Risk factors anything in our thinking, behavior, body or environment that increases the likelihood of illness are opposed by "resistance resources" we possess. These may include an optimistic way of looking at life, a good social support system, and a strong set of genes. The balance between risk factors and resistance resources largely determines whether we get sick or stay healthy.

Pressed vegetable oils, fresh or vacuum-packed wheat germ, and freshly ground whole-grain breads and cereals are our best sources of vitamin E. Our average intake of 6 to 15 units daily is only a fraction of the amount needed and that was obtained before foods were refined.

Vitamin E is non-toxic. As much as 3,000 units daily have been given to children for years. Consistently better results, however, have been obtained from the natural vitamin, d-alpha tocopherol acetate, than from the synthetic one. Mixed tocopherols are said to be unstable.

Though potassium is supplied by vegetables and fruits, relatively few vegetables are now being eaten. In the days when most people had home gardens, three to five vegetables were usually served at every lunch and dinner. Potassium is readily lost in the urine during the alarm and resistance reactions to stress and/or when the salt (sodium) intake is high. Deficiencies of potassium, therefore, have become common, especially when illness increases the requirement and decreases retention. Equal parts of potassium chloride and ordinary salt can be used in foods; and tablets supplying a gram of potassium chloride (15 grains) are available at drugstores.

Animal experiments indicate that during severe stress the vitamin-C requirements increase fantastically, often as much as 70 times more than needed during health. If a similar increase occurs in humans, approximately 5,000 milligrams would be needed daily during acute illnesses. This vitamin is nontoxic, 31 and taking massive quantities has sometimes resulted in amazing recoveries, but large amounts are rarely needed more than a few days.

Vitamin C is available in powder form and in tablets supplying 100, 250, and 500 milligrams each. During an acute infection, 500 milligrams every two or three hours taken in addition to the antis tress formula is usually ample, though perhaps 250 milligrams extra are needed with each dose of medication. Should bruises, bleeding gums, or nosebleeds occur, the quantities of both vitamins C and E should be immediately increased. When health is fully achieved, 75 milligrams of vitamin C daily is considered adequate by the National Research Council.

The body requirements include essential fatty acids, carbohydrates, complete proteins, and every known vitamin and mineral. If only unrefined foods are eaten, nutrients still unknown will probably be furnished. Hundreds of thousands of animal experiments have shown that if a single nutrient or any combination of nutrients is omitted, disease is produced. There can no longer be doubt but that people produce illnesses in themselves by selecting diets as faulty as those that cause disease in animals. Yet, provided injury is not irreparable, a diet including all nutrients in ample amounts can restore health. Because this fact has been repeatedly proved beyond question, no person--not even a physician, in my opinion--has the right to impose an inadequate diet on another individual. There are times, of course, when these rules cannot be applied, but during such periods health is being tom down rather than built up.

Cream, butter, whole milk, eggs, and liver supply vitamin A but are often avoided because of calories or cholesterol. Carotene, a substance in yellow and green vegetables and fruits that changes into vitamin A, is not well absorbed unless textures are unusually soft. Thus many individuals obtain too little vitamin A unless their diets are supplemented.

Excessive vitamin A can be toxic and cause such symptoms as thinning hair, sore lips, bruising, nosebleeds, headaches, blurred vision, flaky itching skin, painful joints, and tenderness and swelling over the long bones. These symptoms disappear in a few days after the vitamin is withdrawn or can be completely prevented by generous amounts of vitamin C. Adults who have developed vitamin- A toxicity have usually taken 100,000 to 500,000 units daily for 15 months or longer before any symptoms became noticeable, though they have appeared in two weeks when a volunteer took 1 million units daily.

Because high blood pressure has been repeatedly produced in animals on diets deficient in cholin, 158 patients with dangerous hypertension were studied while being given cholin daily. Of this group, 133 had essential hypertension of unknown origin; and had had hemorrhages in the brain or eyes, three had diabetes, three heart disease, and 19 nephritis. Since each person had been on various medications for a year or longer without improvement, all medication was discontinued before cholin was given.

The force exerted by the blood against the walls of the blood vessels is the blood pressure, and it is similar to the pushing of water against the sides of a garden hose. Decreasing the water in a hose or replacing a small hose with a large one and keeping the amount of water the same reduces the force against the walls, simulating low blood pressure. Conversely, if the amount of water in a hose is increased or a standard hose is replaced by a small one, the pressure against the walls is raised, as in hypertension. In atherosclerosis, arteries normally large enough to slip a little finger into may be so plugged with fatty substances that a match can scarcely be inserted; when most of the arteries are thus clogged, the blood is squeezed into a relatively little space, and the blood pressure naturally becomes high.

If the diet were completely adequate, the painful tongue would heal without our slightest knowledge of niacin amide. When all building materials are supplied to the cells and damage is not irreparable, nature will do the healing, and she cares not one whit if we understand how she does it.

Dozens of diseases formerly considered to be incurable are now readily corrected. The word "incurable," therefore, cannot invariably be defined as incapable of remedy. The method of correction may at present merely be unknown. Because sound nutrition has rarely been tried, its role in rebuilding health in cases of "incurable" illnesses is still a mystery.

The multibillion-dollar refined-food industry has gained such power that it keeps people in ignorance and literally controls the health of our nation. Its relentless radio, television, newspaper, and magazine advertising reaches like the life-crushing tentacles of an octopus into every home. Half the space in our beautiful markets is given to health-destroying products which fill shoppers' baskets to a frightening degree. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers, depending on advertising income from the foodless food industry, have carried articles and syndicated columns--clever mixtures of truth, misinformation, and propaganda--particularly designed to prevent the slightest interest in nutrition from interfering with enormous profits.