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Vitamin Sourcebook |
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Textbook
of Nutritional Medicine Nobody is interested in
vitamins. What people want is to know how to cure disease. This goes for
preoccupied doctors as much as for desperate patients. In 25 years of
lecturing on natural health care, I have almost never had anyone
(practitioner or layperson) come up to me afterwards and say, "tell me
more about the biochemistry of vitamin therapy!" Rather, the
ubiquitous follow up question is, "What vitamins should I use for (such
and such an illness)?" In righteously answering
such a question, the task is to present the facts of vitamin therapy
accurately and rapidly, without losing sight of the questioner's specific
need. As Ward Cleaver demonstrated, the Beaver needs unbiased truth in
shortened form, as applies to his specific situation. It is as hard to provide
that in a book as it is in a conversation.
The fundamental strength
behind Dr. Melvyn Werbach's Textbook of Nutritional Medicine is that
it fully appreciates the immediate need of the reader. This book is not
about vitamins; it is about diseases treatable with vitamins. Should you
ever want to put someone to sleep, just start lecturing on nutrition with the
ever-boring "vitamins A through E and foods that contain them"
approach. I guarantee that heads will be nodding long before you finish with
the B-complex. Textbook of
Nutritional Medicine is that rarity among all health books: at 750 large pages, it is
still remarkably concise. Almost all of it is organized by illness, not
by nutrient. It is not preachy and it never overstates the role of nutrition.
It takes only seconds to look up any one of over 80 diseases that are known
to respond to nutritional therapy. And it is very heavily referenced. The Textbook is an
outgrowth of Dr. Werbach's 1988 Nutritional Influences on Illness,
which was essentially a topic-by-topic collection of research abstracts. I
liked that a lot, and required it as a textbook when I taught graduate clinical
nutrition. The current Textbook is more complete in every way, and is
well worth its $75 hard cover price. It provides far more direction to the
open-minded practitioner or self-care minded general reader. To have an
"alternative" health book written by a medical doctor (co-authored
with dentist Dr. Jeffrey Moss) is very valuable to patients who are
struggling upstream to convince their pharmophilic physicians to at least
give vitamin therapy the time of day. There is nothing quite like pulling out
a book like this one to shorten physicians' "supplements might hurt you
so just eat a good diet" speeches. And even the most ostrich-like
orthodox practitioner can not long resist the call of the literally thousands
of peer-reviewed journal references that Dr Werbach has read, sorted, and
summarized in his book. So trot out the Textbook
next time somebody tries to tell you that more research is needed before
vitamins can be used to treat illness. There is a real
possibility that your doctor will recoil when s/he is presented with all
these references. This reaction, true to human nature, is nevertheless
unscientific. It is embarrassing to doctors when patients know more
about their case than they do. Yet there is no other rational
choice. If therapy exists, and is reasonably well-tested and safe, it
is inexcusable to not try it. Doctors know this, but are so uneducated in
nutrition that they are usually not in a position to supervise such therapy.
Hence the embarrassment. The Textbook provides the continuing education they
so sorely need. Obviously, you need to
read it first, but not all of it. It is a reference. Do you read
the dictionary cover to cover? (You don't have to, because, as comic Steven
Wright says, "The zebra did it.") Just look up the diseases
that are closest to home. You, your family, and your friends all stand
to benefit from the hard work that Dr. Werbach has already done for you,
distilling and sorting hundreds of studies into one lap-friendly volume. Dr. Werbach's objectivity
is so carefully maintained that, to a general reader, his well-balanced
approach might seem like fence sitting. This is perhaps most notable in his
cautious discussion of vitamin C against cancer. I also noticed that, in
considering schizophrenia, the Hoffer-Osmond Adrenochrome Hypothesis was
omitted. My personal opinion is that Dr. Werbach might have more to say in
open support of really high divided doses of niacin (not just niacinamide in
moderation) for anxiety and psychosis. The multiple sclerosis section makes
no mention of the nutritional protocol of Frederick R. Klenner and Roger J.
Williams is not cited in the otherwise very good section on alcoholism. Max
Gerson is absent from the chapter on cancer. William J. McCormick is not
mentioned in connection with vitamin C and cerebrovascular disease, and I
found no references to Wilfrid or Evan Shute's pioneering work with vitamin E
and heart disease. This may be because Dr. Werbach has chosen, perhaps
because of limitations of space, to focus on more recent research.
Additionally, I think chromium polynicotinate, zinc monomethionine, iron
fumarate, and so-called colloidal minerals should be added to the section on
"Elemental Mineral Content of Common Mineral Salts" used as
supplements. Lest I appear to be
nit-picking, let me assert that any book that calmly mentions vitamin E doses
of up to 3,200 I.U., and maximum daily treatment dosages for vitamin C of
200,000 mg has my immediate and appreciative attention. Robert F. Cathcart,
Ewan Cameron, Garnett Cheney, Ruth Harrell, John Ellis, William Kaufman, J.W.
Anderson, and many other expert physicians and researchers are to be found
fairly, and favorably, mentioned in the Textbook of Nutritional Medicine.
A number of these names are simply not to be found in any other nutrition
textbook that I have ever seen. It is a pleasure to see them included here. I am especially pleased
that Dr. Werbach includes a considerable quantity of information on
megavitamin treatment of AIDS patients. This bold and much needed inclusion
opens the door for nutritional treatment of all viral illnesses. I am further
delighted to see a section on nutrition and Down's syndrome. There are also
seldom-mentioned-elsewhere nutritional approaches to Parkinson's disease,
epilepsy, infertility, rosacea, lupus, and even myopia. These sections
make interesting reading indeed. Truth to be told, ANY section of the book
makes for interesting reading. I was somewhat surprised to fail to find
Alzheimer's disease listed in either the table of contents or the index. Look
under "Dementia" and you will find it; however, it should have its
own listing. Dr. Werbach's attitude
towards and discussion of vitamin side effects is excellent. It is also
conservative. He does not hesitate to caution when caution is due, and yet he
clearly states (and proves) that the safety of megavitamin therapy is far
greater than drug therapy. Information on lab nutrition tests, label
units and measurements, vitamin deficiencies, hints for successful practice
of integrative medicine, and the entirely appropriate personal story of how
he came to write his books, are all included. But the heart of the Textbook
is its nearly 700 pages of clinical recommendations and research summaries.
Citations are clearly marked and reader-friendly; studies are mentioned
within the text by authors' names in italics. Frequent and well-placed case
histories are boxed in gray. There should be an overall author index as well
as a topic index. Preparing such an index is not a job that I'd want; Dr.
Werbach has over 140 full pages of references with about 40 citations per
page. That makes no fewer than 5,600 references in Textbook of
Nutritional Medicine. Yet it is due to this very great number that the book
requires more thorough indexing. I have relied on Dr.
Werbach's work for ten years. When I prepare an article or lecture, I
refer to his writings as a matter of habit. Before his books, one had to go
back to Bicknell and Review copyright 2005 and
prior years by Andrew W. Saul. Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE
YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html
) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html
) For ordering information, Click Here .
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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision. Neither the author nor the webmaster has authorized the use of their names or the use of any material contained within in connection with the sale, promotion or advertising of any product or apparatus. Single-copy reproduction for individual, non-commercial use is permitted providing no alterations of content are made, and credit is given. |
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