One of the tragedies of illness is that it usually prevents a normal sex life. Because sex is a means of expressing love and is perhaps the deepest form of human communication, a marriage without it is sterile and often an outright endurance contest. Although major sexual problems, such as impotency and frigidity, and a horde of minor ones are emotional in origin, intercourse is often not enjoyed simply because a partner is tired, has a headache, has not slept well the night before, or feels tense or depressed and wants nothing more than to be left alone.

Any person who is irritable, critical, nagging, or lacks the energy to take a bath is scarcely setting the stage for an evening of ecstasy. During my years of consulting work, dozens of men and hundreds of women have talked to me about their sex problems; and some of the commonest complaints I have heard are that feet smell bad and that the mate has halitosis. Such seemingly insignificant things can prevent a woman from having a fulfilling orgasm and a man a sustained erection.

Kidney and urinary-bladder stones, which range from grit, sand, and gravel to the size of bird eggs, are mostly formed of crystals of calcium combined with phosphorus or oxalic acid. They are often removed surgically, but more stones usually form within weeks unless preventive measures are taken.

A few stones are mostly uric acid or the amino acid cystine. To prevent such stones, large amounts of fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits, should be eaten, thus producing an alkaline urine which keeps crystals of these substances in solution. When a sodium-urate stone has been ill passed, the dietary measures suggested for gout should be followed. The loss of cystine in the urine is said to be a hereditary error, which often means an unusually high genetic requirement for certain nutrients; a few cases have been helped by giving large amounts of cholin. To limit the cystine intake, protein may be restricted to 70 grams daily. The more common stones formed from calcium phosphate or oxalate.

Because of stress, medications, and high urinary losses, a vitamin-C deficiency can be readily produced during any kidney disease; hence the danger of hemorrhaging is tremendously increased. Even a mild lack causes blood to appear in the urine.

The passing of bloody urine or hemorrhaging have sometimes been quickly stopped when huge amounts of vitamin C and/or "bioflavonoids" have been given to persons with severe nephritis.

Since a cholin or vitamin-E deficiency can also cause hemorrhages, large amounts of lecithin, cholin, and vitamin E should be given with vitamin C the minute kidney disease is diagnosed, and all increased immediately if blood appears in the urine. Kidney hemorrhages have sometimes been stopped by giving vitamin E alone.

Excessive water retention, spoken of as dropsy or edema, may be noticeable only as swollen ankles or puffiness around the eyes yet be so extensive that an emaciated person appears overweight. Such a condition usually indicates adrenal exhaustion.

Giving large amounts of pantothenic acid to young men under stress increased the excretion of sodium, which holds water in the body. A diet high in calcium and adequate in vitamin D likewise increases the excretion of salt, thus reducing edema, whereas one high in carbohydrate holds both salt and water in the tissues. The stress of nephritis may also cause the adrenals to produce excessive amounts of aldosterone, which holds so much salt and water in the body that edema and elevated blood pressure result. Animals given diets deficient in nutrients that limit cortisone production, such as pantothenic acid and vitamins B2 and B12 develop edema, which is corrected when the missing vitamins are supplied or cortisone is given.

Animals lacking magnesium also develop nephritis and show the same degenerative changes, made worse after the kidney has once been damaged, because this mineral is more readily lost in the urine. When the diet is only slightly deficient in magnesium, the kidneys become tremendously swollen, and 25 times more calcium than normal may be deposited in the kidney tissues. This condition becomes much more severe if phosphorus is high and calcium low.

When both vitamin B6 and magnesium are under supplied, the kidneys are further damaged by sharp crystals of oxalic acid combined with calcium, and as much as three quarters of the kidney may be replaced by scar tissue. Children with oxalic-acid kidney stones frequently have high blood pressure and kidneys so damaged that they become progressively worse, causing death from kidney failure early in life.

Kidney are bean-shaped organs, lying below the waist on either side of the vertebrae, are only about four inches long, two inches wide, and an inch thick. Yet arranged in orderly precision around the outer portion are millions of tiny balls of capillaries, or glomeruli–the Latin plural for ball. Long, slender tubes, or tubules, curve around each miniature ball, then after winding like hairpin loops on a mountain road, converge into ever larger tubules until all combine into a single canal, the ureter, leading to the bladder. Capillaries carrying fresh blood surround each tubule; and the whole is held together by connective tissue. Thus incredible miles of capillaries and tubes form the working mechanism of the kidneys.

When the most common amino acid, glycine, is radio actively labeled and fed to animals or humans, it can be recovered from the blood and urine as uric acid. Further- more, persons with gout change labeled glycine into uric acid much more quickly than do normal individuals. This change appears to be the means by which the body rids itself of a waste product when many incomplete proteins have been eaten. Any person with gout, therefore, should be particularly careful to obtain complete proteins; and gelatin, which lacks several essential amino acids but supplies excessive amounts of glycine, should be strictly avoided.

Provided pantothenic acid is present, uric acid is converted into urea and ammonia; both of which are quickly excreted in the urine. Individuals with gout may be too deficient in pantothenic acid to change uric acid readily into these harmless substances or they produce uric acid in such excessive amounts that it cannot be eliminated quickly. Some patients with gout excrete 18 times more uric acid than do normal persons. Gout has been accidentally produced by drugs that have injured the kidneys, thus preventing uric acid from being excreted at the normal rate.

Sprue can be corrected by daily injections of 25 micrograms of folic acid, but because food is so poorly absorbed, a diet containing 60 times that amount brings no improvement. After an injection is given, patients may improve in a single day and absorb the vitamin well by mouth within a few days. A physician will give injections and/or tablets of folic acid, but the diet for sprue must make up for the multiple severe deficiencies brought on by the diarrhea. Although oils rather than solid fats should be used, fats need not be restricted nor a smooth diet adhered to Two tablespoons of lecithin daily tremendously increases the absorption of fats and fat-soluble vitamins.

The gall bladder, a pear-shaped sack hanging between the lobes of the liver, is a reservoir for bile. A small, V-shaped canal, or duct, carries bile from both the gall bladder and the liver to the small intestine. When food containing fat leaves the stomach, hormones cause the gall bladder to empty by inducing vigorous contractions in its muscular walls and simultaneously stimulate the liver to produce more bile at an accelerated rate. A diet rich in B vitamins also stimulates the emptying of the gall bladder by increasing energy production.

The bile contains water, lecithin, cholesterol, minerals, acids, and pigments. Its lecithin content breaks fats into microscopic droplets that can be surrounded by enzymes, digested, and absorbed; and its bile acids are essential before digested fats, carotene, and vitamins A, D, E, and K can be carried across the intestinal wall into the blood.