Irreverent question; how many major advances in medicine had their origins in the U.S.? You can count on the fingers of one hand the truly significant discoveries which really originated between our northern-most latitude and the Mexican border.
Indeed, the discovery of ether anesthesia was just such a monumental finding; this discovery was made almost simultaneously by William Morton and Crawford W. Long working independently, and both can attribute their finds to serendipity - that stumbling on something fortunate without expecting it. At that time, there were no vast teams of researchers and no authoritarian bureaucrats to tell anyone what to work on, how he should do it, and when and, also, how he should publish his findings (if any).
So often important medical discoveries are announced in the United States, yet we find that the basis of the "discovery" originated in another country. For instance, the world credits Walter Reed with the discovery that a certain type of female mosquito causes Yellow Fever. Yet a careful study of the record reveals that Dr. Reed acknowledges his indebtedness to an old Scotch-Cuban physician, Carlos Findlay, for the hypothesis, accompanied by some proof , that mosquitoes were responsible for the (then) deadly Yellow Jack. (I have investigated the actual events pertaining to the cause and solution of Yellow Fever, with the invaluable aid of a medical volunteer, Gust Lambert, who was close to Reed and other doctors involved in this, the first, really controlled experiment on human beings; one day, we shall relate this story , which version differs considerably from the official account.)
The same could be said of effective vaccines, antibiotics, "tranquilizers," and electronic devices such as ultra-sound and the electroencephalograph. The reason? American medicine is caught in an official medical strait-jacket.
Certainly , the work of medical teams in the United States is essential and international corroboration is invaluable. But the important point is that money , as it is usually allocated by both governmental and private sources, somehow does not seem to produce the desired results because it is often controlled by medical politicians both in government and out. The ambition of these men is to make , maintain, and perpetuate the legend that the more money spent for research, the more results will be forthcoming.
Yet, of the over 183,000,000 inhabitants of the "healthiest nation in the world," 74,000,000 have one or more chronic conditions. These figures emanate from one of the same official agencies which blithely assure us that we are, indeed, the healthiest nation on earth, the United States Public Health Service. And, of course, such propaganda is "corroborated" by the FDA and the AMA which have developed a case of model schizophrenia: on the one hand , we are the healthiest nation on earth having the best food and the beest medical research; on the other hand , we have the sorry facts and figures. One-fourth of our school children cannot pass an elementary examination in physical fitness which European school children and Soviet Union children laugh about because its so easy. About one-half of our draftees called for service are not accepted, for physical or mental reasons, and the standards for these exams are not very high. If a recruit has some "minor" condition such as a hernia or bad teeth, it will not render him ineligible - especially in war time; the government is concerned only with "real" problems such as heart disease, cancer, and insanity.
In a recent special report on chronic conditions issued by the Public Health Service, 74,000,000 sufferers in the United States were counted. You may say, these must represent the older segment of our society since we're living so much longer nowadays. Wrong on both premises. First, at the time the report was released (1963), there were only 17 million persons over sixty-five. As for the premise which is being disseminated throughout the country, that we are living longer, alas, this also is a fiction.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's report on comparative longevity, along with other studies, disproves the myth that you or I will live longer than our fathers or grandfathers - once we have escaped the childhood diseases (which now are largely eliminated by antibiotics and other drugs). There are more oldsters around and there will be still more because more of us have escaped these once devastating childhood illnesses. And, of course , fewer die of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, or malaria which have largely been conquered by drugs. This fact does not mean , however, that the average man is living appreciably longer - it merely means that 'more people' are living longer and, therefore, have a chance to exist until 70 - or if their stamina is above average, they may live far beyond that. however, the percentage of adult persons who manage to escape death until 70 has not changed in the last fifty years. Since there are more so-called "senior-citizens" , the statistics have been widely misinterpretated to "prove" that man's life expectancy beyond the age of 30 has been noticeably increased. There is no reason, however, why man's real life expectancy should not be increased. But the fact that to date it has not, provides us with a major reason why the insurance companies are able to erect enormous buildings and spend millions of dollars in advertising. (Since the above was written, even more undeniable corroboration has been presented in a report by the U.S. Public Health Service. Entitled "The Change In Mortality Trend in the United States" (1964), the study admits that the American death rate has not improved in the last decade. The report suggests that our failure to make progress against chronic and degenerative diseases [and thereby boosting the death rate] and that our failure to "become healthier" during the last ten years may be due to "radio-active fallout, air pollution, and other man-made hazards." Many would disagree with this interpretation; nevertheless, the fact remains that we are not living longer percentage-wise. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Japan, and the Netherlands are among the many countries which have a lower death rate than the U.S.) But let us return to the appalling report of chronic conditions issued by the Public Health Service. Of the 74 million chronically ill , 19 million have their activities limited or impaired , 4 million are so seriously ill they cannot function in usual activities such as working or keeping house. heart disease, of course, is our big leader in this group, accounting for 24 per cent of the total. Arthritis and rheumatism follow with 16 per cent; and visual impairment next with 11 per cent. You may be wondering about all this talk about chronic conditions and what it has to do with Vitamin E. Well, as a rather conservative estimate, about half those chronic sufferers could be helped by Vitamin E, and very likely more than half of the diseases could have ben prevented or controlled by Vitamin E.
We know, for instance, that cardiovascular diseases alone account for more than half the deaths in the United States. In 1962, there were 1,757,000 deaths from various causes. Diseases of the cardiovascular system accounted for the staggering total of 954,870. The percentage, as we have explained previously, is mounting steadily. 1964 will see the total explode well over the 1,000,000 mark. (In sharp contrast, cancer deaths accounted for only 277,110 in 1962. Cancer is the number two killer.)
Now arthritis and rheumatism which afflict at least 11 to 12 million persons are not killers, and they are almost never categorized as the cause of death; they are the cripplers, the incapacitators. However, victims often wish they were dead, their pains are so agonizing.
As for the remainder of the chronic maladies, such as diabetes, polio, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy, the public is constantly being bombarded with calls to contribute to research; yet the number of persons dying from these afflictions is so small that statisticians hardly bother with them. Of course , to a person suffering from muscular dystrophy, such a disease is the most important ailment in the world; his friends and relatives believe so too; it is most distressing to witness the gradual wasting away of a person's body when you know there is nothing to be done about it except to support future medical research. This futility is based on the assumption that all avenues of therapy have been thoroughly explored and that nothing more can be done for the patient. Yet, with muscular dystrophy patients, reports from all over the world present some scientific evidence that at least one-fifth to one-half of such sufferers, who are treated with massive doses of Vitamin E, are helped - in some cases, dramatically so. If research funds were available for the study of Vitamin E in relation to muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and other such relatively rare diseases, we would no doubt hear a different story from the one we are continually forced to hear: "At present, there is no hope except in the dollars that you contribute."
Unfortunately , however, almost none of the dollars you contribute to fund-raising organizations find their way into a serious , prolonged study of Vitamin E - this fact applies to heart disease as well as to the less prevalent ailments. If researchers in Vitamin E had only an infinitesimal portion of the millions which Congress and the private collection groups , such as the American Heart Association, allocate to studies of the heart, there would be a marked decrease in fatalities from cardiovascular diseases and relief for many other conditions as well. Let us now examine briefly some of the diseases and afflictions other than those of the cardiovascular system which Vitamin E has proved useful in relieving or controlling.
Dr. Evan Shute considers this faculty of Vitamin E to be one of the most important discoveries that he and his brother have made in the long list of beneficent effects attributed to the vitamin. For instance, since burns are the primary consequences of an atomic or nuclear attack (among those surviving the initial blast), Vitamin E could be the means of saving thousands of persons from disfiguration. The vitamin has been shown to lessen the effects of radiation burns as well as burns caused by "ordinary" means. There is no other inexpensive , effective, safe, and self-applicable therapy yet develped for radiation burns - or for that matter , burns of 'any' nature.
As soon as he had irrefutable proof of Vitamin E's action on wounds and burns , Dr. Evan Shute wrote to the defense departments of the United States, England, and Canada, presenting the aforementioned scientific observations. Readers of this page do not have to be crystal-ball gazers to know what happened. The officials referred the matter to their medical advisors. The advisors being "sound" and "orthodox" , naturally believed that Vitamin E was worthless in any therapeutic capacity - further , that Shute was a "bug" on Vitamin E and had "lost his scientific perspective."
But it was Dr. Ugo Butturini, of Bologna, Italy, who probably made the most monumental findings concerning Vitamin E in relation to diabetic heart disease. Dr. Butturini and associates studied 129 diabetic patients with practically all forms of cardiovascular disturbances. They not only discovered that Vitamin E, given in adequate doses (average 300 I.U.) , was beneficial in most forms of cardiovascular diseases in diabetics, but that it also eliminated entirely the need for insulin in 50 per cent of the patients, reduced the need in 30 per cent of the patients, reduced the need in 30 per cent; was ineffective in only 20 per cnet.
Almost no diabetics today die of diabetes per se, but the disease produces a steady degeneration in the circulatory system which leads to many "complications" of diabetes, for which insulin has no discernible value. it should be emphasized, however, that before the discovery of insulin by Banting and Best , the outcome of diabetes was invariably fatal - usually five to six years at the maximum after the initial diagnosis. Medical men since then have reasoned that diabetes was far more complicated than the failure of the pancreas to produce enough insulin to control the sugar in the blood stream. The disease also struck other areas of the body which had little or nothing to do with the insulin-sugar balance, notably the circulatory system. This attack was particularly evident in the tiny capillaries and in the smaller blood vessels which have the titanic task of supplying the individual cells with the elements essential for an effective metabolism; somehow this function of the capillaries was being disturbed. for one thing, the permeability of the capillaries was altered: that is, their walls were no longer responsive in this normal fashion. The nutrient substances carried by the blood were leaking out the capillary walls and not penetrating the tissue cells; also, waste products of the cells could not gain their accustomed entrance to the blood cells by "reverse" penetration, thence to be transported back to the various organs for elimination or to be changed into neutral, harmless substances. Therefore, deprived of nutrients and unable to rid themselves of harmful materials, the cells died.
Now, as we know , the death of one cell makes small difference to the body since we have an astronomical number. New cells are constantly replacing those which die every second we live, but when millions of cells start dying in the same place it becomes a serious matter.
Such is roughly what happens in gangrene, leg ulcers, Buerger's Disease, or "intermittent claudication." This is why diabetics so frequently are afflicted with, not only these aforementioned diseases, but many others as well. Diabetics have a circulation problem which is clearly evidenced by their not dying from diabetes but from diseases which once were considered totally unrelated to diabetes.
Dr. Joslin deplored the attitude of most authorities that diabetes could be written off as "conquered" by insulin alone. In fact Dr. Joslin went so far as to state that insulin masked the real culprits in diabetes and that if comforted the diabetic into thinking he was well for a time; yet all the while he was developing and dying from complications produced by arteriosclerosis.
Now because of Vitamin E's qualities as an oxygen conserver, vasodilator, regulator of the cell's permeability, and muscle stimulant, among other qualities, it should be able to assist the body in managing diabetes. There is another attribute which several researchers found; It actually decreases the blood stream sugar in a number of patients, just as it decreases high blood pressure in a number of hypertensives. Its whole operation in the body , as we have previously mentioned, is toward the normal , toward maintaining homeostasis, the tendency of the body toward the normal.
The Shutes, along with the previously mentioned Dr. Butturini, were among the first researchers to discover Vitamin E's role in treating diabetes. They have now treated hundreds of diabetics with partial to completely successful results in most of their cases - provided that damage has not been done that iss irreversible. They also have found that a diabetic who is given large doses of Vitamin E can oftentimes dispense with insulin altogether. In most cases, insulin can be eliminated entirely (usually with the early victims) or else cut to a fraction of the former dose. In 80 per cent of all diabetics, need for insulin can be either eliminated or drastically reduced. The Shutes addmit to failure in 20 per cent of the cases, but as we have seen, pathological, irreversible changes of the organs and tissues frequently make 100 per cent success impossible. The Shutes are backed up in their findings on diabetes by no less than thirty-five studies all over the world, and all, of course , performed by reputable researchers who have published in leading foreign medical journals. Sadly enough , most of these favorable reports on Vitamin E are kept from you but, even more sadly , are kept from your doctor as well.
It has been in scores of reports that premature infants and even so-called "normal" new-borns are deficient in Vitamin E. For instance, the mother has about twelve times more Vitamin E in her blood than her new-born child. The reason postulated for this is that Vitamin E, being oil soluble instead of water soluble , does not cross the placental barrier as easily as do most nutrients (such as the B-complex vitamins which are water-soluble and , therefore , blood-soluble). It takes massive amounts of Vitamin E in the blood of the mother for it to be evidenced in the foetus or the new-born. The mother's milk, however, does contain enough Vitamin E to build up the new-born child's reserves of alpha tocopherol in about seven weeks, while infants fed "formula" diets do not achieve corresponding levels of Vitamin E for two years. These findings were reported by Dr. H. H. Gordon, et al., among others. Yet today, most infants are deprived of breast feeding and their cow;s milk formula rarely is supplemented with Vitamin E or many of the other known essentials in which cow's milk is deficient.
It is a noteworthy observation that in most common ailments of premature and full-term infants , there is a serious depletion of Vitamin E. Even more significant is the fact that when these infants are given Vitamin E, in most cases, the diseases clear up. One of the leading workers in pediatrics who discovered these startling facts is Dr. F. Gerloczy of the University Medical School, Budapest. Dr. Gerloczy has conducted many series of tests on prematures, the new-born, and young children. In all of the disease conditions studied, which ranged from scleroderma (a watery swelling, usually following an acute infection which is frequently fatal to infants) to growth retardation in young children, the researcher found Vitamin E deficiency in direct proportion to the severity of the condition. Placed on Vitamin E therapy , the conditions were usually eliminated or well-controlled.
As an example , let us take Dr. Gerloczy's classic study of 320 prematures afflicted with scleroderma. Mortality had been about 75 per cent. With Vitamin E therapy, the mortality dropped to 27 per cent. Dr. Gerloczy also noted Vitamin E's diuretic effect which took the excess water out of the infant's body quickly and safely.
Other researchers throughout the world have corroborated Dr. Gerloczy's findings. Drs. H. H. Gordon, H. M. Nitowsky, J. T. Tildon , and S. Levin , working jointly at Sinai Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found that Vitamin E therapy greatly benefits infants and children with diseases of the pancreas and gall bladder. Dr. R. Beckman, of the University of Freiburg, Germany, found that Vitamin E is particularly beneficial in diseases of the liver. He also found that a dose of 300 milligrams of Vitamin E given to women at the start of delivery reduces the incidence of brain hemorrhages in the child. He recommends large doses of Vitamin E for slowgrowing children. All these researchers recommend supplemented doses of Vitamin E for infants, particularly those not breast-fed.
is there a way to prevent ,not only the anomalies, but the miscarriages, and to provide otherwise childless couples with a normal baby? The orthodox will tell you that the chances are very slim, but that they are "on the track of this problem."
Recently, a medical report stated that the husband's sperm fluid may produce an allergic reaction in the wife which prevents conception . This process , according to the authors, Drs. Robert R. Franklin and C. Dean Dukes of Baylor University College of Medicine, is somewhat similar to an antigen - or a foreign protein - being injected into the body after the body has prepared defenses against a specific foreign protein.
Official American medicine will go to any lengths to prove anything it wishes , but is it not most astounding that it did not choose to validate the already existing European and Canadian studies concerning sterility in the human? The European studies are so conclusive as to the value of Vitamin E in sterility that it is almost impossible to believe that they were not followed up in this country. This observation does not reflect on the validity of the 'allergic' findings developed in this country. It merely means that for many years we have had one of the prime keys to sterility, regardless of allergic responses, and have chosen to ignore it.
There are approximately fifty well-controlled studies which demonstrate the value of Vitamin E in producing healthy offspring in previously barren couples. There are also hundreds of animal studies which corroborate this observation in practically all mammalian species. If the reader remembers the classic experiments of the Darlington-Chassels study of race horses, with regard to increasing the production of thoroughbreds, then he may anticipate that the same results apply in all mammals, including man. This property of Vitamin E -that of improving the quality of the sperm as well as the general health of both parents - has been noted throughout the history of the vitamin. In fact, as we have mentioned previously , this ability to induce the production of healthy offspring caused it to be tagged as an "anti-sterility vitamin" and this is still considered by many medical authorities to be the vitamin's prime function.
It has also been indicated that there is a high degree of correlation between "habitual abortion", whether caused by defective sperm or ova or other factors, and congenital defects in the infant. For instance, a woman who suffers frequent miscarriages is more apt to give birth to an abnormal child than a woman who does not abort. Also, those who produce an abnormal baby are more likely to repeat the same sad experience than couples who have healthy offspring. Therefore, any agent, such as Vitamin E, which would reduce sterility would 'necessarily' tend to obviate the miscarriages as well as the 'anomalies'.
Throughout our extensive research on Vitamin E the phrase frequently appears, "There were 'no' anomalies with Vitamin E therapy, whereas there were the usual ones before." Any agent which can cure abnormal conditions or diseases produced by deficiencies can 'prevent' them. Witness the action of Vitamin C in the prevention as well as the cure for scurvy; likewise Vitamin B-12 and pernicious anemia; niacin and pellegra; B-1 and beriberi; Vitamin D and rickets; and so one.
Fully a dozen experiments demonstrate that the male of the species is partially to blame for infertility and, therefore , he is very likely partly responsible for the production of anomalies and miscarriages.
Now, can the sperm be qualitatively improved so that they can mate with the ova and produce healthy offspring? The answer, of course, is yes. Both male and female should take a course of Vitamin E therapy at least one to three months before attempted conception, and then, after conception, should continue with Vitamin E - particularly the woman, if she wants to carry her offspring for the nine months without too much trouble. After conception the husband may abandon Vitamin E except that he, as are all others, may be a good candidate for a heart condition if he does not continue with Vitamin E. However, for our purposes here, we will ignore the father after conception because his role is then finished as the producer of a healthy child.
Out of the scores of studies reporting the capability of Vitamin E to aid in the problem of sterility we have selected a typical example for presentation here.
One such study comes from West Germany , conducted by Dr. R. Bayer . Dr. Bayer treated 100 married couples. More than half of the group were victims of "primary infertility"; Although the couples were able to conceive , they lost 100 per cent of their conceptions. These couples had 144 pregnancies and had lost all of them prior to Vitamin E treatment. Yet there were seventy-five pregnancies after pre-conception treatment with Vitamin E, and only two women lost their babies, whereas 'all' women had aborted 'all' their babies before Vitamin E therapy. Dr. Bayer was, thus, able to reduce failure from 100 per cent to 2 1/2 per cent.
Dr. Bayer's second group , those with "secondary infertility" (the couples had some successful births rather than total failure) had been able to achieve a total of only 38 births out of 101 pregnancies. Yet with his standard dosage of 100 milligrams daily for one month for the husband and 200 milligrams daily for three months prior to conception for the wife, Dr. Bayer observed '100 per cent' favorable results. In other words, from forty-one pregnancies in the second group, there were forty-one births , all of them healthy offspring.
But Dr. Bayer, being a disciplined, fearless scientist,of a calibre of which, sad to say , we have so few in this country, carried his experiment even further . He wanted to prove it was Vitamin E and Vitamin E alone which produced the abrupt change in sterility. In 'both' groups, he lowered the Vitamin E intake to one-third of its former intake. Result: when the husbands in the first group ("primary sterility") were lowered to one-third their former intake of Vitamin E, the loss of babies,which was formerly 100 per cent, was reduced to only 33 per cent (thirty-one pregnancies this time), instead of 2 1/2 per cent when the heavier dosage was taken. In the second group ("secondary infertility") , when the amount of Vitamin E was reduced to one-third of the former amount, the loss of babies was reduced from 61 per cent (without Vitamin E) to 21 per cent, instead of 100 per cent successful births as with the heavy dosage. Thus, we see that Dr. Bayer and his associates have not only proved that Vitamin E can be essential in human sterility and the health of the offspring but that the actual dosage of the vitamin must be therapeutic in order to achieve optimum results, i.e., a successful conception and a successful birth. Dr. Bayer's studies - particularly those concerned with sperm improvement - have been corroborated in many other experiments throughout the world, though none was probably definitive. It is most interesting to note that in not one of the experiments where the man and wife were under intensive Vitamin E therapy has there ever been recorded the birth of a monster or even a mentally retarded child. There were hundreds of men, women, and children involved in these experiments and, by all laws of percentages, there should have been several monsters, and quite a few mentally retarded children. Therefore, Vitamin E, in playing its many beneficial roles within the body, is able to improve the quality of the sperm in the human male; and, judging from the mass of evidence, both animal and human, Vitamin E is able to alter the female's reception of the sperm and later to provide a good environment for the develping foetus. In addition, Vitamin E can cross the vital placental wall - although with some difficulty - whence the foetus receives the necessary nutrients from its mother - nutrients essential to its growth and well-being. It is apparent that large amounts of Vitamin E given to the mother can, in turn, assist the rapidly-growing organism which, within a remarkably short time, becomes the air-breathing mammalian we know as a human baby.
There are thousands of animal studies to corroborate the fact that almost all mammalians need much Vitamin E and, when deprived of it, the organism will suffer injury to almost every cell in its body. Therefore, this deprivation of Vitamin E tends toward fostering diseases of every sort imaginable. Is it not reasonable to suppose that since every cell in the body is affected by the abundance of Vitamin E - or its lack - almost every disease known to man or beast is similarly affected?
Now, as we have stated, Dr. Bayer's essential findings have been corroborated by many researchers throughout the world, working with animals, largely, and later with humans: that Vitamin E therapy previous to conception does, indeed, enhance the chances of a successful pregnancy.
Many researchers have shown that Vitamin E therapy (oftentimes in conjunction with B-complex and other supplements) prevents the birth of monsters or congenitally deformed babies. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence in animal experiments to support this work which has been done on human beings. Again, the same rules by which Vitamin E operates in the human or the animal , hold true in the human or the animal embryo.
Now I shall inject a personal note: I have a good friend, Anna G. Morin of Framingham, Massachusetts who provides us with an excellent and typical case history of what Vitamin E can do for couples who wish their babies but cannot have them. Mrs. Morin had her first child after a most difficult delivery. Then she went through a horrible period of three miscarriages until she heard about Vitamin E and wrote Dr. Shute for advice. While we cannot reprint her correspondence with Dr. Shute because of lack of space , we can observe that this great man spent a great deal of time with her husband advising them on Vitamin E for a successful pregnancy.
Both husband and wife were started on Vitamin E. Result: the next pregnancy was a success. So was their next one! And judging by the letters which Dr. Shute has written them, he appears to be as happy as they are, which again proves this doctor is as much a humanitarian as a researcher.
Dr. Selye's most recent research has a particular interest for readers of this page. He, together with his associates, M. Cantin and Jean-Marie Dieudonne, have succeeded in reproducing the signs and symptoms of "old age" in the young rat. They take their litter mates for "controls" to prove that their aging process is valid; in other words, rats from the same litter can be made "old," and they die in a matter of weeks while their brothers and sisters who are not subjected to the treatment, live out a normal life. Selye is attempting to learn the exact process that explains why and how we grow old. Once this process is discovered, there may be ways and means to combat it, hold it off , or even reverse it.
His recent studies afford many valuable clues to the aging process. It is rather an amazing fact to those uninitiated in the seeming conspiracy against Vitamin E that although Selye's studies were published in the 'Journal of Experienced Medicine and Surgery', in 1962, the reports in the various other medical journals and in the popular press mentioned not one word about the vital factor which could and did prevent the aging process! Yes, as if you didn't already know, it was Vitamin E!
First we should understand something of the methods Selye uses to produce old age. He does it by injecting the rat with a substance, which, if given in immense quantities, is known to cause calcification of the various organs and tissues. There are several substances which can produce "old age" in this fashion;
Selye speeded up the process. The heart, the kidneys, and the muscles are among the first to show the effects of old age. Now, all the rats in this particular experiment which were given toxic substances (including huge doses of Vitamin D3, parathyroid hormone, and then metallic salts) showed (when autopsied) very obvious "grayesh-yellow and somewhat protruding patches" throughout their bodies. Dr. Selye gave the same toxic substance to the other rats, but he had also included a daily dose of Vitamin E, 1,000 mg., a tremendous amount for rats. When all of the rats were autopsied on the twelfth day, only 'one' Vitamin E-treated rat had a small area of "old age patch". All the other 'Vitamin E-treated' rats 'were normal'. Yet, as we have stated , all of the 'non' Vitamin E treated rats showed the old age pattern and would have died very shortly , had they not been sacrificed.
In still another phase of the experiment, Selye found that Vitamin E "almost completely inhibited the cardiopathy [heart disease]. It also greatly diminished the nephrocalcinosis (excess calcium in the kidney) and completely inhibited the aortic calcification that accomplished the cardiac lesions." As a clincher to the efficacy of Vitamin E therapy, 90 per cent of the untreated animals died while 'every one' of the Vitamin E treated rats lived.
What more can we say? There is much more evidence , much more proof in Dr. Selye's report, but we do not have the space here to go into any greater detail.
The Shutes were among the first to observe the beneficient effect of Vitamin E on varicose veins. This condition is often the forerunner of indolent ulcer. The Shutes' findings are corroborated by other researchers. They do not recommend operations for varicose veins as the same condition usually returns in about one-and-one-half years' time. Why shouldn't it return"? The operation admittedly does not clear up the basic cause of varicose veins; it merely removes temporarily the discomfort and unsightly appearances. As the 'cause' still exists , the condition , along with the symptoms , usually returns. However, the Shutes agree that, for cosmetic reasons, the operation should be performed if a woman wants it, even though knowing that the condition will probably recur shortly. Now, although the following possibility is not mentioned by the Shutes, why shouldn't a person have the unsightly veins removed by surgery, all the while undertaking a course of Vitamin E therapy? There is every reason to believe that although Vitamin E cannot make new veins out of old, or at least cannot usually remove the unsightliness, it should be able to prevent the return of varicosity by removing at least part of the basic causes. It would be interesting to see this idea carried out by clinical tests.
Also please remember that, in most cases, Vitamin E alone is not to be considered a cure, if indeed there is room in the modern medical lexicon for such a word. The words which should be used in relation to Vitamin E, or any other therapy, are 'control or partial control, regression' (of the disorder), 'benefit, relief' (objective and subjective). Possibly the emphasis on medicine of the future will be prevention rather than a cure, for if we knew how to stop a disease before it had a chance to gain a beachhead in the body and/or mind, we would stand a much better chance of living at least to our naturally allotted biological age, generally accepted to be from 120 to 150.
Here are a few of those conditions - heretofore not detailed - and which, statistically speaking , are relatively unimportant but which , as we have mentioned , are a matter of life or death to the victims, their relatives, and friends.
We need go no further into the other multifarious benefits of Vitamin E. The reader by this time certainly should be able to ascertain its universal action in almost every disease known to man and/or animals. These include disorders of the gastro-intestinal tract (Fajer, et al.), also such diseases as chronic poliomyelites (Jacques; E. V. Shute), leprosy (De Campos Magalhaes and Figueiredo Barbosa; Sarmento; Bergel; Floch and Horth; Mason and Bergel), diseases of the eye (Desusclade; Sbordone; Vannas and Orma) and skin (Walther ; Nikolowski; Frey; Grubb; Kimmig) - even psoriasis. Researchers usually treat these conditions with other vitamins and supplements in conjunction with Vitamin E. As we have repeatedly pointed out, Vitamin E should be used in conjunction with other vitamins and food supplements to obtain best results. And, as we have also repeatedly reported , almost all the orthodox, "authorative", medical agencies will tell you or your doctor that Vitamin E is of little or no value in either the prevention or control of any of the ailments we have mentioned.
However, in view of the fact that even one person in a million may experience temporary side-effects from ingesting large dosages of Vitamin E, most researchers advise beginning with a dose which cannot possibly produce side-reactions of any sort.
This dosage is generally acknowledged by most recent investigators to be about 100 international units per day (100 mg). After the first two weeks , the dosage is gradually increased week by week until the optimum relief is obtained.
Such a small initial dosage may not achieve the desired results for some persons for some time (occasionally six months to a year!), but since we are not giving medical advice , in the interests of those very rare persons who may respond initially to the larger dosages with temporarily raised blood pressure, it is better to begin with the smaller dosage and then gradually raise it to the optimum. The optimum may be as high as 800 to 1,000 units. Let us now state emphatically that no fatalities or even ill effects have been reported from even large doses of the vitamin. (if so, it would be in the voluminous literature and be noted by the AMA, FDA, et al.)
Of course, if you could obtain a physician who would supervise your therapy, then he would probably start you off on 150 or 200 I.U. units and build up from there. In my own case, I began on my own with 600 units daily an am now taking 1,500 I.U. and sometimes even more.
Remember, we have been speaking of persons who are already under a doctor's care for cardiovascular illnesses. Researchers in Vitamin E believe that the so-called "normal" person can ward off a potential manifestation of cardiovascular disease by taking 100 I.U. per day as a start and then building up to an averagee of 400 to 600 units for the average-size woman and 600 to 800 for the average-size man. The Drs. Shute are among those researchers who are quite sure (on the basis of the curative results as well as the provable increase in heart function in "normals") that the larger dosages are the most effective. The Shutes have written that if they have erred in Vitamin E therapy in the past, it was in giving too small a dose in the beginning. Now, Dr. Shute writes he would have put many of his early patients on a much higher dosage had he known then what he knows now.
The reader may have observe that many researchers are combining Vitamin E therapy with Vitamin A and, frequently, calcium. Others are using Vitamin C and inositol (one of the Vitamin B-complex group) as well as other factors. There is much evidence to demonstrate that vitamins should always be used in combination since vitamins work in conjunction with one another, with hormones, and with enzyme systems. Further , many vitamins are actually 'antagonists' of each other; oversimplified , this means that if the body obtains more than it can utilize of a particular vitamin, certain other vitamins or substances (if present) will counteract the overabundance effect of the first vitamin. Usually, however, a superabundance of a vitamin is eliminated without harm to the body. The exceptions are Vitamins A and D, which have been shown to be toxic when given in huge quantities for a long period of time. However, recent studies have demonstrated that if these vitamins had not been given alone (which they were) but had been accompanied by other vitamins and 'minerals', with which most vitamins have to combine in order to be effective (and to destroy superfluous amounts of any vitamin), their toxicity would have been non-existent or at least greatly reduced. As reported many times and acknowledged by all authorities, Vitamin E, along with Vitamin C and many others, has been demonstrated to be non-toxic per se, even when unaccompanied by treatment with other vitamins.
However, in lieu of medical supervision , you would be prudent to include a multi-vitamin and mineral capsule along with the Vitamin E. Also, since it has been found by some researchers that calcium may enhance Vitamin E's effect, and you cannot actually obtain enough calcium except by drinking a quart of milk daily or by eating a quarter pound of the regular cheeses, researchers suggest either calcium tablets of bone meal, dicalcium phosphate or cruched oyster shell tablets.
And because Vitamin C is so essential to the permeability and "integrity" of the capillary walls - working in some fashion with Vitamin E in that respect - many doctors aquainted with nutrition (for example , Dr. Hirsch) recommend an extra supplement of Vitamin C in addition to their concomitants, the bio-flavonoids - substances found commonly in the pulp and connective tissues of fruits.
Everyone nowadays is familiar with the American Medical Association's attempt to deride all vitamin-taking as a mere waste of time and money. The propaganda asserts that the normal American, eating a normal diet, obtains enough vitamins and minerals and that any more that are ingested are eliminated without benefit to the recipient. This campaign against vitamins and other supplements by the AMA and, consequently, its stooges in the U.S Government such as the FDA, is rendered even more ridiculous when, conversely, the pages of the 'Journal of the American Medical Association' are filled with advertising for vitamins. The ads cite study after study in which doctors are urged to prescribe then to their patients. And, of course, the JAMA is filled with research articles about the necessity of extra vitamins under almost every condition one could imagine.
Naturally, as we may begin to suspect, the extra vitamins are not effective..'unless prescribed by a physician', who also,naturally , prescribes the specific vitamins as advertised in the pages of the AMA journal.
In other words these vitamins are worthless exccept when specifically prescribed by an M.D. - who will usually not prescribe them - compounded by an 'ethical' pharmaceutical house which advertises in the AMA's official publications. These vitamins so compounded cost you about three times as much as when purchased through a vitamin mail-order house. Yet as almost anyone knows who has made a study of the problem, 80 per cent of all the vitamins manufactured in the United States are manufactured by the gigantic U.S. Vitamin Corporation.
Therefore , without delving further into the ethics of the AMA, which is definitely fighting for their 'in' group much more than a labor union ever fought automation, let us continue with how you and I can save ourselves from heart disease in spite of the organized propaganda to the contrary.
As we stated before , the important factor in 'recognized' heart disease is building up to the optimum dosages of Vitamin E, along with other vitamins and minerals. The optimum dosage of Vitamin E is that which is effective for 'you'. Remember that each person is different; some demand high doses of about anything while others need little of exactly the same material. This is due to heredity, stress (sometimes classified as environment), and differing absorption ratios. With regard to the latte factor, some persons may absorb only 10 per cent of any vitamin they take; others may absorb 20 to 30 per cent. Absorption of any food or vitamin depends, for the most part, on the state of the individual , usually the condition of the intestines, where the entrance of nutrients into the bloodstream is effected.
As for vitamin E's non-toxicity - even in what must be considered tremendous dosages - Dr. Del Giudice of Argentina has given mentally retarded children 2,00o to 3,000 units of Vitamin E daily for many years with excellent results and with no evidence of toxicity. (We already examined Dr. Del Giudice's studies under Mongolian Idiocy) One volunteer in the U.S took two to four grams (2,000 to 4,000 mg. or I.U) every day for three months without any noticeable adverse side reactions. Four grams is 4,000 units of Vitamin E - about four times the dosage prescribed for the "average" heart patient.
To sum up the situation as to what you should do whether you are a heart and/or cardiovascular disease patient or whether you wish to prevent being such a patient, the best scientific advice to date is:
1)Take supplementary capsules of Vitamin E, starting with 100 units and building up the intake gradually until you can detect a definite improvement in your well-being. Also, take a multi-vitamin-mineral capsule,B-complex, calcium, and Vitamin C in conjunction with bio-flavonoids.
2)Begin a regular program of exercise. Do not, of course exercise too heavily at first, but allow at least one hour (or if possible) two hours a day for a planned regime. This could take the form of bicycle riding, swimming or a simple walk which you would start slowly and build up to ten blocks a day.
3)It would probably be wise in lieu of our lack of knowledge as to what causes heart attacks not to eat many animal fats
It was Dr. A. Goria of Italy who performed the classic experiments on normal human subjects using the electrocardiograph (ECG). These experiments prove that Vitamin E can and does improve the function of the "normal" heart as well as aid the circulatory and metabolic systems of the body. Dr. Goria used "before and after" tests; that is, his subjects took Vitamin E for twenty days and were tested with the ECG and then taken off Vitamin E and tested after two months.
Dr. Goria studied many phases of the heart action with the ECG. The primary method he employed was deprivation of oxygen (hypoxia). He had his volunteers breathe a small percentage of oxygen (7.5 per cent) mixed with a large amount of nitrogen (approximately 92.5 per cent) for three minutes. Now , while we know nitrogen is most valuable for growing plants, it does nothing for animals; in fact, heavy concentrations of this "inert" substance without sufficient oxygen will produce death quickly.
When not on Vitamin E, his volunteers experienced "much distress" after about two minutes of breathing this oxygen-poor mixture and often "fainted" at the end of three minutes. We call it "blackout". In contrast , subjects on Vitamin E could "endure" the experiment for 'four' minutes without "much distress". This added stamina with Vitamin E was also corroborated by the pulse rate. For instance, one volunteer's pulse rate, 'without' Vitamin E rose, during one three-minute experiment, from 68 to 107 ; but with Vitamin E, it rose only from 58 to 87. (Vitamin E has the quality of lowering the basic or initial pulse rate in some persons.)
Dr. Goria goes on in a most technical fashion to discuss the various heart "impulses" with and without Vitamin E; interested readers can obtain the original article , of course; but his conclusion is that "Alpha tocopherol limits the effect of hypoxia on the electrocardiogram." (Aviators, mountain climbers, athletes , deep-sea divers and just so-called average persons , please heed.) Dr. Shute has been trying to interest government agencies , official medical groups, and expeditions such as Sir Edmund Hillary's (conquerer of Everest) for years with the proof that Vitamin E in sufficient quantities can reduce the need for oxygen. Let us hope he is eventually successful.
Almost everyone who can read or watch television or listen to the radio knows that heart disease , along with associated circulatory disorders, is America's number one killer; that diseases of the cardiovascular system account for more than four times as many victims as the next leading cause of death, cancer; that there are between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 sufferers from heart ailments; that more than half the men over forty-five die from coronary thrombosis; that more women, especially over forty-five, are succumbing to heart maladies; and that these disorders are reaching deeper into the ranks of younger persons.
An interesting observation about this last fact is that, of those soldiers killed in the Korean War who were autopsied, an astounding 77 per cent showed evidence of blood vessels that were "hardened" or "thickened" , clogged up by fatty deposits; these men, undoubtedly, would have been candidates for coronary attacks had they lived. The average age of these soldiers was 'only 22!' No one can very well assert that a "soft life" and "lack of exercise" initiated this condition. The soldiers' training was tough and rigorous, and their everyday existence under total war even tougher. It was so tough in fact that it cost them their lives.
Was it tension, then, taht laid down the ominous arteriosclerotic plaques on the linings of their blood vessels?
As we know, tension and modern living have been blamed for the tremendous increase in heart disease. In World Wars I and II, many thousands of soldiers were autopsied. They were just as subject to tension and worry as those in Korea. Isn't it logical to assume that if medical men had found the same starting evidence of incipient cardiovascular disease, they would have made the fact known? In an Army (or any other) autopsy, everything that is found is reported. That is the purpose of a "general" autopsy. The doctors performing the Korean autopsies were not looking for anything in particular. They just reported what they found, as did the doctors in World Wars I and II. In order not to confuse the reader by presenting seemingly contradictory statements, may I say that I found no evidence explaining why the World Wars I and II soldiers evidently did not have nascent cardiovascular conditions such as the Korean soldiers had. This is a problem which should be investigated by reputable researchers.
Animal fats in the American diet have been blamed as a chief cause of arterial "clogging". Yet, as any GI will tell you , his diet, for the most part , was not abundant in fats. In fact, in most front lines the diet was hardly adequate. Besides, exercise is supposed to counteract some of the evil fats are hypothesized to do within the human body; indeed , exercise 'is' helpful in metabolizing fat.
Could the puzzle be related to the diet in a way which almost no one has thought about? Could it be a 'deficiency' which is afflicting not only the GI, but a majority of the American people , a growing, creeping type of deficiency which no one ever suspected?
Daily, we are inundated by authoritarian opinions that animal fats in our diet are largely responsible for our consistently rising heart attack toll. Now that other evidence has been brought out, the authoritarian anti-cholesterol, anti-fat crusade has wavered considerably. At the moment, authorities are conceding there is no simple answer to the riddle of heart disease.
We have presented other evidence in support of this fact, but a recent scientific study of the Samburu, a tribe in North Kenya,, offers another truly puzzling question. The Samburu keep herds of sheep and goats which they treasure very highly since they live almost entirely on the milk of the animals - no vegetables, fruits, or grains, except for an occasional tuber. They drink the raw blood - something which seems repugnant to our taste. They eat the flesh of their animals, but this is not too often, for instinctively they know well the old adage "Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg." But, ironically , the seemingly undernourished Samburu get more Vitamin E from their simple diet of milk , and blood than we get from our "affluent" diet.
The scientific team of Dr. Shaper and Dr. Jones, who made the study of the Samburu tribe as reported in Lancet (1962), was amazed that while about 60 per cent of these peoples' total calories are derived from animal fats found in the milk, yet a check of their blood revealed that it was 'low in fatty materials'. As if to confute the "high-fat-always-equals-heart-disease" hypothesis further, heart disease and associated concomitants such as high blood pressure were practically unknown among the Samburu.
And they do not, apparently, have a high death rate since there are many old persons in the tribe. The research team ran electrocardiograms on one hundred of these elderly persons. They found only two of them who might possibly have a suggestion of cardiovascular trouble, but even these were not confirmed clinically. In other words, there were no physical complaints.
There may be those who say then that exercise is the key and that that is why the Samburu have no heart disease and we have so much. Yet there are many tribes and cultures all over the world which exercise fully as much as the Samburu and some of them have heart disease.
It is a pity that the white man destroyed the original Esquimos culture along with his original diet before a thoroughly scientific study was possible. However , we do know what the Esquimos ate; we also know their way of life as ascertained by several early explorers. Several researchers feel that the Esquimos were comparable with the present-day Samburu, though the Esquimos lived in the frozen Arctic while the Samburus still live in the heart of Africa - totally different environments - yet existing entirely on animals and animal productss. The Esquimos ate the whole animal, fat and blubber included, as well as organs, muscles, connective tissue such as cartilage , and bone marrow, without 'any' vegetables, fruits, or grains, until the white man came in with his civilized diet and germs.
The great scholarly Arctic explorer, the late Vilhjalmur Stefansson, author of many reputable books, compiled from existing records a remarkable account of the ancient Esquimos and compared them with "modern" man (My Life with the Eskimo and Cancer: Disease of Civilization?) His evidence strongly corroborates the validity of the hypothesis that raw animal products (which contain generous amounts of Vitamin E) may be man's natural food, protecting him from the various diseases of so-called civilization. The aboriginal Esquimos were not victims of cancer, heart disease, or tuberculosis, even though many apparently lived to be quite old, according to the early traders.
Stefansson was unable to study the Esquimo in his pristine state because , by the time he arrived on the scene, the white man's disease had taken such a toll of the Esquimo that it was only the toughest of them who were able to survive at all. Almost all of their proginy had been so over-awed by the white man's technology that they assumed he also knew about nutrition; therefore, white sugar and white flour (with practically all the nutrients, including Vitamin E, processed out) became prize commodities in Esquimo homes as a mark of prestige. Wouldn't any race which could fly through the air, build huge ships that traversed the seas, and shoot a polar bear at a distance of 400 yards - would not this race know best how to eat also? The idea was laughable that a race who could accomplish what the gods had not accomplished before would not know healthy living. So the Esquimos died by the thousands from various germs and those who survived became victims of tooth decay, heart disease, cancer, and the various diseases which afflict the white man.
the same situation prevailed for the American Indian. Of course, one became really interested in studying him until it was too late to obtain clear-cut , definite results which science would accept. However, the Samburu study is most significant. It may be even more so when they stop drinking milk and blood after accepting our standards for a "well-nourished" diet.
As the reader may know , almost everything - from lack of proteins , to lack of exercise, to too much animal fats, to the pace of modern living - has been blamed for the phenomenal increase in heart disease. We have put on record that none of these is the sole cause of heart disease. The following offers some additional proof that no single fac toor as previously postulated is responsible.
In World War II, doctors were assigned to study the condition of the prisoners at Dachau, one of the most infamous of the Nazi concentration camps. As pictures from this camp reveal, the pitiful condition of most of the inmates would lead no one to say the prisoners were over-fed. In fact, as captured documents testify , these human beings were being starved to death. Also, in addition to the Jews, there were a number of political prisoners, which makes the following study even more scientific than if it had been based solely upon one particular group.
The doctors autopsied 10,000 inmates of Dachou, who were victims of mass executions or epidemics. They did not have to estimate the number of calories each inmate received since the Nazis were very careful bookkeepers. An amazing concept to our minds, they kept the records until almost the day they were overwhelmed by the Allies. Therefore, we know that each inmate of their 'concentrazion-slager' received an average of 1,000 calories per day. (Toward the end of the war this ration was cut to 500 calories.) We also know how those calories were dispersed. The inmates were fed daily a mixture of weak soup and a slice of black bread. There was ver little protein or fats, mostly carbohydrates. Of course, we must remember that on a starvation or semi-starvation diet, a person uses his own reserves of fats, proteins, minerals, and vitamins until his body reservoirs are depleted , usually within a month or six weeks. The inmates could not be expected to survive for long on such meager fare, especially since they were forced to perform hard physical labor every day. Yet it is a significant fact that none of the prisoners complained of heart symptoms, and so far as is known, none 'died' of cardiovascular disease. But most significant and astounding of all is the fact that every one of the 10,000 autopsied showed evidence of arteriosclerosis! Now this pattern was repeated throughout the world where there were prisoners.
Men, even on the horrible fare served to them in prison camps, do not 'die' of heart disease. They may starve to death as often happened , but their hearts and cardiovascular systems are apparently intact enough to sustain them for a time and are not the direct cause of death.
Could the black bread the prisoners received have contained enough Vitamin E to prevent the overt 'symptoms' of arteriosclerosis in a steadily deteriorating body? Perhaps.
Another significant finding was that almost none of the prisoners suffered from high blood pressure - a frequent concomitant of arteriosclerosis. This may be one reason why the prisoners did not suffer from the usual results of arteriosclerosis: "stroke," coronaries, etc. The editors of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society' have suggested that "mental stress" was a large factor in producing the universal arteriosclerosis at Dachau. This may well be, but we have seen that tension and stress alone cannot account for all arteriosclerosis. And who is to explain the lack of high blood pressue, which is supposed to be a partial result of stress and/or tension? Of course, we must admit that had the prisoners lived long enough , there might have been a high incidence of deaths from cardiovascular disease.
Thus, we see almost every explanation offered as the 'cause' of cardiovascular diseases has large loop-holes and contradictory evidence.
Possible exceptions are an acute aterial embolism, or a tremendous gangrene which even operation might not save, or any moribund patient , or the severest haemorrhage, or a huge aneurysm, or a wound of the heart or great vessels. Even in such cases it never could be argued that tocopherol had 'nothing' to offer, because of its extraordinary diverse physiological and biochemical properties.
What properties make it useful in treating cardiovascular diseases?
a) It resembles digitalis in its action on the hypoxic heart. Digitalis is the classic heart drug, used almost universally in almost every type of heart disease except the congenital types. The evidence for its similarity to digitalis appears in: Govier, W.M., Yanz, N., and Grelis, M.E. (USA): J.Pharmacol. and Exp/Ther., 88:373, 1946 Spaulding, M.E, and Graham, W.D, (Canada): J.B.C., 170:711,1947
This alone would establish alpha tocopherol as a useful heart drug. In fact, such functional similarity to digitalis would make it 'difficult' to deny.
b)'It is uniquely able to improve tissue oxygenation.' Oxygen deficit is characteristic of almost all heart disease, certainly cases in failure, and even in the earliest phases. No other physiological substance has this property to anything like the same degree: Hove, E.L., Hickman, K.C.D., and Harris, P.L. (USA): Arch. Biochem., 8:395, 1945. Zieler,K.L., Folk, B.P., Eyzaguirre, C., Jarcho, L.W., Grob, D., and Lilienthal, J.L. (USA) : Second Vitamin Symposium, NY , 1949 Vaccari, F. (Italy): Cuore e Circolazione, 35:164, 173, 1951 Hummel, J.P., and Melville, R.S. (USA): J.Biol.Chem., 101:383, 1951. Goria, I.R. (Italy): Boll. della Soc. Ital. di Biol. Sper., 29:1275, 1953. Telford, I.R., Wiswell, O.B., Smith, E.L., Clark, R.T., Jr., Tomaschefski, J.F., and Criscuolo, D. (USA): Air University School of Aviation Medicine, Project No. 21-1201-0013, Report #4, May, 1954 (Randolph Field, Texas) Telford, I.R., Wiswell, O.B., and Smith, E.L. (USA): Proc.Soc.Exp.Biol. and Med., 87:162, 1954. Frey, J. (Germany): Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharmakol., 221:456, 1954 Saha, H. (India): J. Indian Med. Assoc., 23:428, 1954 Horvath, G., Kowacsovics, T., and Potendy, A. (Hungary): Acta Physiol. Hung., E-suppl. 41, 1956. Scapinelli, G.E. (Italy): Sperimentale, 106:374, 1956.
This alone would establish alpha tocopherol as 'indispensable' in nearly all heart and vascular disease. This is impossible to deny. To make matters even clearer, Nason et al. have implicated tocopherol as "one of the active components of the terminal respirating chain in mammalian skeletal and heart muscle tissue." It appears to be a co-factor in the cytochrome C system.
Nason, A., Donaldson, K. O., and Lehman, I. R. (USA) : Trans. N.Y Acad. Sci., 20:27, 1957.
C)Alpha tocopherol has been described by at least two first rate groups as an antithrombin: Zierler, K.L., Grob, D., and Lilienthal, J.L. (USA): Am. J. Physiol., 153:127, 1948. Kay, J.H., Hutton, S.B., Weiss, G. N., and Ochsner, A. (USA): Surgery, 28:124, 1950.
By others it has been said to influence clotting time, thrombokinase, even the vascular endothelium. Indeed, one well-known Italian worker said at the Venice Congress of 1955 that vitamin E should henceforth be called the "angiophilic" vitamin, referring to its ability to protect blood vessels. Some of the relevent papers are:
Jesson, K.I., Glavind, J., Hartmann, S., and Dam, N. (Denmark): Acta Path., 29:73, 1951. Constantini, A., and Ricci, C. (Italy): Le Chirugie Gen., 1:300, 1951
Whatever the mechanism by which it acts on intravascular clots already formed, its effect in resolving such thrombosis has been attested by many first-rate observers.
Moreover some of these workers have remarked on its unique values in preventing embolism , in which it is so much more effective than its rival anticoagulants.
Blood clotting is always blood clotting , whether in a leg or the brain, in a vein or an artery, and must always occur by identical mechanisms above or below the diaphragm. That is the reasoning behind the widespread use of the anticoagulants, first made available for leg and other peripheral venous clots, in coronary artery disease. The line of reasoning making dicumarol useful in coronary disease automatically makes alpha tocopherol more useful still, and, of course, it is infinitely safer.
Now, since clotting is one of the major hazards in most cardiovascular disease, whether coronary thrombosis or cerebral thrombosis, auricular fibrillation, hypertensive or atherosclerotic heart disease , or diabetic atherosclerosis, and so on, the prompt lysis of clot or prevention of clotting recurrence or of embolism is a vital factor in its management. No one can deny this. The safety factor here, the fact that alpha tocopherol 'never' induces haemorrhage as the rival anticoagulants so regularly do, that it needs no weekly prothrombin or other difficult laboratory tests to ensure only a comparative safety, that it is safe, cheap and readily administered by any physician, not only specialists, renders it the drug of choice in any situation calling for an anticoagulant, unless, just 'possibly' it be an acute arterial thrombosis. Moreover, it cannot worsen a cerebral haemorrhage, as anticoagulants must do frequently, and it is recently becoming clear that such haemorrhage, as distinct from cerebral thrombosis, can be difficult to recognize.
D)The action of vitamin E upon scar tissue is unique, although somewhat inconstant. No other substance has even been found which can both "melt away" or soften existing scar, even of many years' duration, and can prevent such scar formation as is always encountered in wounds or burns not treated by alpha tocopherol; namely, scar that contracts as it heals. It is scarcely necessary to point out how important this property can be for many cases of chronic rheumatic heart disease where the myocardium is full of tiny scarred areas and the valves are often deformed by scar tissue. It could be of interest in the scars induced by coronary atherosclerosis, hypertensive heart disease, and so forth. Why must doctors always treat old heart scars by such dangerous and often ineffective means as those of surgery? Is it not a great step forward to think of preventing valve scars and resolving them medically?
This unique property of vitamin E alone would render it a drug of choice in many a cardiovascular problem. Remember, too, that no other substance has this property.
The prevention of scar formation is graphically demonstrated by photographs in our possession, one of them showing a second degree burn over the knuckles of the hand, the hand showing 'perfect flexion when healed.' This result is unbelievable, but has been duplicated in other patients, and these patients have been shown to medical groups for their careful scrutiny. No other substance possesses either of these abilities - another example of the unrivalled therapeutic powers of vitamin E. Here is a result alpha tocopherol produces which is quite unexplainable by present pathological knowledge, and yet has been proven by many medical observers all over the world. This illustrates how dangerous it can be to decide a 'priori' what alpha tocopherol can or cannot do.
E)Vitamin E appears to be a muscle stimulant per se. This action of vitamin E on muscle in the intact animal or in man has long been difficult to make sure of because such benefits could also accrue due to increased oxygen utilization by muscle or to improved circulation in muscle, as has been suggested above. However, recent studies on 'isolated' muscles have proven it to have specific effects and go far to explain the early studies.
It has been shown for example , that vitamin E had a favorable effect on both coronary flow and the muscular contractility of the heart of frogs. Indeed , the isolated heart perfused with alpha tocopherol survived 126 minutes, as opposed to 75 minutes for his controls, presumably due to an additive effect of both these properties of alpha tocopherol.
The effect on muscle alone would justify the use of alpha tocopherol in almost every cardiac disability, where either a primarily damaged myocardium or a myocardium secondarily impaired by congenital defects of the freat vessels or septa or by endocardial inflammations and their valvular sequelae, or where one should support a myocardium which, laboring against increased peripheral resistance in either the greater or lesser circulation, or against congestion, has begun to weaken. No other tonic substance can be suggested , unless digitalis has some value here.
F) Vitamin E improves the capillary wall that has become impaired by one mechanism or another. Here its only rival is rutin - perhaps . There is a good deal of evidence on this adduced by many workers.
We first reported this observation in Science.
Were it only for this property, vitamin E would have a place in the pharmacopoeia of every scientific cardiologist who is aware that inflammatory and degenerative processes damage capillary walls, produce damaging local or more general oedemas and exudates, and that these may go on to overwhelm and drown his patient as the circulatory mechanism destroys itself by constant leakage.
G)At the moment, vast sums of research money are being spent on, and many teams of research workers are engaged in, studies of the process of atherosclerosis, regarded in the United States generally as the most significant factor in the causation of degenerative cardiovascular disease. Partly this is directed at cholesterol metabolism generally and partly at atherosclerotic animals in an effort to produce humanlike lesions and their resolution or prevention.
The evidence as to whether vitamin E influences cholesterol metabolism is conflicting. In huge doses it almost certainly does. But we wish to point up a more direct approach. It is well known that hens as they age tend to develope an atherosclerosis like that of man. This can be prevented or halted by the combination of vitamins A and E, either alone being relatively ineffective.
H)Vitamin E is occasionally a diuretic, a fact which is of importance in managing every failing heart.
J)Occasionally vitamin E is 'hypotensive' , which is a helpful factor in the management of many a cardiovascular patient. This fact alone would make vitamin E valuable in a great fraction of all cardiovascular problems. High blood pressure is a very grave complication in so many patients.
He would be a brave man, or a reckless or an ignorant man, who would deny that an agent so versatile , so potent, so unique, would not be of value in treating every type of cardiovascular disease known, with the possible exception of some rare types listed earlier in this discussion. Even there is probably has something to offer.
Cardiovascular disease is one unit. What applies in one part of the circulation applies in another, with the relatively few exceptions dependent on local anatomical peculiarities or unknown racial factors. Hence the justification for calling the great journal dealing principally with heart disease by such a name as 'Circulation.' Hence the extension of the use of anticoagulants to coronary and cerebral vascular disease. Hence our extension to heart diseases of the vascular uses of alpha tocopherol which have been so widely confirmed.
There is a long list of workers who have found that depriving animals of alpha tocopherol sooner or later induces focal myocardial lesions. The unanimity of these findings is striking , the lesions are numerous and important, nine species are involved, and, although it is questionable that the human heart presents focal lesions similar to those seen in most tocopherol-deficient animals, the perivascular lesions in the myocardium found in alpha tocopherol-deficient calves are not too unlike the Aschoff nodules found in rheumatic human heart muscles. The electrocardiographic changes seen in association with these myocardial lesions in experimental animals are analogous to those seen in damaged human hearts. The picture is definitely one of alpha tocopherol deficiency regularly producing myocardial damage. Should only the human heart be able to escape the corresponding results of nearly comparable and certainly 'much' more prolonged deficiency of alpha tocopherol? What are the infarcts that have no origin in coronary occlusion (16 to 59 per cent of the total)?
But the most important and direct approach to this problem in experimental study has been the work of the Dominhuez team on coronary ligation in dogs. These workers produced myocardidal infarcts in dogs by tieing the coronary artery, then gave tocopherol to some of them. The results were spectacular. An intense proliferation of new collateral arterial channels entered the infarct area in an effort to heal it. This must be what happens when a man with coronary infarction is given alpha tocopherol. This single experiment corroborates our whole position on the tocopherol management of coronary artery disease.
Now, every food factor ,certainly every vitamin, prevents what it relieves. Thus, we use vitamin C to prevent scurvy because it cures scurvy, and vitamin D to prevent rickets because it cures rickets, and vitamin K to prevent haemorrhagic disease of the newborn because it cures it, and vitamin A to prevent xerophthalmia because it cures it, and vitamin B1 to prevent neuritis because it cures it, and riboflavin to prevent glossitis and cheilosis because it cures them, and so one. Thus one uses other food factors such as iron or calcium. Could vitamin E be the sole exception to such a rule?
Admittedly, congenital anomalies are produced long before their recognition and therefore before the average person thinks of treatment, much less of prevention. But there is a great deal of experimental evidence now to indicate that such defects may be the end-result of vitamin deficiencies or hypoxia in the mother at an early stage of embryonic life; we ourselves have published work in this field.
It has been concluded that oxygen deficiency in early pregnancy is 'the' single most important causative factor in producing anomalies. Obviously, this makes a place for the most powerful physiological oxygenating factor, vitamin E.
It may well be that congenital heart disease will prove preventable by means of such nutritional factors as vitamin E. No one must rule out such a possibility prematurely, since it is so likely.
Inflammatory heart lesions like those seen in rheumatic fever follow assaults by a particular strain of streptococcus - but not always, perhaps not commonly. Why? Because of certain unknown factors in resistance. Why do some rheumatic infections recur and many do not? Because of some unknown factors in resistance. Our own experience with the influence of vitamin E on early, primary cases of acute rheumatic fever has been so dramatic that we ascribe to it considerable powers of increasing such resistance. Moreover, the Aschoff-like nodules seen in the myocardium of vitamin-E deficient calves dying of heart failure would strongly reinforce this view. Holman produced an acute necrotizing arteritis in dogs in relation to kidney damage and vitamin E deficiency. The JAMA commented on this editorially by saying that acute necrotizing arteritis in dogs has a close human counterpart in periarteritis nodosa and rheumatic arteritis in man. It can be rheumatic lesion, for otherwise the cause of rheumatic fever remains an enigma.
Atherosclerotic lesions such as those so regularly seen in coronary disease and hypertensive states are theoretically preventable by vasodilators, anti-clotting and fibrinolytic agents, if we accept Duguid's well-attested theory of the origin of atherosclerosis.
Here the ingestion of a lasting vasodilator and anti-clotting and fibrinolytic agent such as alpha tocopherol should provide the best available prophylaxis. We believe it does, and the Weitzel studies bear this out.
Moreover, at the moment, American medical men generally are giving their arteriosclerotic patients more unsaturated fats (vegetable fats) in their diets as prophylaxis against further arteriosclerosis. Sternberg has shown that all such diets high in unsaturated fats require vitamin E as well in order to stabilize and utilize them properly. Vitamin E preserves them in the bowel.
There appears to be no practical hope for the prevention of cardiovascular disease unless the mechanisms we have sketched above are fundamentally sound and point in the direction of truth. They must not be laughed out of court prematurely , in the way that Jenner's vaccination against smallpox, or Pasteur's vaccination against rabies, or Sabin's oral vaccine against polio, has been.
Practically every cardiac and vascular disease state is associated with obstructed blood vessels or a lack of oxygen.
Even patients with congestive failure show stasis in the bloodstream and hypoxia. It is self-evident that a key to the treatment of these conditions is the effort to relieve these difficulties, and, apart from the odd surgical procedure such as thrombarterectomy, there is no rival to vitamin E in these respects. None can be suggested indeed, for its oxygen-conserving powers are unique amongst physiological substances, and it acts upon many types of vascular obstruction that the rival anticoagulants do little or nothing to benefit - for example, Buerger's disease, claudication, established thrombus.
Whether the observations of such able workers are accurate or not, this is one theory designed to explain the action vitamin E in preventing blood clotting in the bloodstream, something that has always been puzzling. The action on blood clotting of the classical anticoagulants is often puzzling, too, of course, for many patients clost with normal prothrombin times, and there may even be myocardial infarcts without any evidence of an apical thrombus. Alpha tocopherol is not the only anti-clotting agent incompletely understood.
It is generally realized by every medical man that its rival anticoagulants, such as heparin or dicumarol, are dangerous. Hence the need to do at least weekly prothrombin tests on every patient taking anticoagulants. Hence the cases of haemorrhage after their use seen every day in every city in the land. Hence the cautious approach of such medical experts as Littman. One would have expected the usual anticoagulants to have been replaced long ago by alpha tocopherol , which is so much safer, and even more effective(since it attacks existing clots as well as prevents further clotting, and minimizes embolism).
The so-called varicose eczema so often associated with it often responds well to the local application of tocopherol ointment. One must be cautious and slow in applying it, lest it spread the rash elsewhere.
The femoral vein in dogs were tied off and then they were administered alpha tocopherol , obtaining great vasodilatation of collateral vessels. The Dominguez team did the same thing after tieing off the femoral artery in rabbits; they reported that some of the collaterals dilated to larger size than the original femoral artery!
May we add that alpha tocopherol is remarkably helpful in Raynaud's syndrome on just this same basis, as it is in varicose eczema, Buerger's disease, and such conditions.
As has been stressed above, this use of alpha tocopherol pormises to be one of the most important roles it has in the medical management of injuries incurred in atomic warfare. There has been no other suggestion as practical and simple and cheap. Indeed, there has been no other suggestion. We regard this as our most salutary discovery.
Long years after the discovery of insulin, it is recognized that it and dietary restriction control high blood sugar levels-but that many or all long-treated diabetics go on to display degeneration of the eyes , kidneys, heart, and peripheral vessels. Hence the common finding of cataracts, retinitis, Kimmelstiel-Wilson kidney, coronary attacks, and leg gangrene in long-treated diabetics. The greatest American authority, Joslin, has twice commented on this. More recently he said that insulin hid the tragic symptoms and signs of diabetes and thus allowed developing arteriosclerosis to kill the patient. Doctors cannot afford to have 85 per cent of their patients begin to have disease of the kidney, heart, and brain and begin to go blind after the disease has lasted only 15 years. Only one in 10 patients is now eligible for a life expectancy medal for living longer with diabetes than expected to live without it, and only 54 in the world have been found perfect after 25 years of the disease. Surely doctors should be able to postpone the onset of complications untio after 15 years in more than 15 per cent of their cases.
Obviously, therefore, diet and insulin leave much to be desired still. An increasing number of diabetic specialists now recognize that diabetes is a two-phase disease, one being related to hyperglycaemia and the other ot vascular degeneration. All that insulin treatment has done is to clear away the high blood sugar to reveal the second phase. Vitamin E has long been known to heal some of the vascular complications of diabetes and even decrease the need for insulin.
No one can deny that vitamin E is an important and useful therapeutic agent in the management of diabetes. Indeed, several papers suggest that it lowers blood sugars as well as improves the vascular half of the disease. It has been found that this occurred in about 25 per cent of cases treated.
The maximum tocopherol level in the blood attained after the ingestion of vitamin E is reached in 4 to 8 hours, after which serum levels tail off to their pre-existing levels in about 72 hours.
If one takes 100 mgm. of alpha tocopherol the blood values revert to normal in 24 hours. If 400 mgm. are given the blood level in 24 hours is only 22 per cent higher than its previous values.
Long ago we came to the same conclusion on purely clincal grounds, and published our views.
For a long time now, some authorities have been saying that "the need for tocopherols in human nutrition has not been established." Suddenly they have been ejected from this palpably false position by studies reported on.
If you take the heart cases, cardiovascular cases and the many other diseases reported to be helped or alleviated, out of doctors' offices (and the taking of vitamin E poses a threat of it) more than half the income of the medical profession will vanish. A heart disease case is an annuity for the doctors, and people will continue to die because they are caught in the toils of economics - mink coats for doctors' wives, Cadillacs, and stock and bond investments. This state of affairs will continue as long as the medical profession is permitted to police itself.
Spare the rod and spoil the child. We must adopt a "get tough" program with the medical profession. The appointment of a national group comprised of engineers, businessmen, and suchlike folk to make an independent investigation of this regrettable vitamin E scandal.