Sound nutrition should certainly be applied the minute a diagnosis of leukemia is made. Nevertheless letters from parents contain such phrases as: "Mary has not needed a transfusion for 18 months"; "Tom is full of pep and back in school"; "The doctors are completely baffled by this case"; "Everyone says it's a miracle," and a dozen similar remarks. Many of these children have now died, but their last months seem to me to have been less miserable than most; and in a few cases, parents have felt the improved nutrition gave them an extra year of life. If an adequate diet were started early enough and continued consistently, particularly during remissions, perhaps lives could be saved.

Rats lacking vitamin E develop too many white blood cells, which decrease when the vitamin is given; and vitamin E causes the blood platelet count, usually low in leukemia, to increase. Furthermore, a deficiency of vitamin E allows human bone marrow to become abnormal; and giving this vitamin to anemic infants has quickly improved the bone marrow. Supplements of this vitamin are rarely given to persons with leukemia, yet foods furnish only a fraction of the amount needed by healthy individuals.

All types of experimental cancers grow more rapidly when the diet is high in calories, regardless of whether the excessive calories are supplied by fats or carbohydrates. Conversely, low calorie diets devoid of refined carbohydrate and hydrogenated.fat retard cancer growth; and rats kept on stock diets of natural foods are protected against cancer. High calorie diets of refined foods also accelerate the growth of human malignancies.

Although excess protein is converted into calories, experimental cancers develop most rapidly on low-protein diets. Cancer growth has not increased even when protein supplied 50 per cent of the calories; and the animals maintained far better general health than when the intake was low. Yeasts rich in nucleic acid--which food yeast is-- "significantly increased" the survival of rats given cancer producing substances. All yeasts are rich in protein and the B vitamins.

Advanced adrenal exhaustion, such as Addison's disease, is characterized by apathy, torturous fatigue, and extreme muscular weakness. Although proteins broken down at the onset of stress come largely from the lymph glands, when stress is prolonged, muscle cells are destroyed as well. Furthermore, exhausted adrenals can no longer produce a hormone that saves nitrogen from the breakdown of worn-out body cells; normally this nitrogen is reused in building amino acids vital to the repair of tissues. Under such circumstances the muscles lose strength rapidly even though the diet may be high in protein.

Exhausted adrenals are also unable to produce sufficient amounts of the salt-retaining hormone aldosterone. So much I salt (sodium) is lost in the urine that again potassium leaves the cells, resulting in still-greater muscular weakness, slowed contractions, and partial or complete paralysis of certain muscles. Taking potassium can increase the amount of this nutrient in the cells, but in this case salt (sodium) is particularly needed, and many of the muscle problems can be alleviated merely by eating salty foods. People with adrenal exhaustion usually have low blood pressure, which indicates that salt should be obtained.

The name myasthenia gravis means grave loss of muscle strength. This disease, another of many said to be increasing rapidly, is marked by exhaustion and progressive paralysis, which may affect any part of the body but most frequently involve the muscles of the face and neck. Double vision, drooping eyelids, frequent choking, and difficulty in breathing, swallowing, and talking, shown by imperfect articulation, stammering, and stuttering, are common symptoms.

Prisoners held in Singapore during World War II developed what appeared to be myasthenia gravis; partial paralysis caused choking, drooping eyelids, blurred and double vision, and difficulty in speaking and swallowing. They recovered completely after being given large amounts of yeast and liver over a long period. A report from the Mayo Clinic tells of a 39-year-old who had had myasthenia gravis for five years yet who made a spontaneous recovery two weeks after a toxic thyroid was removed. In such a case, the nutritional requirements are so tremendously decreased that the effect is the same as adhering to a highly improved diet.

All varieties of animals kept on vitamin-E-deficient diets develop muscular dystrophy provided they can live long enough. Human muscular dystrophy and atrophy appear to be identical to this experimentally produced illness. In both the laboratory and the human disease the oxygen requirement is tremendously increased; many enzymes and coenzymes needed for normal muscle function are markedly reduced; and muscles throughout the body become injured and weakened as the essential fatty acids forming structural parts of muscle cells are destroyed. Numerous nutrients leak out of the damaged cells, and eventually the muscles are largely replaced by scar tissue. The muscles split longitudinally, which, incidentally, makes one wonder if vitamin-E deficiency plays a causative role in hernia, especially in babies known to be woefully deficient in this vitamin.

For months or years before muscular dystrophy can be diagnosed, amino acids and a substance known as creatine are lost in the urine, both showing that muscles are breaking down. If vitamin E is given at this time, before the disease has progressed too far, the destruction of muscle tissue stops completely, as shown by cessation of creatine excretion. In animals--and probably humans--the disease is produced much more rapidly if the diet is deficient in protein and/or vitamins A or B6 as well as vitamin E, but even then the dystrophy can still be corrected by vitamin E alone.

The tragedy of loading such persons with iron is that, when vitamin B6 is under supplied, iron absorption becomes so excessive that it damages the tissues, causing the formation of scars which readily become calcified. This condition appears to be identical to a fatal iron-storage disease, siderosis or hemosiderosis, which has been rare but is rapidly becoming more common. In experimental siderosis, as much as 18 times more iron than normal is held in the body! The iron is reduced if vitamin B6 is given, but if withheld, death results. Under normal circumstances iron is absorbed only as needed.

Since vitamin B6 and magnesium go together like salt and pepper, it is not surprising that anemia has been produced in volunteers (adult men) by a diet lacking magnesium. This anemia was quickly connected soon after the nutrient was allowed.

Problems at menopause are often much more severe than at puberty, largely because the diet has been deficient in many nutrients--protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamins D, E, and pantothenic acid--for years prior to its onset. For instance, persons who spend much of their time indoors may have no vitamin D whatsoever in their blood. Moreover, women who have a particularly difficult time during this period are usually those whose adrenals are exhausted.

Because calcium is less well absorbed and the urinary losses are greater when the output of estrogen decreases, such calcium-deficiency symptoms as nervousness, irritability, insomnia, headaches, and depression are common. These problems can be easily overcome if the intakes of calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D are all generously increased and are well absorbed. Any woman having difficulty at this time should probably supplement her daily diet with the anti-stress formula, 5,000 units of vitamin D, and 500 milligrams of magnesium; and obtain daily 2 grams of calcium, which can be supplied by 1 quart of milk fortified with ½ cup of non-instant powdered milk. Approximately 500 milligrams of calcium, preferably with magnesium, should be taken at any meal and before bed when fortified milk is not drunk.

The blood abnormalities characteristic of pernicious anemia can be corrected by folic acid, but a simultaneous deficiency of vitamin B12 causes this disease to be accompanied by an irreversible degeneration of the spinal cord. An individual lacking vitamin B12 or one with untreated pernicious anemia develops a shuffling gait, loses the sense of position of his feet, and can become completely paralyzed. If the fatigue caused by the anemia is prevented by folic acid, a patient may fail to consult his physician during the early stages of the disease, and permanent crippling can result. For this reason, folic acid is presently sold on prescription, though supplements should supply both vitamin B12 and folic acid.

Vitamin B12 can only be absorbed with the aid of an enzyme known as the intrinsic factor, normally produced by glands in the stomach. In pernicious anemia, the stomach has become so unhealthy that it can no longer secrete either this enzyme or hydrochloric acid. An injection of 0.1 milligram of vitamin B12 each month can prevent the degenerative changes in the spinal cord, but this amount given daily by mouth is ineffective.G2 Some vitamin B12 can be absorbed when huge quantities are taken orally, but the cost of such doses is usually prohibitive.

Iron is so widely distributed that to produce an anemia from a lack of it, one must live largely on refined foods. Hemoglobin, many enzymes, and a substance known as myoglobin, which carries oxygen in muscle cells, cannot be produced without iron. Even a mild deficiency so limits enzyme and myoglobin production that chronic fatigue, headaches, and shortness of breath can occur long before anemia develops. When persons with iron deficiency anemia eat beets, the red color is said to appear in the urine; hence eating beets may serve as a test to determine whether anemia results from a lack of iron or from other causes.

Iron-deficiency anemia is common in women of reproductive age whose menstrual flow is heavy; among persons of all ages who eat mostly refined foods; in adolescent girls whose diets are often appalling and whose iron requirements are high because of muscle development, increased blood volume, and menstrual losses; and, because cows' milk contains little iron, among bottle-fed babies and persons who live largely on milk.. Yeast is such an excellent source of iron that anemia can be easily prevented by taking a few teaspoons daily or adding it to a baby's formula.