There are so many of them-the people who do not feel well. The statistics of illness in the United States are too depressing to examine for long: 40 million with allergies; 17 million with ulcers; 10 million with arthritis, and so many millions whose jagged nerves have driven them to using tranquilizers or whose exhaustion has prompted the taking of pep pills that addictions to barbiturates and amphetamines have mounted into the hundreds of thousands.

Statistics of the most rapidly increasing illnesses—heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and strokes-change too quickly to be accurate.

Nutritional research is being carried on at an unprecedented rate in almost every medical school, university, and pharmaceutical laboratory throughout the world. About 6,000 original scientific studies in nutrition are published annually and summarized in Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews. Thus the knowledge of how to build health through nutrition becomes greater each year. Such research has but one ultimate purpose: to alleviate the suffering of mankind. Until the findings of these investigators are known and applied, this goal cannot be reached, and the energies of numerous brilliant scientists are largely wasted. There is much still to be learned, but that is no argument against applying what is known.

This vast amount of research deals with 40 nutrients which cannot be made in the body: 1 essential fatty acid, 15 vitamins, 14 minerals, and 10 amino acids. Collectively these 40 nutrients are spoken of as body requirements. From them our bodies synthesize an estimated 10,000 different compounds essential to the maintenance of health. Already known are some 3,000 compounds, most of them vitamin containing enzymes and coenzymes which, stimulated by minerals, carry on the work of the cells. All 40 nutrients work together; therefore a lack of anyone might result in the underproduction of hundreds of these essential compounds. For instance, substance A, a raw material from digested food, might be changed to B, B to C, C to D, D to E, and so on, each step requiring a series of minerals, vitamins, and amino acids from digested proteins. If a deficiency makes it impossible for substance C to be changed into D, the essential compounds D and E would be lacking and so much substance C might accumulate that it could become toxic. Examples of disease produced in this manner are cited later; and, while not easily remembered, they can be understood. I am all too aware, however, that the omission of certain difficult-to-comprehend details may result in a loss of accuracy.

Probably no one nutrient is ever totally lacking from an otherwise adequate diet, but partial simultaneous deficiencies of many nutrients are common. Research shows that diseases of almost every variety can be produced by an undersupply of various combinations of nutrients. Just as 52 cards can be dealt into thousands of bridge hands, no two alike so can various combinations of partial deficiencies result in hundreds of diseases having different symptoms. The combined number of multiple deficiencies and the mildness or severity of each determine whether one disease or another will be produced. The missing nutrients which allow illnesses to develop have been discarded in processing and refining foods.

Research shows that diseases produced by combinations of deficiencies can be corrected when all nutrients are supplied, provided irreparable damage has not been done; and, still better, that these diseases can be prevented. Because information gleaned from hundreds of medical and nutrition journals can do much to prevent future illness, it is my greatest hope that persons will read this book in its entirety even though they are not interested in each disease discussed.

Nutrition is not concerned with disease, but is a study of building and maintaining health. It is essentially the same regardless of what illness may have occurred. For example, a woman for whom I had planned a diet to stimulate breast milk wrote me that when her husband's eczema had not improved after numerous ointments had been used, he had adhered to her diet. In his case, the diet failed in the purpose for which it was planned, but the eczema quickly disappeared.

It can scarcely be overemphasized that nutrition is never competitive with the practice of medicine, but is an aid to both the physician and the patient. To eat wisely is different indeed from the home treatment of disease. Because medical attention is postponed, self-doctoring can be extremely dangerous. Many a home-treated "touch of indigestion" has proved to be stomach cancer, coronary disease, or a burst appendix, arid has resulted in death because a physician was not consulted soon enough. When any abnormality occurs, two steps should be taken: one should improve his nutrition, and consult a physician. Because cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses can be treated successfully if discovered in time, a yearly physical examination has become more important now than ever before.

If a doctor recommends a diet, it should be carefully followed; he alone understands a particular case. Nutrition can often be improved, however, within the framework of any diet. A doctor may specify that bread be eaten daily but allow the patient to select a whole-grain or a refined variety. Or he may merely suggest that one eat a "well- balanced" diet. It is for individuals who have been given such advice that this book has been written.

Often physicians themselves are upset by their lack of training in nutrition. It is literally impossible for a busy physician to keep abreast of new research on drugs, viruses, antibiotics, treatments, surgery, medical procedures, and laboratory techniques. The National Library of Medicine estimates that 200,000 articles are published annually on drugs alone. A doctor attempting to keep up on all subjects related to medicine would not have time to pull a stethoscope from his pocket. Is it not grossly unfair to expect him to be an expert on nutrition?

Physicians have long worked co-operatively with hospital dietitians, and a few medical groups retain dietary consultants. Many physicians are doing outstanding research on one aspect or another of nutrition.

People adhere to an adequate diet in proportion to their understanding of what foods have to offer them. An individual who has ignored nutrition will often follow a diet with fanatical zeal after obtaining a knowledge of the subject. It must be understood, however, that the descriptions of diseases in the following chapters, given only to show the relation of nutrition to the rebuilding process, are superficial indeed and are by no means intended to be comprehensive in the medical sense.

Building health through nutrition requires putting it into practice, which is often far from easy. How completely a person adheres to a nutrition program and hence how quickly he regains his health-provided irreparable damage or genetic malfunction does not exist-depends upon his determination, his will to live, and his ability to see rainbows through the rain. Every physician has seen patients miraculously recover from what appeared to be a terminal illness and others die seemingly with little cause. For some people, illness is a way of life,14 an attempt to overcome early emotional deprivations. The vast majority of sick persons, however, if given a ray of hope, will make every effort to recover. These people recovered because nutrition actually works; and it was they, not , who ate the foods that helped them get well.

It is important to realize that rebuilding health through nutrition is essentially a slow process; rarely are results as quick and dramatic as is stopping an infection with antibiotics. Yet studies in which nutrients have been made radioactive, marking them so they can be traced and observed, indicate that the entire body can be rebuilt much more rapidly than was formerly believed. For instance, calcium taken in food can be deposited in a fractured bone within half an hour .

Even the best nutrition can help to restore health only when a lack of nutrients has been a contributory cause of illness. Some physicians estimate that as much as go per cent of sickness today is partly emotional in origin. Sound nutrition may help an individual to cope with emotional problems, but food cannot make a rejected person feel loved or one who undervalues himself feel worthy. It is largely because of feelings about foods and about oneself that few persons adhere to an adequate diet.

Although such abnormalities as ulcers, arthritis, allergies, and colitis, to name only a few, are undoubtedly often psychosomatic in origin, it is usually the combination of faulty nutrition and emotional problems that causes illness. In overcoming many diseases the best results can be obtained by combining adequate nutrition with good psychotherapy.

People too frequently try to correct an illness unrecognized as being emotionally induced by enthusiastically improving their nutrition, and because the disease persists, feel that nutrition has little or no value. We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.