
to walk a few months previously.
The Japanese doctors also reported that
other conditions related to blood vessels appear
to be greatly improved when vitamin E is
given. The vitamin appears to stimulate the
44
 The Power of Vitamin E
circulation in the feet, legs and hands, they
say.Furthermore, the vitamin increases the flow
of blood in both arteries and veins. Rheumatic
patients report that they lose the '*cold feeling"
in their legs when they are on high doses of
vitamin E. The vitamin seems to prevent blood
vessels from becoming fragile and to increase
the resistance in the walls of the tiny capillaries
—the smallest of the blood vessels.
The two Japanese physicians discovered the
properties of vitamin E when
they treated a
patient whose hand had been crushed beneath
a great weight. Six months later, a circulatory
disturbance developed and the fingers began
to turn blue and become very painful. The
doctors gave large doses of vitamin E. After
four months, there was great improvement.
Then they decided to try vitamin E on their
rheumatic patients wi\h the excellent results
reported above.
It has been known for a long time that vita-
min E is a powerful prop for failing circula-
tory systems. There are hundreds of reports in
medical Hterature indicating that heart con-
ditions and many other circulatory conditions
improve on large doses of vitamin E. We will
tell you about some of them later in this book.

Now the Japanese researchers tell us that

they have f oimd still more uses for the vitamin,
in large doses. They beHeve that it may be effec-
tive in preventing the bone softening and the
45
 Vitamin E
frequent bone fractures that often accompany
the use of the steroid drugs.
What does all of this mean, in terms of
healthy people who want to maintain their
just
daily health? Well, a vitamin which strengthens
walls of blood vessels and increases the flow of
blood in both arteries and veins is surely a
powerful weapon against both stroke and heart
attacks. A vitamin which will prevent small
blood vessels from breaking can surely prevent
hemorrhages of small vessels in the brain and
elsewhere.
A vitamin which can restore the feeling of
warmth to limbs so damaged they feel cold
most of the time is certainly a valuable asset for
everyone who suffers from "poor circulation."
A vitamin which stimulates glands is of in-
estimable value to all of us, for glands deter-
mine the healthful functioning of our entire
body apparatus. If these glands are sluggish or
not doing their work, any and all body mech-
anisms can easily get out of running order.
The information that we have reported here
was contained in an address before the Jap-
anese Rheumatism Society. It was reported in
the United States in Medical World News for
July 1, 1966. The editor of that magazine is

Morris Fishbein, who was for many years

editor of the Journal of the American Medical
Association.

46
 CHAPTER 5

Vitamin E and
A Rare Disease
In 1955, Dr. Evan Shute presented at a meeting
of the British Medical Association and the
Canadian Medical Association an exhibit of
colored pictures of Shute patients who had
been treated successfully with vitamin E. He
proposed that the photos be shown at an
American Medical Association convention. Said
Dr. Shute, *1 told the people I talked to there
that if I was right the American profession
should be allowed to see what we had done. If
we were wrong, the quickest way to destroy us
was to put our work up before the medical
profession and let it be criticized."
Dr. Shute's exhibitwas rejected on the
groimds that it was "embarrassing" and ''there
was no room for it." "I mentioned in reply that
I had been in the Convention Hall in Atiantic
City; after all the exhibits were set up, there
would still be room for two freight trains
there," Dr. Shute said. "The refusal held and
was repeated the following year. We never
again will try for an exhibit at an American
Medical meeting."
This is a tragedy for American medicine,
47
 Vitamin E
since many patients might be helped by harm-
less vitamin E, as opposed to many harmful
drugs. Its use is apparently almost unlimited.
We reminded of the case of Epidermolysis
are
bullosa that was written up in the June 6, 1964
issue of the Canadian Medical Journal, This
rather rare, chronic skin disease is usually
hereditary and involves bHsters which may be-
come infected and leave scars when they heal.
The entire surface of the victim's body may be
affected, including the mouth, throat and eyes.
There is no known treatment, except for ban-
daging the skin and keeping the bHsters from
becoming infected.
In 1961, a 14-year-old boy was brought to a
Canadian hospital from a home for incurable
children, where he had been for six years. This
child was bom with the bHster disease. Approx-
imately ten hours of nursing care a day were
required to care for him, including a half -hour
bath twice daily, before the bandages on his
arms and legs were removed.
Dr. H. D. Wilson, writing in the Canadian
medical journal, stated: "The condition of his
skin, when the dressings were removed, can
scarcely be described. It is difficult to imagine
a more unpleasant sight, compounded of bHsters
of aU sizes, scabs, scars and bloody purulent
discharge." The unfortunate child had suffered
with this condition for 14 years. From head to

foot he was one mass of fiery red ulceration.

48
 Vitamin E and A Rake Disease
His mouth and throat were ulcerated, and so
painful that he could eat only pureed food.
Because of his success in treating chronic
varicose ulcers with vitamin E, Dr. Wilson de-
cided to try this vitamin, although he could not
discover in medical Hterature any case of such
a patient being treated with it. He says, "the
general appearance of the patient's face sug-
gested a vitamin deficiency, in spite of the
multivitamin he had long been receiving."
There is no need to recount in detail the
treatment given this boy. But all medication
was stopped, except vitamin E and a sedative.
Four himdred units of vitamin E, four times a
day was the initial dosage. This was soon in-
creased to 800 units. The patient began to
improve. His appetite increased. He gained
weight. He became more The bhsters
cheerful.
continued to appear but were smaller and more
easily healed.
The dosage of vitamin E was increased to
1,200 units four times a day and soon the seda-
tive could be discontinued. The child improved
so much that within eight months he could go
for long outings in an automobile. Four months
later, he was attending school; he was getting
occupational therapy and his mental attitude
had improved greatly.
The vitamin E was discontinued to see if the
progress that had been made would continue.
It did not. The boy's skin became worse again.
So vitamin E was begun again and the dosage
49
 Vitamin E
was increased to 6,000 units. By the end of
November, 1963, the skin condition had greatly
improved and his knees and feet were nearly
normal.
Then, says Dr. Wilson, "the patient's mental
attitude has improved, from one of depression,
hopelessness and fault-finding to one charac-
terized by better cooperation, more interest in
his environment, and planning for the future.
This change in mental outlook may be of some
interest in view of the reports of Del Guidice of
Argentina on the effect of this substance on
psychotic and behavioral problems of more ad-
vanced types." Dr. Wilson was speaking of the
physician, whom we have mentioned elsewhere
in this book, who has reported promising re-
sults in treating mentally deficient and emo-
tionally disturbed children with large doses of
vitamin E.
Fortunately, the disease treated by Dr. Wil-
son is rare. The significant part of the story, it

seems to us, is that he dared to discontinue all

medication and use a plain vitamin in massive
doses, because he knew of its effectiveness in
curing other kinds of ulcers. It is interesting,
vitamin E can be taken in such large
too, that
doses without any fear of the harmful side
effects which most drugs produce.
Then, we think that this story indicates
too,
that there may be many disorders and con-
ditions with which people are bom, which may
be related simply to lack of certain vitamins, or
50
 Vitamin E and A Rare Disease
a need for some vitamin far greater than the
average requirement. Isn't it possible that this
child's was simply that he needed
difficulty
many thousands of times more vitamin E than
the rest of us need? Vitamin E, we remember,
hke fat, carbohydrate, minerals and vitamins
A, D and K, can be "stored" to some extent in
the body. This is in contrast with the water-
soluble vitamins (notably the B complex and C)
which cannot. But, obviously, many people with
certain disorders still need considerable amounts
of vitamin E.
As soon as the vitamin E was supphed in
ample quantity, as much as he could possibly
use, he began to improve. Perhaps there are
many other conditions which will finally turn
out to be caused simply by lack of one or more
of the vitamins which this individual happens
to need in enormous amounts. Great excesses
of two vitamins—A and D— can result in harm-
ful symptoms. Most other vitamins are as safe
as rain.

51
 CHAPTER 6

Vitamin E Treats
A Painful
Circulatory
Condition
Successfully
If vitamin E is so eflFective, why you may ask,
is itnot used by more physicians and research-
ers? Dr. Evan Shute has a possible explanation,
"One of the diJBBculties is that vitamin E is

ahnost too useful," Dr. Shute said. *lt is needed

for too many reasons by too many people. The
surgeons have been Httle involved v^th it, of
course, because their field of interest w^as en-
croached on by vitamin E only in respect to
amputations, venous Hgations in the legs, clau-
dication and such. The diabetic specialist," he
added, "also feels too much in-
himseH not
volved, although 50 years after Banting diabetes
is still fifth on the Hst of causes of death.
"Obviously, diabetic specialists should be a
good deal more interested in the help that
tocopherol offers than they are. It is the cardi-
52
 A Painful Circulatory Condition
ologist who feels the
pinch in tocopherol ther-
apy. When the man in the street can treat him-
self with this agent better than his cardiologist
can, the professional tension becomes intoler-
able," Dr. Shute said.
Since many of us are affected by heart and
blood vessel troubles, a condition called "in-
termittent claudication" is often associated with
these disorders. This complicated name is
defined in a medical dictionary simply as
"lameness." As the name suggests, it occurs
intermittently-not all the time. It may be ex-
cruciatingly painful and cause tremor or shaking
and excessive perspiration. The usual complaint
of people who have this disorder is that they
can'twalk any distance vidthout some or all of
the above symptoms occurring.
For about 20 years doctors have been treating
this disorder wiXh surgery-that is, replacing
the arteries or blood vessels which are clogged
and unable to carry blood to the feet and legs.
But there are many patients for whom an opera-
tion not suitable, because of the nature of
is

their disease or because of some other condition

of ill-health.
Three doctors at the University of Alberta
(Canada) Hospital decided to try vitamin E on
some of these patients, testing the results in
such a way that no enthusiasm
on the part of
the patients or the doctors could make them
think they were getting better results
than
tliey actually were. Sixteen patients suffering
53
 Vitamin E
from intermittent claudication received 1,600
milligrams of vitamin E a day. Seventeen
patients received capsules that looked exactly
like the E but contained no vitamin.
vitamin
No one knew, except the hospital pharmacist
who kept the records, which patients got the
vitamin E and which ones got the empty cap-
sules.
Each was tested on a walking ma-
patient
chine. As soon as he began to feel pain in his
legs, this measurement was marked as the
"claudication distance" for that patient. Over a
period of almost four years, the same patients
were tested every month, without anyone con-
nected with the test knowing which of them
was taking the vitamin E. At the end of four
years, a comparison was made of the increase
or decrease in the distance each patient could
walk without pain. If a patient could walk three
times farther, the results were considered
"good." If he could walk two to three times
farther, the results were called "fair." Any-
thing less than that was coimted as failure.
Of the 17 patients who did not get the vita-
nun E, only one was foimd to have "fair"
results. This was the only person who showed
any noticeable improvement at aU in his con-
dition. Of the 16 who took vitamin E, five
patients had "good" results, four had "fair"
results. Since there was no chance for any
patient to imagine his condition was better or
worse than it really was, due to taking or not
54
 A Painful Circulatory Condition
taking the vitamin, and since the doctors them-
selves could not be influenced in their tests—
since they did not know which patients were
taking the vitamin E—there seems to be no
doubt that this was a completely reliable test
of the effectiveness of vitamin E in relieving
this condition, without any other treatment
whatsoever.
In the article in the Canadian Medical Jour-
nal for Sept. 8, 1962, reporting on this experi-
ment, the authors review the work of other
investigators who have used vitamin E to treat
this condition. In 1958, for example, two scien-
tists reported on the 4-year treatment of
patients who received 600 miUigrams of vita-
min E daily. Thirteen of the 17 patients who
got the vitamin improved, while only two of
the 17 who did not get the vitamin improved.
In an earher test, in 1948, 32 patients who were
getting 400 miUigrams of vitamin E a day im-
proved greatly (they could walk a mile or
more without pain) while 32 experienced good
results (half a mile without pain), and only
17 were considered failures.
In 1953, another investigator used the vita-
min for only three months and reported that
there was no change for the better in his pa-
tients. It seems that the time period is extremely
important. It easy to believe that many years
is

of ill-health are necessary to produce a condi-

tion as serious and painful as this one. The un-
healthy condition of the blood vessels involved
55
 Vitamin E
must be very advanced to produce this pain and
inability to walk. So it seems only reasonable
that a sufferer should take a remedy over quite
a long period of time to improve the condition,
doesn't it? The two highly successful tests re-
ported were conducted over four years. The
authors of the article believe that no results
v^ begin to show for at least three months.
They express the earnest hope that their
experiment will encourage much more research
on the use of vitamin E for treating this disease.
They have every reason to be doubtful that
such research will follow. Doctors and labora-
tory scientists who have decided to close their
minds to the benefits the vitamin E therapy
brings will no doubt ignore this article and
continue to announce ( as our American Medical
Association does from time to time) that vita-
min E is not effective in the treatment of any
heart or vascular disorder. This apathy towards
vitamin E is vividly documented in "Vitamin
E, Your Key to a Healthy Heart," the book by
Herbert Bailey.
We do not know why there is such opposi-
tion, especially in the United States, to the
mounting evidence in favor of vitamin E, unless
it isbecause recognition of the effectiveness of
vitamin E in heart and vascular diseases would
imply that perhaps these diseases are caused,
at least partly, by the removal of practically all
of the vitamin E from our cereal foods— the
richest source of the vitamin in nature.
56
 A Painful Circulatory Condition
You will note that the amount of vitamin E
used in the experiment discussed above was
very high-1,600 milligrams a day. The pa-
tients took four capsulesa day, each containing
400 milligrams or international units of vitamin
E. The doctors were deHberately using such a
large amount, almost like a drug, in order to
have a speedy effect. No one knows just how
vitamin E brings about the effect it produces.
However, in this condition, there is a marked
lack of blood in the legs
and feet, due to the
condition of the blood vessels. Blood carries
oxygen which every cell needs to function
healthfully.
In this condition, as well as in some others re-
lating to a vitamin E deficiency, it is beHeved
that the vitamin enables cells to get along
healthfully on less oxygen than they would
normally need. In the test mentioned here, this
may be the way the vitamin E acts to produce
results. We do not know. However, does it not
seem wise, especially in these times, to use vita-
min E for preventing disorders that may in-
volve a lack of oxygen in tissues?
In these days, nobody gets enough oxygen
for healthful living. Air pollution, smoking and
air-tight homes keep most of us poorly suppHed
v^dth oxygen. We
get so Httle outdoor exercise
that we
ahnost never get a full day of breathing
in unpolluted fresh air. Yet the supply of oxy-
gen to every cell is a most important function
of our bodies that cannot be neglected. Not
57
 Vitamin E
only heart and vascular disorders, but also
cancer as well, has been related by world-
famous experts to lack of oxygen in the tissues.

58
 CHAPTER 7

An
Important
Finding in Relation
to Vitamin E
In 1932, a Danish veterinarian used vitamin E
for *Tiabitual abortion" in animals. At that time
the only vitamin E available was wheat germ
oil,with several International Units per dram,
and a synthetic vitamin E tablet with 10 Units.
At the 1939 conference on vitamin E in Lon-
don, no one had a very clear idea as to just
what they should do with this new vitamin, and
most of the papers read then had to do with
obstetrics. Vitamin E's long-standing association
with reproduction is imderstandable, since to-
copherol is a Greek word meaning "childbirth."
Two researchers at the University of Cali-
fornia reported an important finding in this
area ia the March 1, 1968 issue of Science,
They studied the process of reproduction in
rats which had been deprived of vitamin E, al-
though the rest of their diet was complete in
every nutrient. They uncovered a very sig-
nificant diEerence in the animals which got
enough vitamin E and those which did not.
It is well known that sterility is the first in-

59
 Vitamin E
dication of vitamin E deficiency in animals. Up
to now, no one could even speculate why lack
of vitamin E brought sterility. The two Cali-
fornia scientists believe that the abihty of
vitamin E to protect substances from the action
of oxygen may be necessary every time a cell
divides.And, of course, cell division is the basis
for reproduction and the growth of every new
living thing.
Studying laboratory animals made deficient
in vitamin E, the scientists found that their cells
contained a given number of a certain particle
in each cell that is not present in quantity when
the cell is dividing normally. Animals which
were getting plenty of vitamin E has fewer of
these particles. They also found that animals
breathing the regular air of the laboratory had
a normal appearance, whereas the cells of those
breathing pure oxygen looked more like the
cells of animals which did not get enough
vitamin E— another indication that too much
oxygen was in some way damaging the process
of cell division.
This discovery could be one of the most
important nutritional discoveries in a long
time. To those of us who are not scientists, it

sounds complex and obscure. But when you

consider what the impHcations for good health
are, you realize how important this discovery
may be.
As the authors say in their article, they may
have shown that vitamin E has the basic func-
60
 An Important Finding and Vitamin E
tion of giving direct protection to the apparatus
responsible for the division of cells. Now aU
cells divide, so this finding is not applicable
only to problems of reproduction. The cells of
children growing from infancy must divide
many times to produce that growth. As we
grow older, cells wear out and must be replaced
by new cells.

Cancer is believed to be a disorder of cell di-

vision, where cells have lost the ability to limit
their division and continue to divide wildly and
profusely. So you can easily see what great im-
portance may be attached to this finding in
regard to vitamin E. If, indeed, ample amounts
of this vitamin are essential to protect the ap-
paratus whereby cells divide, then it is tied in
indirectly v^th life itself and almost every
process in life.

We cannot immediately make such a flat

statement, because this is not the way scientific
inquiry works. Other scientists in this field will
have to confirm the work of the CaHfomia re-
searchers. Scientists in other fields then v^
have to relate this work to theirs before we
finallyhave a definite scientific fact, accepted
generally by most experts on nutrition.
This research brings to mind experiments
conducted at the University of Oregon a num-
ber of years ago. In one of the first controlled
studies of the effect of vitamin E on aging ani-
mals, conducted by Dr. A. L. Soderwall, biology
professor in charge of the project, it was found
61
 Vitamin E
that when vitamin E, in the form of wheat germ
oil, was added to the diet of hamsters, it in-
creased the successes of pregnancy. The wheat
germ oil caused the aging female golden ham-
become pregnant more frequently, have
sters to
more successful pregnancies, and give birth to
larger litters.
In this experiment, the aging hamsters get-
ting the wheat germ oil showed 83.9% fertility
and 58% deliveries, compared with 36.1% fer-
tility and 23.4% deliveries for an untreated

group.
Vitamin E is regarded by many researchers
as the anti-sterility vitamin. This research adds
strength to the theory that vitamin E is foremost
among certain nutritional substances improv-
ing chances for successful pregnancies in mam-
mals, including humans. Dr. SoderwaU believes
that vitamin E's chief beneficial action may be
the toughening of blood cell membranes. The
vitamin appears to maintain red blood cells in
a healthy state.

62
 CHAPTER 8

Vitamin A and E
Protect Lungs
Against
Air Pollution
**ViTAMiNS APPEAR TO play a much more vital
role in safeguarding lungs from the ravages of
air pollution than has been generally realized,"
says an article in Chemical and Engineering
News for June 29, 1970. At a symposium on
pollution and lung biochemistry at the Battelle-
Northwest Institute, a scientist from the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology told of his
experiments with rats in which he found that
the two fat-soluble vitamins—A and E—play
an important role in protecting lung tissues
from harm that may be done by two compon-
ents of air pollution—ozone and nitrogen
dioxide.
These two pollutants are among the most
destructive compounds we have loosed on city
dwellers from industrial pollution and the ex-
haust from automobiles that jam our city streets.
Certain fatty substances in the lungs are broken
down by the pollutants releasing other sub-
63
 Vitamin E
stances that are highly dangerous. Vitamin E
appears to "quench" these substances, rendering
them harmless.
Scientists from Battelle-Northwest have been
conducting a series of nutrition experiments in
which they fed rats a specially prepared diet
that was high in polyunsaturates— the fatty sub-
stance which is attacked by the air pollutants.
Some of the animals got food that contained no
vitamin E. Others ate the same diet, supple-
mented with vitamin E.
The were then exposed to a stream of
rats
air containing one part per million of ozone.
They soon showed signs of severe stress in
breathing, and died. Those which were getting
the vitamin E hved twice as long in the ozone
polluted atmosphere. In other experiments, re-
searchers autopsied the rats after they had been
exposed to nitrogen dioxide. The animals that
had eaten the diet deficient in vitamin E had
far less of the polyunsaturates in their lungs
than the rats which had plenty of vitamin E.
Apparently, the vitamin had preserved the val-
uable polyunsaturates and prevented their de-
struction.
Dr. Daniel B. Menzel, who heads the Battelle
nutrition and food technology section, believes
that vitamin E might perform still another bene-
ficial function in safeguarding vitamin A from
being destroyed by the air pollutants. "This in
itself would be an important function," says the
article, "because it is now becoming increasingly
64
 Vitamin A and E — Am Pollution
evident that vitamin A is crucial for the healthy
metabohsm and growth of epithelial cells."
These are the skin and linings of the
cells in
body cavities like the lungs.
At M.I.T., have been experimenting
scientists
v^ith vitamin A, giving it to rats, then examin-
ing their lung cells. The rats which had plenty
of vitamin A
showed a healthy condition of the
lungs. Those which had a deficiency showed
cells that were thick, scaly and hard, instead of
being soft and covered with healthful mucus.
After identifying a certain compound present
in the healthy lungs and absent in the deficient
ones, theyfound furthermore, that when they
gave supplements of vitamin A to the deficient
rats, this beneficial compound was formed in
their lungs within 18 hours, even though they
had been eating a deficient diet for a long time.
The researchers went on to say that we know
now that vitamin A can prevent the formation
of cells that later turn into cancer cells. They
don t know exactly how the vitamin does this,
but they are investigating the process. And now
they are wondering whether massive doses of
vitamin A may be able to reverse the growth
of certain kinds of cancers. They are working
with Dr. Umberto the National Can-
Saffioti of
cer Institute, who
has aheady proved that vita-
min A, given orally to hamsters, can completely
prevent the cancers that would normally appear
when the animals are exposed to certain cancer-
causing substances.
65
 Vitamin E •

Five years ago, the National Cancer Institute

reported that vitamin A protected animals
against stomach and reproductive tract cancer.
Those animals which were getting quite large
amounts of the vitamin showed no cancers
when they were exposed to cancer-causing
chemicals, whereas those which had eaten no
vitamin A developed cancers.
Three years ago, Dr. SaflBoti described his
experiments, in which vitamin A, in quite large
amounts, prevented those changes in limg cells
which precede cancer and hence prevented the
cancers. At that time, Dr. Saffioti was quoted
as saying that the general public shouldn't de-
cide, therefore, to take vitamin A tablets or "eat
a lot of carrots" in order to prevent cancer. Our
question is—why not? What is the sense of
spending time and taxpayers' money doing such
experiments if we do not apply them to human
life? We need mention only that vitamin A—
like vitamin E— as you remember, is fat-soluble.
In survey after survey, our health authorities
have shown that perhaps half the people in this
coimtry are not getting even that amoimt of
vitamin A that is recommended as a daily re-
quirement. Many have been found to be almost
totally deficient in this essential nutriment.
With a daily threat to the Hves of
air pollution
hundreds of miUions of people the world over,
why not broadcast the news that perhaps vita-
min A and vitamin E can help, a httle at least,
to prevent the harm that air pollution is cer-
66
 Vitamin A and E — Air Pollxjtion
tainly doing to everyone who lives in a polluted
area! If you would more about how
like to learn
versatile vitamin A is, we suggest that you read
our book, "A New Look at Vitamin A," pub-
hshed in the faU of 1970.
Getting back to the vitamin E research by Dr.
Menzel, he noted that the laboratory tests to
which the were subjected simulated smog
rats
concentrations Hke those found over Los An-
geles or Tokyo on a bad day. The rats which
had not received vitamin E died within an
average of eight days of continuous exposure
to the air containing 1 ppm of ozone. Said Dr.
Menzel: "Los Angeles has recorded up to 0.9
parts per million of ozone on a bad day."
Dr. Menzel stressed that vitamin E would not
cure "respiratory cripples" but that it could pre-
vent diseases such as edema and emphysema,
which research has shown can be caused in
animals by air pollutants.
Foul according to Dr. Menzel, causes an
air,

"oxidative breakdown" of the lung, which he

compared to butter becoming rancid. "Just as
when a bubblegum balloon has a weak point it
will rupture at that point, so will the tiny air
sacs in the lung."
Dr. Menzel believes that the ultimate solu-
tion must be to rid our environment of pollu-
tion. In the meantime, however, the Battelle
discovery "may amehorate what one of the
is

most rapidly rising disease syndromes in the

world's urban areas."
67
 CHAPTER 9

More Uses of
Vitamin E
Vitamin E not the only vitamin that has had
is

difficulty in gaining recognition. Vitamin A and

vitamin C, for example, have also had an uphiU
fight. "It is difficult for medical authorities,
once they have taken a stand, to reverse them-
selves," reasons Dr. Evan Shute. "Then, too,
nutrition is on the very fringe of medicine.
There are very few courses on the subject in
medical schools. Another difficulty is that doc-
tors are taught to cure but not to prevent dis-
ease, and nutrition is reaUy a parameter of pre-
vention," he said.
Vitamin E's usefulness continues to stir up
interest in many medical fields. For example,
two pediatricians from the University of Penn-
sylvania have found that premature infants
suffer from anemia. A group of these children
was given iron supplements and foUc acid, a B
vitamin which prevents some kinds of anemia.
But the anemia persisted and no cause for it
could be found.
Then itwas discovered that the blood of
these children was low in vitamin E. They were
given 200 to 600 milligrams of vitamin E a day
68
 More Uses of Vitamin E
and the anemia disappeared. The doctors say
they do not know why the children had the
anemia or how the vitamin cured it. Nor do
they know why these premature children were
short on vitamin E. Could it not be simply that
their mothers were deficient in the vitamin
before the children were born?
Other groups of researchers have found that
children suffering from two other kinds of
anemia—megaloblastic and macrocytic— are also
deficient in vitamin E. And the anemia disap-
pears when plenty of vitamin E is given. Note
that massive doses are given to these infants.
A Boston University physician is using vita-
min E— again in massive doses—for women
who have mastitis or inflammation of the breast.
Dr. Archie A. Abrams gave vitamin E to 20
mastitis patients and got moderate to complete
relief of symptoms in 16. It seems likely that
one reason for this success is that the Boston
obstetrician gave large doses (two 200-milligram
capsules) a day for a period of three months.
Dr. Ivan Smith used vitamin E ointment for
this condition as early as 1948, in London,
Canada.
Two New York physicians are using vitamin
E for cystic fibrosis—the hereditary wasting
disease which afflcts children.
The oflBcial booklet. Recommended Dietary
Allowances, states that babies should receive in
their food the amount of vitamin E that is
present in human milk. This same book men-
69
 VlTAMINr E
tions many of the conditions of ill-health that
appear to have some relation to vitamin E de-
ficiency: some blood disorders, cystic fibrosis,
encephalo-malacia, certain kinds of cirrhosis,
celiac disease, sprue and other disorders. Could
itbe that the increasing incidence of these con-
ditions may have something to do with modem
infants not getting enough of this important
vitamin in their formulas?
Vitamin E is available in liquid preparations,
easy to include in baby's formula. Of coiKse,
the best food for infants is mother's milk, and
there appears abimdant evidence that no breast-
fed baby will be deficient in vitamin E or any
other essential. But for those who are unable to
muse their infants, seems wise to include a
it

vitamin E supplement from the beginning.

Vitamin E, long recognized as an aid to
oxygenation, has now been shown to be essen-
tial for the proper use of protein by the body.
Protein is the substance of which body cells
are made. We get it in meat, fish, eggs, milk,
cereals and But unless oiu bodies can
seeds.
use it efficiently to build and renew cell ma-
terial, much of what we eat may be wasted.
Federation Proceedings, July-August, 1965,
reported that a diet deficient in vitamin E
causes the body to be unable to use all of its

methionine, which is one of the important

amino acids or forms of protein. The brain,
muscles, heart and kidneys suffered as a result.
70
 More Uses of Vitamin E
And the diet being eaten was completely nour-
ishing, except for lack of vitamin E.
An advertisement that we read in one of the
trade journals stated flatly that, "The cold fact
is that vitamin E in most frozen foods actually

breaks down in storage." EarUer, tests were

done on foods fried in vegetable oils. It was

found that they are good sources of vitamin E

because the vegetable oil contains a lot of this
essential vitamin. But then the foods were
frozen, which is the way that many of us buy
them. Later tests showed that after the frozen
food was taken from storage it contained almost
no vitamin E. The same report indicates that
most of us get just about half the amount of
vitamin E which officialdom has always said is
the amoimt the average person gets. So we are
also getting about half the officially recom-
mended amount. If you eat many frozen foods,
don't depend on them for your vitamin E.
An Annotated Bibliography of Vitamin E,
prepared by the Research Laboratories of the
Distillation Products Industries, Hsts 195 im-
portant pieces of research reported in the years
1958 through 1960, in which vitamin E was
given to human beings in varying doses to see
what the effect would be on whatever disorder
they were suffering from.
Some of the researchers reported little or no
success. Others were enthusiastic about the re-
sults they got. Here are some of the positive
jeports.
71
 Vitamin E
Premature infants with a disorder called
scleroderma— 3L hardening and swelling of the
skin—were given vitamin E. Mortality dropped
from 75% to 27%. Children with cystic fibrosis
of the pancreas were found to have some symp-
toms just like those animals deficient in vitamin
E. The children also had very low levels of
vitamin E in their blood. The scientist who
reported this discovery in Pediatrics in 1958
recommended that children with this disease
be given vitamin E routinely.
A Russian scientific journal reported that the
incidence of miscarriage was reduced from 46%
to 12% in women whose pregnancy was compli-
cated by the Rh factor. Vitamin E was given,
along with vitamin C and vitamin K. A German
scientist reported in 1959 that a certain kind
of inherited muscular dystrophy responded well
to doses of the B vitamins, vitamins A, C and E
(300 milligrams a day). When started soon
enough and continued for long enough, he said,
this treatment relieved muscular distress and
produced improvement. Note that these two
physicians gave other vitamins along with vita-
min E, and have no way knowing how much
of
this combination of vitamins had to do v^th
their success.
Whenever there are reports on the value of
vitamin E, one always finds the research done
by Dr. E. V. Shute, and so it was in the above-
mentioned publication. He reported improved
muscle strength in two patients with acute poHo
72
 More Uses of Vitamin E
and three out of 14 patients with chronic polio.
A South American physician at the National
Institute of Public Health in Buenos Aires told
of giving large doses of vitamin E to patients
in a mental institution.There wsls improve-
ment in their mental state and theii; muscle
coordination. Mentally handicapped children,
given large doses of vitamin E shov^ed physical
and mental improvement, he tells us. He be-
Heves that vitamin E plays some part in regulat-
ing the glands and also the nervous system.

Reports on heart and blood vessel disorders

are many. A Japanese scientist tells of 80 sur-
gical patients. Half of them received vitamin E
before the operation. 54% of these vitamin E-
treated patients w^ere declared safe from any
possibility of blood clots or hemorrhages after
the operation. Of the other group, who were
not given any vitamin E, 50% showed danger-
ously low levels in the substance that regulates
blood clotting, so that their chances of suffer-
ing blood clots or strokes were much greater
than those of the patients who took vitamin E.

Again, Dr. Shute believes and offers most

convincing evidence of his belief that vitamin
E is a natural anticlotting agent (that is, pre-
vents blood clots which cause strokes and other
disastrous blood vessel conditions) and also a
vasodilator (in other words, opens blood
it

vessels so that plenty of blood can get through).

73
 Vitamin E
He uses it for patients who have heart trouble,
varicose veins, phlebitis, hardening of tlie arter-

ies, diabetic gangrene, bums, skin grafts and

many other conditions, especially those v^hich
are the most widespread causes of death today
—disorders of heart and circulation. As we have
said, vitamin E's versatility is astounding.

74
 CHAPTER 10

Too Little Vitamin E

for Our Babies?
Setting levels of vitamin requirements for
various segments of the population is done by
the National Research Council in Washington,
D.C., an esteemed gathering of experts who
presumably weigh all of the scientific evidence,
then make their pronouncements. In general,
their recommendations suggest that the average
person, with a wide range of foods to choose
from in markets and at mealtime, will somehow
find his way to a sound nutritional pattern.
There's so much food available.
But how about the captive populations in
our midst who have no chance to choose
among foods, who must eat just what is pre-
pared and thrust into their mouths, if they
would eat anything at all? We refer, of course,
to babies who are completely at the mercy of
their mothers so far as diets are concerned.
And today, with breast feeding rather uncom-
mon, the mothers and their pediatricians are,
generally speaking, at the mercy of tlie baby
food processors.
As a writer in Nutrition Reviews, March,
1967, put it, "Today's babies are in the main
75
 Vitamin E
fed an cow's milk or proprietary
artificial diet:
formulas based on cows' milk, commercially
prepared fruit juices, vegetables, meats, cereals
and eggs account for the bulk of the intake.
Relatively few infants are fed at the breast and
fewer yet are given home-prepared solid food
supplements. In a very real sense, then, today's
infant is at the mercy of the manufacturer."
The author of the article was concerned with
the surprisingly large amount of salt found in
most commercial infant foods. He suggested
that this might predispose the child to a need
for large amounts of salt as he grew older and
thiscould cause trouble.
Another scientist has become concerned
about the lack of vitamin E in commercial in-
fant formulas. Officially, we are told that the
optimum amount of vitamin E for babies is not
known. Possibly it is something hke 2/2 milli-
grams per pound, as this is the amount foimd
in human mother's milk. Do commercial baby
formulas and cereals prepared for infants con-
tain this much vitamin E?
Dr. Martha W. Dicks-Bushnell of the Uni-
versity of Wyoming believes that they do not
She recommends that all infant formulas
should be supplemented with vitamin E, as
milk is supplemented vidth vitamin D. Dr.
Dicks-BushneU and her colleague. Dr. Karen
C. Davis, report in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition for March, 1967, on the tests
which they made of a number of brands of
76
 Vitamin E for Our Babies
infant formulas and cereals. They varied widely
and one brand was consistently lower than the
others, which seems to indicate that something
in this processor s methods was destructive of
vitamin E.
Deficiency in vitamin E occurs if the ratio of
the vitamin to the imsaturated fats in the diet is
not maintained at the proper level. This fact, as
we have mentioned, is important for adults as
well as infants. Taking large amounts of the un-
saturated fats can produce a vitamin E de-
ficiency, unless vitamin Eample amoimts is
in
supplied at the same time. In some of the baby
cereals which Dr. Dicks-Bushnell studied, she
found that the unsaturated fats were not de-
stroyed by the processing, which apparently de-
stroyed the vitamin E. So babies eating these
cereals are quite Hkely to develop vitamin E
deficiency, since the natural balance has been
disturbed.
Premature infants with very low levels of
vitamin E were depleted of the vitamin after a
month of eating skimmed cow's milk. Says Dr.
Dicks-Bushnell, "Apparently tocopherol (vita-
min E) deficiency symptoms in man are not
evident without chemical tests, but it cannot
be assumed therefore that tocopherol deficiency
does not need to be avoided.'' What she wants
to do is to supplement infant formulas and
cereals sold for infants to the point where they
will have as much vitamin E as human milk.
Doctors have been baffled over the "crib-
77
 Vitamin E
death" syndrome for many years. In New York
City there may be 200
such mysterious deaths
each year; in Philadelphia there are more than
100. Doctors have blamed it on an enlarged
thymus gland which could possibly suffocate
the child. Once this theory was discarded, they
considered the possibility of miUc allergy, which
could suddenly cause the baby's throat to swell,
cutting off his air. Autopsies have shown, usu-
ally, no conceivable cause for the death. There

is fluid in the lungs. The heart is not normal.

There is blood in the baby's spinal cord.

Deaths occur most frequently in the early
morning hours, in the winter. They occur in
families at all income levels, but are more
prevalent among the poorer folks. Could there
be some failure of the baby's immune reaction
—that is, his protection against germs which
would then suddenly overwhelm him? Could
the deaths be caused by some unknown, hardly
perceptible respiratory illness?
The solution to the cause of "crib-deaths"
may be on way. The cause may have some-
its

thing to do with vitamin deficiency.

Dr. F. L. Mooney of Wellington, New
Zealand, has been doing experiments with baby
pigs. He has found that pigs, kept in pens and
fed artificially, are prone to sudden death, just
like the "crib-deaths" of human infants. When
the piglets examined, their hearts and
are
lungs are affected and they bleed into the
spinal cord. It is the same with human babies
78
 Vitamin E for Our Babies
who die. The human babies who die are,
usually, bottle-fed rather than breast-fed.
Dr. Mooney found that his animals had very
low levels of vitamin E and a trace mineral-
selenium—in their blood. He began to give
the vitamin and the mineral to pigs in one
group, withholding it from those in another
group. The animals which were given the sup-
plements did not die. Those which got nothing
continued to suffer many mortahties from what
Dr. Mooney calls "sudden death."
The evidence strongly suggests, says Dr.
Mooney, that crib-deaths, like the sudden pen
deaths in pigs, may be due to dietary lack of
vitamin and/ or selenium. We may be able to
E
prevent it simply by giving these two sub-
stances to our babies routinely, as they are
given vitamin D
and vitamin C.

79
 CHAPTER 11

Two Important
Books on
Vitamin E
Since the Shute Brothers are world-famous
champions of vitamin E, it was welcome news
that Dr. Wilfrid E. Shute was wilting a book
especially deahng with circulatory ailments and
heart conditions. Titled "Vitamin E for Ailing
and Healthy Hearts," the 208-page book was
published in 1970 by Pyramid House, 444 Mad-
ison Ave., New York City. Its co-author is
Harald J. Taub.
In the introduction to the book. Dr. Shute
tells us that heart attack death was all but im-

known to medical science in 1900. He quotes

Dr. Paul Dudley White, the distinguished heart
specialist, as saying that when he graduated
from medical school in 1911, he had never heard
of coronary thrombosis—"one of the chief
threats to life . today." Coronary thrombosis
. .

is a blood clot in the coronary or heart artery.

An obstruction of this nature prevents the

artery from supplying certain segments of the
heart with oxygen and nourishment.
Dr. Shute does not believe that too much fat
80
 Two Books on Vitamin E
in the American diet causes this kind of circu-
latory condition. He believes it is the direct
result ofwhat has been done to our cereal foods
in refining and processing them into white
flour and commercial cereals. They have been
robbed of their vitamin E content. And they
were the only dependable source of vitamin E
in thehuman diet.
As we have learned, vitamin E is a natural
clotting agent. In addition, the vitamin per-
forms the valuable service of making tissues
able to get along on less oxygen. And it pro-
tects certain kinds of fat in the body from
becoming rancid.
In chapter after chapter of this extremely
important book. Dr. Shute shows how simple
treatment with vitamin E
can reheve such
conditions as angina pectoris, rheumatic fever
and rheumatic heart disease, varicose veins,
thrombophlebitis, congenital heart disease, in-
dolent ulcer, burns, high blood pressure and a
multitude of other ills. He shows how it can
prevent the most serious side effects of diabetes
and kidney disease.
This not just theory. Dr. Wilfrid and his
is

brother, Evan, as we have reported throughout

this book, have treated some 30,000 heart and
circulatory patients. He reports in his book the
good results and the failures. They have foimd
that disappointing results can almost always
be corrected by doing what the Shutes call
"tailoring the dose"— that is, changing the dose
81
 Vitamin E
of vitamin E the patient is taking. Some of the
patients need extremely large doses, which can
be made smaller after the condition has im-
proved.
Here are some of the case histories. A 43-
year-old patient with severe cramps in his legs
when he walked. He took 1,600 units of vitamin
E a day and, within six weeks, was s)Tnptom-
free, with no recurrence for 18 years.
An 85-year-old diabetic with gangrene and
infection in her great toe. Twelve hundred imits
of vitamin E caused the totally damaged tissues
to slough away. Her toe was amputated, the
wound healed completely within four months.
A seamstress whose varicose veins had been
operated on 11 years before, had phlebitis (in-
flarmnation of a vein) in both legs. She was
given, 300 units, later 600 units of vitamin
first,

E, which cured all symptoms.

A 9-year-old boy with rheumatic fever, suf-
fering from nose bleeds, shortness of breath
and excessive perspiration. With an eventual
dose of 300 units of vitamin E daily he remains
well.
A 52-year-old man
with angina—the pain so
severe that it incapacitates those who have it-
found that attacks were growiQg more frequent
and more prolonged with nitroglycerin as his
only medication. On 1,200 units of vitamin E,
his pain disappeared entirely within four weeks.
Five months later, he was walking about two
miles a day, and even doing some jogging.
82
 Two Books on Vitamin E
An book— "Vitamin E, Your Key to a
earlier
Healthy Heart'*— is also an important work on
vitamin E. Written by Herbert Bailey, the hard-
cover edition was published by Chilton Books.
It is now available in paperback from ARC
Books, Inc., 219 Park Ave. South, New York
City, N.Y. 10003.
Mr. Bailey also reports on astonishing results
with vitamin E, in each case giving the volume
and page number of the medical journal in
which the facts were pubUshed. The bibliogra-
phy alone covers 19 pages in the paperback
edition. Quite naturally, many of the cases
were treated at the Shute Clinic.
Mr. Bailey, who has written many books on
subjects relating to health, tells of his own seri-

ous heart attack and the relief he obtained

almost immediately when he began to take
vitamin E. His interest awakened, he pursued
the investigation of this vitamin, its use by
many physicians in many kinds of disorders
and its almost complete neglect and repudiation
by many American medical men, as well as
the Food and Drug Administration.
Vitamin E used regularly by those who
is

raise stock animals, especially horses, because

sterility in these animals poses expensive prob-
lems for the owner. Vitamin E was found to
regulate sexual functions and to guarantee
conception and successful births in most cases.
Valuable dogs given vitamin E supplements
83
 Vitamin E
have shown improvement in many different
conditions.
Mr. Bailey points out that, when ofiBcial
opinion has been set in one direction, a doctor
must be coiurageous enough to disregard this
opinion and proceed confidently on his own. It
is also difficult for doctors to obtain informa-
tion about vitamin E therapy imless they make
special efforts to secure hterature from other
countries or read hundreds of scientific four-
nals.

The questions asked by most readers after

reading a strongly convincing book like Mr.
Bailey's are: What can I do about it? Can I
get my doctor to prescribe vitamin E for me
with careful attention to dosage? If not, do I
dare to take vitamin E on my own? How much
should I take? How long should I take it? Can
it harm me?
Mr. Bailey answers these questions sanely
and conservatively. If you are healthy and have
no reason to suspect a heart condition or any
other trouble with circulation, take vitamin E
as a dailysupplement simply to make certain
that you are getting enough to prevent such
from developing. If you eat lots of
disorders
wheat germ or wheat germ oil or other vege-
table or seed you are probably getting a
oils,

considerable amount of vitamin E. If for some

reason you must eat, instead, refined cereals
and white bread, with Httle salad or salad oils,
84
 Two Books on Vitamin E
then your need for vitamin E may be very
great.
One reason why many medical scoffers refuse
to believe that vitamin E is effective is that
they will not heed the recommendations of
Dr. Shute and others in the matter of dosage.
These specialists believe that our diets should
contain much more vitamin E than they do-
that very few of us are getting all we need of
this important element. But, in the case of
people ^yho are already sick, these experts use
the vitamin as other doctors use drugs, not just
but in large amounts so that its
as part of diet,
action in the body is more Hke that of a drug.
As we know, many of Dr. Shute's patients are
taking many milligrams of vitamin E every day.
The South American physician referred to else-
where in this book is giving vitamin E by the
thousands of milligrams to mentally deficient
children with excellent results. The only people
in whom high doses of vitamin E are risky are
patients with certain kinds of high blood pres-
sure, which may suddenly rise if they are
started on large doses and those with chronic
rheumatic heart disease, as well as diabetics
when first given vitamin E. Of course, for the
healthy person, the only need is for a small
supplement daily. You may increase this
gradually if you find that it improves your
feeling of well being.
In an excellent chapter called "The Sup-
pression of Vitamin E," Mr. Bailey calmly
85
 Vitamin E
recites other reasons for the fact that most
MD's ignore vitamin E in the treatment of
disease. He
reminds us that many of the most
important medical discoveries have been de-
rided as nonsense and superstition. And he also
reminds us that organized medicine exerts a
great influence over the members of its socie-
ties, so that in countries v^here no official

objection to vitamin E
therapy exists, doctors
use it freely, whereas in the U.S., the official
disapproval of and/ or overwhelming ignorance
of the usefulness of vitamin E creates doubt in
the minds of even very honest and unpreju-
diced medical men.
Mr. Bailey and his pubhshers have been very
careful to state on the book jacket that they
have no financial interest in any firm which
manufactures or sells vitamin E and that the
book is not to be used in connection with the
sale of. any vitamin E products. Such a state-
ment is essential these days so that the Food
and Drug Administration cannot seize the
book as "labeling."
We cannot recommend Mr. Bailey's book
too highly. It is easy to read and to understand.
It is crammed with facts about the effectiveness
of vitamin E against a number of serious dis-
orders. And it is well documented.
Of course, the classic book on vitamin E and
heart health is that published by The Shute
Institute. It is listed in our bibliography.

86
 CHAPTER 12

What's Important
Is Preventing
A Heart Attack
Although doctors can successfully treat many
heart attack victims, an estimated 250,000
American men and women die of heart attacks
before they arrive in hospital emergency rooms.
This information was reported in The New York
Times on Oct. 24, 1970, and was, in turn, com-
mented on in an editorial iu the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
Heart attack symptoms can be diverse, the
however, they vary in
article reports. Generally,
intensity and location from mild chest dis-
comfort to severe, crushing pain in the chest,
jaw, shoulder, arm or hand. Nausea or vomiting
and sweatiDg can also occur.
The JAMA article noted that Public Health
Service epidemiologists have shown that in 20%
of fatal heart attack cases studied in Framing-
ham, Mass., "sudden death was the first indica-
tion of heart disease," and that doctors know
that 60% of the deaths from heart attacks occur
within one hour of the onset of symptoms and
85% occur within 24 horns. What kills most of
87
 Vitamin E
tliese heart attack victims, the article goes on,
are irregularities of the heart rhythm. An ir-

regular heart rhythm called ventricular fibrilla-

tion is seconds because the beats are
fatal in
too disorganized for the heart to pump enough
blood to meet the body's needs. According to
the 25 times
article, ventricular fibrillation is
more frequent during the first four hours than
during the 12th or 24th hour after a heart
attack.
"Doctors believe that a reluctance to call for
help leads to many of these deaths," the Times
article said. "Why these patients delay asking
assistance varies from person to person. For
example, the A.M. A. editorial cites a study
reported in a recent issue of Annals of Internal
Medicine by Dr. Yoon H. Pyo and Dr. Richard
W. Watts, v^ho found that 37 of 87 heart attack
victims w^ere dead on arrival at Fairview Gen-
eral Hospital in Cleveland.
"One of the striking features of their find-
ings," the Times article continued, "w^as the
time lapse between onset of symptoms and
arrival at the emergency room. Of the 50 sur-
vivors, 30 patients sought help w^ithin two
hours of the onset of symptoms. The 20 re-
maining patients waited longer, nine of them
for more than six hoiu-s. The editorial pointed
out that five of these nine waited that long
despite having had similar symptoms during a
heart attack in the past."
In August 1964, an International Conference
88
 Preventing A Heart Attack
was held Vermont to deal with preventing
in
heart disease. Not one of the distinguished
scientists who attended spoke of drugs or
palliative measures for the sick. They talked
instead of healthy people and how to keep them
healthy. They talked of surveys done on groups
of 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 people to discover
why a given percentage of these people would
or would not die of heart attacks.
The five points below contain some of the
information they uncovered:
1. They foimd that there is something in the
way modem civihzed, industrialized man reacts
to stresswhich predisposes him to heart attacks.
His nervous system and adrenal glands are
being constantly stimulated by competition, by
fear, by ambition, by emotional stress of many
kinds. In earlier times, man reacted to such
stress by violent physical activity.
As short a time as 50 years ago, almost all of
us Hved lives full of hard, physical labor during
which we "worked off' the emotional stresses to
which we were subjected. The adienalin pour-
ing out from our adrenal glands was healthfully
used up plowing or sawing wood, walking,
doing carpentry, shoeing horses, farming, scrub-
bing, doing the laundry by hand. Today's
civilized, industrialized men and women do not
have this outlet for their nervous and glandular
reaction to stress. Wemust constantly "control
Oiirselves" and subdue the impulse to rim from
something fearful, scream at something irri-

89
 Vitamin E
tating, fight when we are angered. As Dr. Hans
Kraus of New York put it, "Fight and flight
reflexes are incessantlybeing triggered in our
overstimulated lives but they can rarely be
completed in their musculo-motor aspects," that
is, in physical activity.
2. Most of the scientists reported that a diet
high in cholesterol plus all the stresses of mod-
ern life increased the risk of heart attacks. So
the recommendations generally were for a re-
duction in the amount of animal fat that should
be eaten. There was, however, one report find-
ing no heart disease whatsoever in 200 nomadic
tribesmen of Somaliland who hve almost ex-
clusivelyon camel's milk, thus consuming an
enormous amount of animal fat every day. But
these people had no civilized worries and led
extremely active lives physically.
Other personal habits come in for plenty
3.

of comment, chiefly smoking and overeating.

Lack of exercise was again stressed as a cause
of heart attacks. Dr. T. K. Cureton of the Uni-
versity of Southern IlHnois, who has done
valuable work showing how wheat germ oil

helps athletic performance, believes that the

most important thing in exercise is continuity.
Don't run to a gym and play volleyball violently
for a few weeks and then forget the whole
thing. This willdo you more harm than good.
Your exercising should be rhythmic and non-
stop. You should engage in it every day or
90
 Preventing A Heart Attack
every other should require you to
day. It
breathe adequately for good performance.
Reports at the symposium related what
4.

other countries are doing to prevent heart at-

tacks. In West Germany, in 1954, 20 recondi-
tioning were established in choice
centers
vacation spots to accommodate over 20,000
fatigued and tense workers, employees and
executives. Said the speaker, "In an emotionally
relaxing, scenically beautiful, peaceful rural
environment, aU trainees are subjected to a
medically, closely supervised, graded physical
training program combined with thorough in-
struction concerning indefinitely continued ex-
ercise habits (walking, hiking, stair-climbing,
calisthenics, sports) abstinence from smoking,
dietary rules and the cultivation of creative
hobbies."
The Soviet Union has also constructed 3,000
rural reconditioning centers where five million
fatigued and tense workers come every year
for emotional relaxation and systematic physical
training. At these centers a thorough education
isgiven in life-long exercise practices, absti-
nence from smoking, diet and other health
rules. In addition, every factory and home in
the Soviet Union has regular exercise breaks
and radio-conducted calisthenics for everyone.
5. Three experts dwelt on the certain rela-

tion between heart conditions and smoking.

Nicotine stimulates the nerves and the adrenal
glands, resulting in release of adrenahn, an
91
 Vitamin E
increase in heart rate, blood pressure, blood
flow thi'ough the coronary artery and increased
oxygen consumption. Nicotine also brings about
an increase in the fatty content of the food—
that is, cholesterol and several other kinds of
fats. So it seems to be related to hardening of

the arteries as well as heart attacks. Said one

speaker, *lieavy cigarette smokers succumb
more rapidly to all causes than do non-smokers
or users of tobacco in other forms."
In the Islew England Journal of Medicine,
October 7, 1965, doctors at a veterans hospital
report on a survey of the smoking habits of
about 1,400 men who had died at the hospital.
They questioned their families and they foimd
that the percentage of men with advanced hard-
ening of the heart artery was higher among
smokers than among non-smokers and that it
increased with the number of cigarettes smoked.
They also found that hardening of the arteries
became more prevalent with advancing age,
among both smokers and nonsmokers. The
lesson seems to be clear. If you would avoid
a heart attack^ avoid smoking, especially if you
are in or approaching a middle-aged bracket
In an issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association, Dr. Hyman Engelberg
tells us of laboratory experiments showing that

the blood tends to clot more rapidly after smok-

ing a cigarette and suggests that this may be
one cause of the increased incidence of myo-
cardial infarction in habitual smokers.
92
 Preventing A Heart Attack
Five Albany, N.Y. researchers report that
they studied heart health in 2,282 middle-aged
men in Massachusetts and another 1,838 mid-
dle-aged men in Albany. They found that in
men who reported habitual smoking of 20 or
more cigarettes a day, the risk of this kind of
heart damage (myocardial infarction) v^as
about three times greater than in non-smokers.
Other considerations such as high or low blood
pressure, high or low cholesterol levels seemed
to have no bearing on the incidence of this
kind of heart damage. Heavy smoking was the
main cause.
As long ago as 1965, researchers at Howard
University discovered that chickens which are
exercised regularly accumulate less cholesterol
in their arteries than chickens which get no
exercise. Poultry are very susceptible to hard-
ening of the arteries caused by fatty deposits,
as are human beings. So this discovery should
have led to a great new interest in exercise as
a preserver of heart and artery health.
Later, a report from the National Academy
of Sciences, pubhshed in July, 1966, dealt vdth
the subject of cholesterol by saying, "Until we
learn more about which fats are desirable nu-
tritionally, the board recommends that the
American consiuner should partake of the
foods that make up a varied, adequate and not
overly rich diet and maintain a normal body
weight by judicious control of caloric intake
and by daily exercise."
93
 Vitamin E
The Academy then stated that some evidence,
but by no means all, showed that there may be
some relation between the amount of animal
fat in one's diet and heart and artery disorders,
which cause heart attacks and strokes. On the
other hand, they pointed out that whole nations
of people on other continents eat which
diets
are very rich in animal fat yet never seem to
have raised levels of cholesterol in their blood,
and, so far as we know, never develop harden-
ing of the arteries and heart attacks.
On fats, the Academy committee said, "Fun-
damentally, the American diet is nutritionally
sound. Most Americans obtain 40% of their
calories from fat, more of which has been com-
ing in recent years from (salad) than from
oils
soUd fats. Fats are the most concentrated
energy sources in man's diet. They provide the
essential fatty acids and important amoimts of
some of the important vitamins. Fats also con-
tribute to the palatability of foodstuffs and to
the satisfaction of feelings of hunger."
There have been many more researchers who
have pointed out the great value of exercise in
keeping the heart healthy. Dr. Paul Dudley
White, who treated President Eisenhower's
heart illness, work
regularly pedals a bicycle to
and exercises vigorously on weekends and eve-
nings. Dr. White urges all other Americans to
follow his example.
Further evidence of the value of exercise to
health came from a rather unexpected source—
94
 Preventing A Heart Attack
the Dance Editor of The New York Times.
Dancers exercise far more than anyone else.
No matter how successful a dancer is, he or she
gets a work-out every day, usually for hours.
Letting a day go by without vigorous exercise
would stiffen muscles that must be kept pHant
for a dancer s work.
In the article in the Times, November 24,
1963, Walter Terry speaks of Ruth St. Denis,
who was 87-years-old at the time. She danced
regularly and exercised every day as strenuously
as she did when she was yoimg. Her husband,
Ted Shavm, in his 70's at that time, is still an
exciting dancer who teaches and manages a
siunmer school of the dance.
Mr. Terry goes on to give us the mortality
figures on other dancers. Down through the
years, they have been notoriously long-lived.
He Hsts many who died in their 80's after long
careers in which they danced almost to the
very end of their hves. Others, some in their
90's, are teaching and coaching some of the
great dancers of today. Martha Graham, in her
70's, also readily comes to mind. Think of the
people you know who are 901 Can you picture
any of them teaching others how to dance
ballet and modem dance?
In another article in the Times, for February
13, 1968, a Washington correspondent relates
the energetic goings-on among the health-con-
She says,
scious folks in the nation's capital.
"Congressmen, cabinet members. White House
95
 Vitamin E
staflF members and wives of those in The Es-
tablishment are vigorous exponents of push-
ups, jogging, headstands, weight Hfting and
yoga.
"Capitol Hill is a veritable hotbed of health
addicts. A
yoga devotee, Frances P. Bolton,
the 82-year-old Representative from Ohio, says,
*I haven't stood on my head for some time,

about a year or so, but I wouldn't be here now

if I hadn't followed yoga all my life.'" Mrs.

Carpenter, secretary to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson

at the time, jogged around the track field at
American University. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart
Udall (he was Secretary of the Interior when
the article was written) have been jogging for
years.
Other joggers, the article said, were Attorney
General Ramsey Clark and several presidential
assistants. Senator Proxmire, the Wisconsin
legislator who has done much for health legis-
lation, regularly runs a total of nine miles to
and from the Capitol every day. There are
many exercise classes for wives of government
oflBcials in one fashionable home or another.
Tops on the Hst of physical fitness experts,
the Times article continued, is Representative
Fred Schwengel, a former physical education
teacher. He spends an hour every morning on
his exercises, which include 600 push-ups,
chinning himself, "working out" with certain
exercise sticks, a slant board and vibrator. He
ends this vigorous session with some yoga, in-
96
 Preventing A Heart Attack
eluding standing on his head for perhaps three
to five minutes.
Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson, both of
whom had serious heart attacks, were avid golf-
ers while in office, and President Johnson used
the White House swimming pool regularly.
President Kennedy, in spite of a bad back, was
a regular swimmer, yachtsman, etc., and we all
remember the famous walks of President Tru-
man.
There is no need for any of us to make elab-
orate plans or buy expensive equipment to join
all these healthy and active people in their

daily exercise, which may prevent a heart at-

tack. All you have to have is the will to exercise.
Jogging means alternate slow running and brisk
walking. Slogan of joggers is "Train, dont
strain. How you jog is never as important as
that you jog." Walking briskly for at least an
hour every day will help, if you can t be per-
suaded to engage in something more active.
Two hours would be better. If you have a his-
tory of heart trouble, be sure to consult with
your own doctor about an exercise program.
The main requirement is regularity. Don't
begin with a lot of enthusiasm and then drop
the whole idea. Keep at it. Soon you will find
that you feel so much better you can't do
without your daily dozen. And what a joyful
reward when your doctor says, "Cholesterol
count is down. What have you been doing with
yourself?"
97
 Vitamin E
Only rarely does one see the word "cure"
used in regard to circulatory diseases, specifi-
cally those which are associated with the con-
dition known as arteriosclerosis, or hardening
of the arteries. Other related disorders are high
blood pressure, stroke, thrombosis, phlebitis
and so on. Of course, we have noted that the
Shute brothers and a few other researchers
have reported excellent results with vitamin E.
-In The Summary, December, 1967, a physi-
cian working at a New
York hospital, titles his
article, "Prevention and Cure of Arteriosclerosis,
Essential Hypertension (high blood pressure)
by Activation of Fibrinogenolysis with Coen-
zymes; a New ReHable Simple Diagnostic Test
for Arteriosclerosis." That sounds very compH-
cated, doesn't it? What it means is that Dr.
Yousuf I. MisirUoglu has developed a test that
can determine just how far the process of artery
hardening has progressed in any individual and
can also bring about a number of cures, that is,
a reversal of this process, which is generally
considered by other experts to be irreversible.
We have discussed cholesterol and the way
it collects inside blood vessels, narrowing the
arteries so that blood can pass through only
with difficulty. Clots and obstructions in vessels
are then responsible for harmful after effects—
hke heart attacks and strokes. Dr. MisirHoglu
talks instead about a substance in the blood
caUed fibrinogen. This is a proteia substance
which makes up part of the blood's fibrin, that
98
 Preventing A Heart Attack
part of blood which is responsible for its co-
agulation. By measuring the amount of this
substance in a given amount of blood, the New
York doctor says that he can determine the
extent of harm that has occurred with harden-
ing of the arteries and, v^th a special diet and
other special procedures, he can reverse the
process— that is, bring clogged blood vessels
back into good health, dissolve calcium de-
posits and lower blood pressure.
It is a starthng claim to make, especially
since his treatment is based on three vitamins,
plus a special diet. Dr. Misirlioglu gives his pa-
tients mixed tocopherols (that is, vitamin E in
conjunction with all the various substances that
accompany it in foods) in large doses, plus
large doses of pyridoxine, a B vitamin, plus a
form of niacin, another B vitamin.
The diet he prescribes limits sharply foods
that contain cholesterol and saturated fats:
butter, cream, fatty meat, eggs. He also forbids
coffee, beverages such as beer, wine and hard
cider, and smoking cigarettes. He notes the
close relation between circulatory ills and
sedentary life and tells his patients that they
must exercise.
Dr. Misirlioglu says that he discovered this
method of treatment when he himself turned up
one day v^dth a blood pressmre of 180/130. He
had been suffering from headaches. Looking
back over his life, he discovered he had been
diinking 7 to 10 cups of strong Turkish coffee a
99
 Vitamin E
day, eating lots of fatty foods and drinking
beer. And leading a sedentary Hfe. He began to
treat himself. X-rays did not reveal that any of
his arterieswere clogged with calcium deposits.
But his blood pressure was high and the
measurement of the substance fibrinogen in his
blood showed a level of 330, which was also
high. After two months of therapy and limiting
his diet and beverages, his blood pressure
dropped to 110/70 and the level of fibrinogen
decreased to 180 from 330. He tells us that it
has remained steady in this range over the past
four years, due either to the exercise he was
taking and the excellent diet he was eating—
or, he says, due to the large doses of vitamins
which he takes, especially when he cannot
exercise.
In his article. Dr. Misirlioglu gives the case
histories of three patients. One woman, 75
years old, had high blood pressure and hard-
ening of the arteries. Three months of treatment
lowered the blood pressure. X-rays taken
showed that calcified sections of her circulatory
system had cleared.
The history of the second patient, 62, suffer-
ing from the same symptoms, showed the same
good results after three months. The third case
was that of a man aged 45, who was having
"excruciating pains on his right shoulder." X-
rays revealed niunerous deposits of calcium in
this area. After nine weeks of therapy, these
disappeared almost entirely.
100
 Preventing A Heart Attack
Dr. Misirlioglu states in a note that "people
having arteriosclerosis, essential hypertension
and their sequelae (aftereffects) vv^ere mostly
sedentary and heavy smokers, and when ques-
tioned about their diet and way of life revealed
that they were consuming an excessive amount
of (the foods he forbids on his diet), such as
vdne, beer, cider, coffee, and foodstuffs which
included excess butter, animal fats and com-
binations of the above." The more severe their
disease, the more such foods they were con-
suming.
It is important to note that this physician,
using vitamin E in large doses and several B
vitamins also in large doses, does not claim that
these are "wonder foods." Nor does he claim
that just taking the vitamins vdll accompHsh
miracles. He states clearly that four steps are
necessary to control these serious circulatory
disorders throughout life.

First,adequate exercise. Unless you plan to

accomplish this, don't bother to follow through
with the rest of the program. By adequate
exercise, we do not mean
a few minutes of
setting up exercises any time you happen to
remember them, v^th the rest of the day spent
in a chair. You must exercise every day, vigor-
ously, faithfully, for at least an hour, longer
if at all possible. Walk, jog, swim, dance, climb

mountains, garden, play ball— anything, but

move around I

Second, certain foods must be eliminated

101
 Vitamin E
entirely or greatly reduced. As we have said,
these include coffee, butter, eggs, beer, wine,
hard cider, fatty meats, cream and so forth.
Also stop smoking.
Third, the vitamins must be taken as pre-
scribed: natural vitamin E, pyridoxine and
niacin.
Fourth, things which cancel out any of these
helpful items must be eliminated. Ask your
doctor what these are. In other words, drugs
must be avoided which may increase the fi-

brinogen.
All of these thingsmust be continued for life,
just as diabetics must take medication and ob-
serve special diets for life. Said Dr. Misirlioglu,
the whole process involving this blood sub-
stance goes on throughout life so, therefore,
any steps to control it must also go on through-
out life. Since the recommendations he makes
are so easy and so simple to follow, there seems
to be no reason not to follow them.
We would suggest in addition other things
which will probably help: Brewer's yeast and
wheat germ as supplements contain lots of
other B vitamins, which also help in controlling
the body's use of fatty substances. And we
would suggest cutting down sharply on the use
of sugar and foods that contain it, since these
make heavy demands on the body's supply of
B vitamins.
All of these suggestions can go a long way in
possibly preventing a heart attack. If you do
102
 Preventing A Heart Attack
suffer from the symptoms of a heart attack,
however, by all means report to yom* doctor im-
mediately. Medical research has fomid effective
treatments for many of the various heart
rhythm abnormahties, providing the victim re-
ceives medical aid in time.
Said the Times article quoted at the begin-
ning of this chapter, "Such treatment with
drugs and electric shocks in coronary care imits
is said to have reduced by haff ihe hospital
mortahty rate for patients with heart attacks.
"As a result," the article said, "doctors in
some conmaunities are experimenting with mo-
bile coronary care units; that is, trucks or am-
bulances staffed with doctors and trained as-
sistants and equipped with electrocardiograms,
drugs and defibrillators, to bring intensive
medical care to the victim wherever he suffers
his heart attack."

103
 CHAPTER 13

Are You Getting

Enough
Vitamin E?
According to The New York Times for June
10, 1962, there is a direct relationship between
vitamin E and the fatty acids present in vege-
table This assimiption was explored by a
oils.

University of Illinois researcher at a meeting in

Zurich, Switzerland.
Dr. M. K. Horwitt, speaking at that meeting,
found that we must have adequate amounts of
vitamin E if our bodies are going to use prop-
erly the unsaturated fatty acids, which have
been mentioned often in books and magazines
lately ( and which we have documented in this
book) in relation to cholesterol deposits.
To reiterate, we have been told that getting
more of the fats from vegetable sources (com
oil, safflower oil, cottonseed oil, peanut oil,

etc.) and less of the fats from animal sources

(butter, lard, bacon, etc.) will help to reduce
the chance harmful cholesterol deposits
of
which may cause hardening of the arteries and
heart attacks.
104
 Are You Getting Enough Vitamin E?
Now we know how important vitamin E is.

If you do not have enough vitamin E, along

with these essential vegetable fats, you may
get into trouble with imbalances. The more you
take of the unsaturated fats, the more vitamin
E you apparently need.
This suggests that natural food supplements
are valuable, for the foods naturally high in the
unsaturated fats are also high in vitamin E.
Let's say you have read something about saf-
flower oil and the linoleic acid it contains, which
is more plentiful in this oil than in any other.
If you should take the hnoleic acid by itself,

in a capsule, your requirements for vitamin E

would increase accordingly and, your normal if

diet contained very little vitamin E, you could

get into trouble. However, if you get your lino-
leic acid from one of the vegetable oils, you can
be sure that you are getting considerable
amounts of vitamin E as well, for these are the
best sources of this important vitamin.
VitamiQ E is most plentiful in these foods:
com oil, cottonseedpeanut oil, wheat germ
oil,

oil, safflower oil and soybean oil.

Linoleic acid exists most plentifully in these

foods:
Com oil 53%
Cottonseed oil 50%
Safflower oil 72%
Sesame oil 42%
Soybean oil 52%
Sunflower oil 63%
105
 Vitamin E
Other excellent sources of both vitamm E
and the important fat, linoleic acid, are wheat
germ, whole seeds of all kinds, whole grain
cereals and avocados. Vitamin E is also found
in oHve oil, eggs, leafy vegetables, legumes
(peas, beans, soybeans), beef Hver, meat, milk,
molasses and peanuts. Sunflower and safflower
oil are rich in both vitamin E and unsaturated

fats. Naturally, vitamin E supplements are also

an important addition to this Hst.
It is beheved by researchers who have stud-
ied the many disorders and their relation to
vitamin E that the reason so many of us are
deficient in vitamin E
because most of the
is

vitamin has been removed from our meals by

refining our cereals— that is, taking out the
germ or living part of the grain, which
where is

the vitamin E is concentrated, along with most

of the B vitamins and minerals which make
cereals such good food.
Up to 90% of the vitamin E content of various
grains is lost during the flaking-shredding-
puffing processes used to make breakfast cere-
als, according to scientists who spoke at a
meeting of the Society for Experimental Biol-
ogy. In com cereals, from 35% to 98% of the
vitamin is lost. In wheat products, losses
ranged from 22% in puffed wheat to 92% in
flour. Rice products lost more than 70% of their
vitamin E during production, and the extensive
processing of some oat cereals caused loss of
about 95% of the vitamin E.
106
 Abe You Getting Enough Vitamin E?
Consequently, the scientists proposed adding
vitamin E to all cereal grain products. An even
better idea, wewould be to eat only real
think,
whole grain products where the vitamin E con-
tent is secure. And to take a vitamin E supple-
ment just in case.
An appeared in the November 3, 1967
article
issue of Science which we consider one of the
most important bits of information of our time.
Science is the learned pubHcation of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence. The article deals with experiments in a
laboratory involving mice and a certain deadly
germ. The investigators were trying to find out
whether the diet of the mice had anything to
do with their susceptibility to this germ. Would
mice on a certain diet die while mice on some
other diet survive, when both groups were
infected with the germ?
There are many other aspects of this work,
an undertaking which has gone on for many
years, but we will skip those and look only at
the experiments which have to do directly with
diets.
In laboratories, can be designed to
diets
eliminate almost any part of food desired, so
that various things of nutritional interest can
be investigated. Researchers know how to make
almost completely synthetic diets for their
animals— that is, diets which contain no foods
as we know them, but, instead, pure starches,
proteins and fats, with added minerals, plus
107
 Vitamin E
vitamins which are the synthetic, laboratory-
made kind.
The scientist who wrote the article, Dr. How-
ard A. Schneider, says that he found his mice
could not survive the infection with the germ
when they were on semi-synthetic diets. These
were diets in which all of the known food ele-
ments had been combined in the proper
amounts. They kept the mice healthy through-
out their lifetimes. But these diets could not
protect them from the deadly germ. However,
colonies of mice given natural food— in this
case ground whole wheat, plus dried whole
milk and a Httle salt— survived infection with
the germ, without exception.
Dr. Schneider decided, in his own words
"that contain some important
natural' foods
items that are not yet known and so not sup-
plied by the assembled semi-synthetic diet." He
what it is. He worked with
set out to discover
the wheat which they were feeding the mice.
He foimd that the protective factor existed in
the outer covering of the wheat— iihst is, the
germ and the bran-not the white, starchy part
which is what we eat in modem white, refined
flour and cereal products.
By grinding and sieving wheat in various
ways, he found that the more of the outer
coating of the wheat remaining in the final
food, the more protection was granted to his
laboratory mice. another way, the
To put it

whiter the final wheat product became, the

108
 Are You Getting Enough Vitamin E?
less it protected the mice from infection and
death.
He fomid, in addition, that he could change
any individual mouse's immunity to the deadly
germ from day to day, depending upon which
kind of wheat he fed it. A mouse which had
eaten this unknown factor in wheat all of its
life, and, hence, had been able to resist the

deadly germ with which it had been infected,

suddenly lost this immunity and succumbed to
the infection within two days' time, after its
diet was changed so that the protecting factor
was no longer there. Even to those of us who
know the powerful effects of good nutrition,
such a story seems almost impossible.
But Dr. Schneider, who formerly worked at
the Rockefeller Institute, and, at the time of
the article, was a member of the Institute for
Biomedical Research, Education and Research
Foundation, American Medical Association,
ran into some difficulty in his studies with
wheat— difficulty that will surprise no health
seeker—but which he describes as "embarrass-
ing." He found that some batches of wheat
contained plenty of the unknown protective
factor, while others had less. This is certainly
not what the Food and Drug Administration
has been telling us. In fact, they call it one of
the "food faddist m)^s."
Dr. Schneider tested 25 varieties of wheat-
all kinds of wheat imaginable— and found, he
says, that the genetic strains— that is, the differ-
109
 Vitamin E
ent varieties of wheat—had nothing whatever
to do with it. Whether or not the wheat con-
tained little, a bit more or a lot, of the unknown
substance which protected the mice from
disease depended not on the variety of wheat
grown, but, he says, on "some ill-defined varia-
tion in their culture/* We suspect that he means
how the wheat was grown.
Since he was not interested in analyzing dif-
ferent kinds of wheat culture. Dr. Schneider
dropped the subject and turned to another
food— dried egg white— which also provided
protection for the mice. We wish someone
would take up where Dr. Schneider left off and
carry on his experiments with wheat and the
unknown protective factor. Dr. Schneider came
to the final conclusion that the unknown factor
he is looking for is manufactured by bacteria.
It enters foods "at their growth source" he says
—that is, garden where they are
in the field or
growing. It is well known that chemical ferti-
Hzers tend to deplete the microbe population
of soils. Microbes or bacteria need lots of
organic matter on which to feed. So they tend
to be much more plentiful in fields and gardens
fertilized v^th living matter Hke compost and
manure, rather than chemicals which provide
no such organic food for them.
Dr. Schneider calls his unknown factor "paci-
farin," because it "pacifies" the one deadly dis-
ease germ with which he was working. He
beHeves there may be more such substances,
no
 Abe You Getting Enough Vitamin E?
undiscovered before this time, but possibly
offering us a great new way to fight infectious
diseases. When he isolated this substance, he
found that he needed only 200 to 400 parts per
billion in food to give protection against the
germ.
He asks whether this new substance might
be a vitamin or an antibiotic. He answers that
it can be neither. Vitamins are essential to life.

The mice on the synthetic diet which did not

contain the pacifarin Hved healthfully enough
imtil they were infected v^th the germ. So this
substance cannot be called a vitamin. Dr.
Schneider put it in a test tube along with the
germ and it did not kill the germ in the tube.
So it cannot be called an antibiotic. It will, ap-
parently, be powerful against this specific germ
only in the body of the animal. Dr. Schneider
proposes a new name for this class of sub-
stances, for he beHeves there may be many
more.
As yet, we
cannot put this information to
use in our daily Hves, but we can make sure
that we eat wholly natural foods as often as
possible, preferably organically grown foods.
We can also increase cur use of such beneficial
foods as wheat germ, which is our best source
of vitamin E in a food that is eaten in quantity.
One ounce of toasted wheat germ contains
about 5/2 milligrams of vitamin E. One-half cup
is two ounces. So by taking one-half cup of

wheat germ every day, you could add 11 milli-

111
 Vitamin E
grams of vitamin E to the daily total and bring
the final daily average up to something over 18
milhgrams.
Wheat germ is tasty, inexpensive, easy to
serve and convenient to use in hundreds of
ways any baked goods,
in cooking. It belongs in
meatloaves, casseroles, salads, pjiddings, home-
made candies, or any other food where you can
fit it in. It's so delicious a cereal that everyone
in your family should have it every day. The
reason for vacuum packing wheat germ is that
its becomes rancid when the
fat content easily
wheat germ is exposed to air. So keep your
wheat germ unopened with the vacuum seal
intact, until you begin to use it. Then keep it in
the refrigerator. It is almost as perishable as
milkl
Wheat germ oil is the fatty part of the germ
made into an oil which can be used as a supple-
ment. With the exception of soybean oil, this
contains more vitamin E than any of the salad
oils. Of course, it does not contain the protein,
minerals and B vitamins which occur naturally
in thewhole wheat geiTQ, since the oil is purely
fat and contains only fat-soluble substances.
Of course, the best assurance you have of
getting enough vitamin E every day is to make
your own bread, at home, out of the finest,
freshest whole grain floin* you can find. Wheat
loses nutritional value rapidly after it is ground
into flour, so that people who are really de-
112
 Aee You Getting Enough Vitamin E?
voted to good bread have their own home mills
and grind their flour fresh for each baking.
Whether you can bake at home (and
or not
it isnt hard, really) you should take wheat
germ and/ or wheat germ oil. Dr. E. V. Shute
thinks that, in earher days before foods were
refined and processed as they are today, the
average diet may have contained 50 units or
more of vitamin E a day.
If you beHeve, as most researchers on vitamin
E do, that we need much more of this vitamin
than wecan possibly get in food, then you will
also provide your family with a vitamin E sup-
plement. Vitamin E is harmless with the excep-
tions noted elsewhere in this book, so the best
plan is to start out with a modest dose and
increase it you are feehng your best. If
until
you or anyone you know is suffering from one
of the disorders mentioned earher, why not
show this book-or any of the rehable books
on vitamin E— to your physician and suggest
that he give vitamin E a try.

113
 Vitamin E

Vitamin E Content of Some Common Foods

Vitamin E
in one
Food serving

Beef 0.63
Liver 1.62
Haddock 1.20
Baked potato 0.05
Baked beans 1.16
Fresh peas 1.73
Whole wheat bread,
4 slices 2.2
Oatmeal 3.23
Com oil margarine,
1 tablespoon 2.62
Soy or cottonseed margarine,
1 tablespoon 2.60
Mayonnaise,
1 tablespoon 3.16
Wheat germ, Vz cup 11.0

114
 CHAPTER 14

How Much
Vitamin E
Do You Need?
Until 1968 the oflScial position on vitamin E-
at least in the United States-was that no one
knew how much of it might be needed every
day by a healthy adult. "It is difficult to make
any recommendations other than that the to-
copherol (vitamin E) requirement will vary
between 10 and 30 milligrams a day for adults
. . . The estimated average daily adult con-
sumption of vitamin E has been calculated to
be about 14 milligrams," said official pubUca-
tions on Recommended Daily Allowances
of
vitamins and minerals.
In the 1968 revision of this book, the recom-
mended daily allowance of vitamin E for adults
was set at 30 milligrams for men, 25 for women.
The booklet made several ambiguous state-
ments in regard to the amount of the vitamin
the average individual may actually be
getting.
"Estimates of vitamin E content of diets repre-
sentative of foods available for daily consump-
tion show wide variation-from about
2 to 66
International Units (mihigrams) ... The ap-
115
 Vitamin E
parent absence of vitamin E deficiency in the
general population suggests that the amount
of vitamin E in foods is adequate."
What does a statement hke this mean? Some
of us are getting only 2 milligrams of the vita-
min when be getting 30, but it's all
v^e should
right, since we don't show any signs of defi-
ciency! But how do these experts know that we
have no such symptoms without examining
each of us individually? Even when oflBcial
nutrition surveys are made, the results are dis-
putable. For example, The New York Times for
Oct. 14, 1970, discussed the findings of a
Federal study on malnutrition in New York
City. Except for a vitamin A deficiency among
low-income children, preliminary data from the
survey of 2,000 people indicated that only
about 10% of those tested had any nutritional
deficiencies. Results were based solely on lab-
oratory test, and clinical examinations that
doctors had made on each person were not
considered. According to Dr. Roger G. New-
man, a City Health Department official who
supervised the survey, there are disputes
among doctors and researchers over whether
or not the tests now used to fix nutrient levels
are accurate. Dr. Newman also said that, be-
cause of the limited research techniques, "we
are not in a position to answer the question
originally posed by Congress concerning the
extent of malnutrition and health-related prob-
lems in the target population."
116
 How Much Vitamin E Do You Need?
When we speak of the term "average daily
consumption" of a given vitamin or mineral,
we individuals are not taken into accoimt
Averages are made up of figures both above
and below a given level. If the "average" Ameri-
can is getting 14 milhgrams of vitamin E a day,
this means that millions of Americans are prob-
ably getting much less than this. However, until
now, oflBcialdom has gone on the assumption
that the average American is all they are con-
cerned with and, since this mythical person is
getting 14 milhgrams of vitamin E a day, there
is no need for him to get any additional vitamin

E in foods like wheat germ or in food supple-

ments.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
for July, 1965, published an article by four
drug company researchers who decided to find
out exactly how much vitamin E there is in
the average diet. They selected foodsa in
grocery store which might be typical, they
thought, of the breakfasts, lunches and dinners
which we eat. Since salad oils contain consid-
erable amounts of vitamin E, they included as
many foods as possible that might be prepared
v^th salad oils. They used margarine as well
as butter.They used mayonnaise.
They planned menus for eight days which
are much more nutritious than most Ameri-
cans eat, we believe. One breakfast, for in-
stance, consisted of one-half cup of tomato
juice, three fourths cup of cooked wheat and
117
 Vitamin E
barley cereal, two slices of whole wheat bread,
two pats of margarine, two shoes of ham, one
egg, coflFee and sugar, four ounces of milk for
cereal and Do you know anybody who
coffee.
much for breakfast? A typical lunch-
eats that
eon menu contained: three shoes of hverwurst,
two shoes whole wheat bread, seven leaves
of
of lettuce, onemedium tomato, one tablespoon
of mayonnaise, one shoe of poimd cake (lots of
butter in this), 1.6 quart of chocolate ice cream,
six ounces of milk.
Judging from all the surveys of peoples' eat-
ing habits that have been done by nutrition
experts, very few people indeed eat as varied
and plentiful a diet as this. Teenagers, we are
told, eat scanty breakfasts, if any. Lunch for
them may consist of a soft drink and potato
chips. Older people tend to eat only cereals,
sweets, tea and toast. Few people ever try pur-
posely to plan meals with an eye specifically to
their vitamin E content, as these researchers
did.
Yet in spite of the fact that these meals
were planned especially for a high vitamin E
content, the researchers found that they came
to an over-all daily average of only 7 A milli-
grams of vitamin E—or just about half the
amount officially announced as the average
daily intake of the average American,
The scientists say that this research indicates
the possibility of relatively low vitamin E intake
in a portion of the population, "depending
118
 How Much Vixamtn E Do You Need?
somewhat on dietary habits." And "this observa-
tion points up the importance of doing more
work in this area to estabHsh more accurately
the actual intake of both vitamin E and the
unsaturated fats in order better to assess the
adequacy of vitamin E in the 'average' Ameri-
can diet."
In its many press releases attacking what it

calls "food faddism," the Food and Drug Ad-

ministration tells us "food faddists" that we are
entirely incorrect when we say that the way
food is raised or treated influences its nutritive
content. No matter how the crop is fertilized,

the FDA no matter whether organic

claims,
or chemical fertiHzers are used, no matter
whether the crop is grown on soil that has been
depleted of much
mineral wealth through
of its

years of farming, the vitamin and mineral con-

tent of the food will remain the same, according
to the FDA experts in Washington. They also
steadfastly maintain that, so long as the soil
is good enough condition to produce a crop
in
at all, the food produced will contain plenty
of vitamins and minerals. Any further atten-
tion to fertilizers may produce
a bigger crop,
but the nutritive content will remain the same.
So says the FDA.
We health conscious folks have always con-
tended that many people in oiu: country may
be shortchanged in their nutrition program be-
cause their food has been grown on soil from
which much of the nutritional value has been
119
 Vitamin E
depleted. Trace minerals, for instance, have
been taken off in crop after crop and never
replaced by fertilizers. The usual commercial
fertilizers contain only three or four of the best
known and most widely used minerals and are
Organic gar-
virtually devoid of trace minerals.
dening and farming assures an ainple supply of
these important elements by replacing in the
soil all possible living matter: leaves, grass clip-
pings, hay, straw and animal products like bone
meal, maninre and so forth.
It is diflBcult, time-consuming and expensive
to prove our point, for it involves testing foods
from many different soils and growing condi-
tions to determine their nutritive content. The
experts in Washington can always belittle our
tests by claiming that certain varieties of vege-
have genetic abihty to produce
tables or grains
food high in certain vitamins and minerals. If
we find a food high in a vitamin, they vdll say
that the organic gardening method wasn't re-

sponsible for its vitamin content—it's just that

the gardener planted a certain variety of seed
which produces a food high in that vitamin.
We were, therefore, interested in looking
through a very oflBcial book from the Agri-
culturalExperiment Station at the University
of Wyoming, to find that tests on food raised
throughout the world showed an astonishing
range in the content of one vitamin—vitamin
E. The book is entitled "Vitamin E Content of
120
 How Much Vitamin E Do You Need?
Foods and Feeds for Human and Animal Con-
sumption."
For example the vitamin E content of com
oil sold in the United States may vary from 79
milligrams in a given quantity of oil to as much
as 239 milligrams of vitamin E. In other words,
you may purchase one brand of com oil which
will give you three times more vitamin E than
another brand. Cottonseed a very popular
oil,

salad oil, may contain 96 miUigrams of vitamin

E or as Httle as 53 miUigrams. Both in the same
bottles, perhaps the same brand.
Olive oil sold in the U.S. may contain as
little as 6.9 miUigrams of vitamin E or as much

as 30 miUigrams— almost five times more. Pea-

nut oil may vary from 15 miUigrams to 59
miUigrams. Sajfflower oU may vary from 16.9 to
49.2 miUigrams. Soybean oil may vary from 44
to 219 miUigrams—five times as much. Crude
wheat germ oU may contain 190 miUigrams of
vitamin E or up to 420 miUigrams.
What about wheat itself? One sample of
American wheat showed a total of only 0.03
miUigrams of vitamin E in a given quantity,
whUe another sample contained 2.87 miUi-
grams—90 times more than the first sample.
We have confined our observations to Ameri-
can products, since we are primarily interested
in nutrition in our own coimtry. Looking at
figures from other countries, however, we found
many much wider variations in vitamin E con-
tent of foods.
121
 Vitamin E
The University of Wyoming book states,

"Recent reports on the vitamin E content of

blood from people in the United States and
Great Britain show that a small percentage of
the population has dangerously low blood levels
of vitamin E."
Some people are making every eflFort to eat
more foods that contain the unsaturated fats,
trying to prevent cholesterol deposits in blood
vessels.These fats raise one's requirement for
vitamin E. That is, if you eat lots of the cereal
and vegetable oils, you need to get lots of
vitamin E as well.
So the vitamin E
content of one's food is
quite important. If one is depending on a com
oil for its vitamin E content, chances are that
one will consistently buy the same brand of
oil at the same store. Now if the com oil com-
pany checks the vitamin E content of its prod-
ucts constantly, one may be getting about the
same amount of this vitamin in every bottle.
But the likelihood of a company's going to this
trouble seems remote, especially since the vita-
min E content of any salad oil does not have
to be stated on the labeL
So if you happen to be buying an oil with 239
milligrams of vitamin E, well and good. But
what if you are paying the same money to buy
a bottle with only 79 milligrams? What makes
the difference in the product, if not the way
the cereal was raised, the kind of soil it was
grown in, the fertilizers that were appHed, the
122
 How Much Vitamin E Do You Need?
harvesting practices, the storage practices— all
this enters into the nutritive content of any
producti But most important, we suggest, is

the fertilizing of the soil.

In any case, no matter what it is that causes

these inunense differences in the nutritive con-
tent of foods we buy at the store, how can the
FDA experts continue to tell us that we are all
certain to get aU the nutrition we need, no
matter what brand we buy?
The mother who feeds her children bread
made from one kind of American-grown wheat
will be providing them wtih 90 times more
vitamin E than another mother who buys bread
made from another kind of wheat. Wheat is our
best food source of vitamin E. Bleaching it to
obtain white bread destroys much of its vitamin
E content. So the child who eats white bread
made from flour containing 0.03 miUigrams of
vitamin E is getting almost exactly no vitamin
E at all, while the fortunate child who eats
whole grain bread made from a wheat contain-
ing 90 times more vitamin E to begin with, is
getting 90 times more value from this important
food.
How can you tell which product to buy, in
the light of these discoveries? You can't, of
course. So far as we know, no tests have ever
been made by brand names. But we feel that
we have a valid point; hence we have fuU
justification for suggesting the supplementing
123
 Vitamin E
of our diets with food supplements to make up
any possible shortages.
The bakery products and dairy products that
we buy—both very important for good health—
usually originate in an area close to our homes,
because these foods are so perishable. So if
there are deficiencies in local soil, they are
quite Hkely to show up in terms of health,
unless some provisions are made to supply any
missing food elements.
Don't underestimate the value of vitamin E.
We have told you about any number of cases
that have been either cured or dramatically
helped with this important substance. Medical
Hterature is full of vivid testimonials.
Now that conservative scientists have pointed
out the sad fact of the very small amounts
of vitamin E contained in even the best planned
diet,government experts may get around to
studying this matter and may eventually recom-
mend that we make some effort to get more.
But this process may take many years. Why
wait? Why not begin now to reinforce your
meals with plenty of this fine, health-giving
vitamin?

124
 What Is
Vitamin E?
Vitamin E is a fat-soluble phenol which
has a close similarity to chlorophyll. It is
also known as "tocopherol" because of
its apparent aid in reproduction. This

term is derived from the Greek word

meaning "childbirth." Foin: forms of
vitamin E exist in nature in respectable
quantity, namely alpha-, beta-, gamma-,
and delta-tocopherols. There are three
less important isomers. Vitamin E was
first isolated in 1922 by the late Dr.

Herbert McLean Evans and K. S.

Bishop. In 1936, it was obtained in a
pure form by Dr. Evans, and O. H. and
G. A. Emerson. It was identified chem-
ically in 1938 by P. Karrer, H. Salomon,
B. Ringier and H. Fritzsche.
The principal natural sources of vita-
min E are peanut oil, wheat germ oil,

cottonseed oil, soybean oil, com oil,

liver, milk, eggs and certain meats and

vegetables.

125
 Bibliography
Bailey, Herbert, Vitamin E, Your Key to a
Healthy Hearty ARCO Books, New York City,
1964.
Bailey, Herbert,The Vitamin Pioneers, Ro-
dale Press, Emmaus, Pa. 1968.
Shute, Evan and Wilfrid, Alpha Tocopherol
(Vitamin E) in Cardiovascular Disease, Ryerson
Press, Toronto, Canada, 1954.
Shute Institute for Clinical and Laboratory
Medicine, The Summary, sl periodical of ab-
stracts of relevant medical literature with
meaningful comments by Dr. Evan Shute. Pub-
lished by The Shute Foimdation for Medical
Research, London, Canada.
Shute Institute, Medical Staff, The Heart and
Vitamin E, published by The Shute Foundation
for Medical Research, London, Canada, 1961.
Shute Institute, Medical Staff, Common
Questions on Vitamin E and Their Answers,
published by the Shute Foundation for Medical
Research, London, Canada, 1961.
Shute, Wilfrid E. and Harald J. Taub, Vita-
min E for Ailing and Healthy Heaits, Pyramid
House, New York City, 1970.

126
 Index
Abortion, 23, 26, 59 Gangrene, 82
Acne, 26 Glands, 46
Aging, 40
Air pollution, 63 Hair, growth of, 24
Anemia, 68 Heart conditions, 23
Angina pectoris, 31, 81, 82, 26 Heart damage, 22
Antioxidant, Vitamin E, 39 Heart disease, 73, 81, 87
Arteries, hardening of, 20, 26, Hemorrhages, 73
27,73 High blood pressure, 81
Arthritis, 29 Hormones, 44
Athletes, 17, 18, 28
Infant, food, 76
Blood clots, 25, 26, 73 Intermittent Claudication, 20
I
Blood pressure, 27 Iron, deficiency in diet, 21
Bums, 31, 73, 81
Kidney disease, 81
Cancer, 61
Cataracts, 24 Lactation disorders, 25
Celiac Disease, 70
Children, defective, 19 Mastitis, 69
Cholesterol, 90 Menopause, 25, 30
Circulation, 45 Menstruation, 25, 30
Cirrhosis, 70 Mentally defective children, 24
Convulsive diseases, 24 Miscarriage, 23, 30, 72
Cramps, 28, 82 Misirlioglu, Dr. Yousef, 98
Crib-death syndrome, 77 Mongolism, 19, 24
Cystic Fibrosis, 69 Mooney, Dr. F.L., 78
Muscles, 32
Diabetes, 26, 31, 81
Muscular dystrophy, 34, 35, 72
Diabetic gangrene, 74 Muscular weakness, 29
Diabetic retinitis, 27 Myopia, 24
Diabetic ulcers, 26, 28
Diet, deficiencies in, 21 Organic Gardening, 110, 119
Downs Syndrome, 19 Overeating, 90
Oxygen, 38
Oxygen, Vitamin E, 18
Eczema, 26
Ozone, 64
Encephalo-malacia, 70
Epidermolysis bullosa, 33, 48
Phlebitis, 19, 30, 82
Exercise and heart attacks, 90
Poho, 72
93, 94, 101
Eyes, spots before, 27 Pregnancy, 62
Premature births, 26, 28
Protein and vitamin E, 70
Fats and heart health, 80, 93
Pseudo-xanthoma elasticum, 33
Fats, polyunsaturated, 38
I Psoriasis, 25
127
 Index
Pulmonary embolism, 25 Ulcers, 26, 81
Unsaturated fats, 104
Radiation, 38
Red blood cells, 62 Vaginitis, 31
Restless legs, 33 Varicose ulcers, 28, 49
Rheumatic fever, 81, 82 Varicose veins, 73, 81
Rheumatism, 44 Vitamin A and cancer, 65
RH Factor, 72 Vitamin B complex and
Rose, Murray, 29 health, 99
Vitamin E, amount in food,
Salt, 76 71, 112, 122
Schneider, Dr. Howard A., Vitamin E and air pollution,

108 63
Scleroderma, 33, 71 Vitamin E as anti-coagulant,
Selenium and vitamin E, 79 81
Shute, Dr. Wilfred, 19, 80 Vitamin E deficiency, 21, 22,
Skin grafts, 73 57, 67
Smoking, 90, 91 Vitamin E for Ailing and
Sprue, 70 Healthy Heart, 80
Sterility, 25, 26, 59, 62 Vitamin E, loss of in refining,
Stress, 89 81, 106
Stroke, 15 Vitamin E, need for, 84
Summary, 18 Vitamin E, opposition to, 85
Surgery, vitamin E in, 73 Vitamin E, Your Key to a
Healthy Heart, 80
Thrombophlebitis, 28, 81
Thrombosis and vitamin E, Wheat germ, 108, 112
21 Wheat germ oil, 17, 84, 112
Tumors, 30 Williams, Dr. Roger J., 36

128
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