Nutrition Articles by Richard Kunin, MD

In my last column I described one of my actual dreams. This time I am describing reality—but it is so unexpected that it feels like a dream. Yes I am awake. Yes I am dressed. Yes this is the New England Journal of Medicine I am reading. And yes, it says: "among middle-aged women the use of vitamin E supplements is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease." That is the conclusion of Dr. Meir Stampfer and his colleagues^[1] at Harvard Medical School in their report of a questionnaire study involving 87,000 nurses with follow-up over an 8-year period. They found a 45 percent reduction in coronary heart disease amongst nurses taking vitamin E supplements over 100 units per day compared to those who relied on dietary sources alone. This is important because it has been the dogma of FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for the past 50 years that "the average American Diet is adequate in vitamins and minerals." I addressed this as the "nutrition death sentence" in my 1980 book, MegaNutrition.

Read more: Save Your Life With Vitamin E

Health and sex go together. In fact, loss of sexual desire and function is a sign of physical illness and mental depression. Anyone afflicted with loss of sexual responsiveness should seek a medical evaluation. While illness is not commonly found in cases where loss of libido is the sole presenting complaint, there is an over-all 2 out of 3 probability of a physical cause in formal medical studies of sexual impotency. This increases to 90 percent for those older than age 50.

Read more: Sex and Nutrition

Melatonin is not a vitamin, it is a hormone particularly active in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, and its major function is to coordinate some of the internal systems of the body, especially brain, immune and reproductive systems, in relation to the light-dark cycles of the day and the changes in length of day and night from season to season in the course of the year.

Read more: Sleep, Dreams, Youth, and Melatonin

Sunshine, salt, sugar and fat all used to be categorized among the pleasures of life. Lately we are told that all are dangerous to our health, not as bad as smoking but worse than coffee or chocolate. There is a case for the other side in terms of health benefits. Each of the above—sugar, salt, and fat—is essential to life and health—but there is an optimal dose at which benefits are obvious, and a toxic dose at which illness develops. The same general interpretation applies to sunlight.

Read more: Sunlight is Good for You

Taboo, refers to a cultural prohibition, usually based on fear, and more closely related to religion than science. The word comes to us by way of Tonga, where it was directly connected to the gods and their supernatural powers. Our advanced society has endowed certain foods and herbs with fear and treated them as taboos. Eggs, liver, butter, cream—these have been demonized by the cholesterol gods. False gods, such as margarine and hydrogenated oils, have been worshiped in their place. The health of Western Civilization has suffered as a result. The real health gods have not been happy and there have been deaths, many deaths, as a result of our foolish worship at the deceptive altar of epidemiology. Statistical observations, even when "significant" do not equate to physiological truths.

Read more: Taboos and Tidbits

Tea is in the news today because of a research report that experimental cancer was reduced 40 per cent in rats given green tea to drink. What are the active ingredients? It is believed that tannins in the tea are responsible. The paradox here is that some tannin are also suspected of causing esophageal cancer in those who drink tea to excess over long periods of time.

Read more: Tea for Three

Nutrition has been a controversial subject in the medical world throughout the 20th Century. The discovery of vitamins is as much a hallmark of progress in this century as the discovery of microbes, was to the 19th. It was difficult then for intelligent people to imagine that invisible specks of matter, germs, could cause illness. It has been even more difficult in our own time to appreciate nutrients, even smaller specks of matter that cause illness by their absence! Orthomolecular medicine addresses the challenge of finding optimal concentrations of nutrients for healing and for health. Whether by laboratory testing or systematic alterations of dietary intake, orthomolecular medicine is a search for your personal nutritional balance.

Read more: Thankful Patients