Since its inception, the chiropractic profession has paid great attention to the nutritional needs of patients. After the AMA had annihilated the eclectic and homeopathic schools of medicine, both of which advocated replacing drug therapies with medicinal use of food and herbs, chiropractic doctors were almost the only health professionals which kept alive the concept of "food as medicine."
(It bears noting that, at the time the medical profession was attempting to hound chiropractic doctors out of practice for being unscientific, mercury was a common ingredient in many medicines routinely prescribed by MDs. Mercury is today recognized as a dangerous poison, to the degree that releases of small amounts of mercury have caused entire school evacuations. However, the same MDs who now understand the dangerous toxicity of mercury advocate for its continued use in vaccines administered to infants and children. Go figure.)
The medical profession's opinion of the importance of nutrition during the 20th century is well summarized by Dr. Elmer Nelson, who was the director of the Nutrition Division of the early FDA. Dr. Nelson, in court testimony, said “It is wholly unscientific to state that a well fed body is more able to resist disease than a less well-fed body. My overall opinion is that there hasn't been enough experimentation to prove dietary deficiencies make one more susceptible to disease.”
Interestingly, however, there was another profession that continued investigating the use of nutrition: Dentistry. In the interests of oral health, a few enterprising dentists continued research into nutrition's effect on disease.
One of these dentists was among the first to recognize the dangers of trans fats, excoriating the manufacturers of margarine as "food counterfeiters," who "have kept their eyes comfortably equipped with mercenary blinders."
Even more prophetically, this man recognized 60 years ago what is only now being acknowledged by mainstream medicine. This is the fact that isolated, synthetic nutrients do little to affect overall health. Nutrients work with one another synergetically. Vitamin B complex, by itself, is absorbed and utilized poorly. However, when accompanied by a number of cofactors which typically accompany Vitamin B in food, our ability to use this vitamin to fight disease is greatly enhanced.
This doctor, again writing in the 1950s, said: "The whole nutrient complex is greater than the sum of its parts. Just as no single component of a watch keeps the time, no single chemical accounts for the functional action of the entire nutrient complex. Vitamins are bundles of nutritional factors that create a vitamin effect. Only in whole, unprocessed food does the synergistic balance of nutritional components yield that vitamin effect to a living body."
In the course of developing means to healthily condense, extract, and process food, this dentist acquired almost 100 patents, developing processes that are used in supplement manufacturing to this day.
Your question this week is: Who was this doctor?
As always, the winner's of this week's quiz will receive a one-time 10% discount on an order of any size from our Dispensary. The answer will be released on this blog on Wednesday, Feb. 2. If you think you have the answer, email me. Good luck!
Dr. Avery Jenkins is a chiropractic physician specializing in the treatment of people with chronic disorders. He can be reached at alj@docaltmed.com or by calling 860-567-5727.
