Ever since humans began to settle in villages, towns, and cities they have been confronted by social, technical and health problems, but no sooner has one set of problems been solved than another set has been identified. During the nineteenth century the identification of pathogenic microbes led to investments in sewerage disposal, better hygiene and the development of vaccines, which led to improvements in public health. After the Second World War the methods of food production and distribution underwent extensive changes at the same time as most urban dwellers were losing touch with their rural origins. Many families have since lost the ability to produce their own food and it is increasingly being discovered that the microwave oven makes cooking skills unnecessary. The ability to distinguish between eating and drinking what is needed to remain healthy, and eating and drinking for personal gratification has become blurred.

Many of the scientists who lived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a rural background, which was reflected in their approach to their work. But most of today’s scientists have urban backgrounds with the consequence that they are without the instinctive knowledge and wisdom, which is desirable if incisive research into biological problems is to be done. Moreover, as machinery has replaced manpower on farms and industrial methods have been applied to food processing and distribution, the quality of food has been changed.

The traditional farmer-butchers who reared and slaughtered their own livestock have been replaced by massive abattoirs and similar fates have been suffered by small-scale millers and bakers. Dairy cattle, instead of being in small herds of no more than 50 or 60 cows, are now frequently found in herds of between one and two hundreds. During the winter these cows are often housed in poorly lit buildings and during the summer grazed upon intensively fertilised grassland. Their milk is pastured and homogenised before it reaches consumers. Many changes have been beneficial, but the changes in the quality of food and its effects upon public health have never been adequately measured and recorded. No one knows whether the milk being sold to consumers is as nutritious as that produced before the Second World War by healthy cows and using traditional methods.

The introduction of the National Health Service should have been followed a few decades later by a decrease in demands for its services. Instead, despite increases in life expectancy, the demands for more comprehensive and more costly services are never ending. Diseases such as asthma, type 2 diabetes, obesity and mental depression which were once of minimal significance are today relatively common. While the NHS is moderately successful in keeping people alive it is less successful at restoring the sick to robust good health. The explanation for the presence of this situation may be that the commonest illnesses are no longer caused by pathogens but poor nutrition and are mostly treated with drugs rather than with mineral and vitamin supplements. Drugs commonly produce adverse side effects and it remains to be understood by the public that even the best medicinal drugs cannot ever replace the actions of a particular mineral or vitamin.

Large sections of the public now know that their food contains carbohydrate, fat and protein but are ignorant of the importance of minerals and vitamins for sustaining good health. One explanation for this is that the education system has failed at all levels; another explanation is that it has been perceived by manufacturers that the sale of medicinal drugs has a greater potential for profit than the sale of minerals and vitamins. The reality is that medicinal drugs are not just more expensive but less effective than minerals and vitamins when they are used to treat long-term conditions induced by consumption of low quality food.

A massive amount is known about the biochemical effects produced by a particular mineral or vitamin but it is not being drawn upon by those who teach doctors.

Leaflets should be available in every surgery and hospital department, advising patients how to improve their health with nutritional supplements. Most vitamins are adequately supplied by a diet containing recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables and the risk of contracting a debilitating disease is significantly increased by not following this advice. Most mammals are able to synthesise their own vitamin C from glucose but primates can no longer do so.  Humans are therefore especially susceptible to deficiency of this vitamin. Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize winner, discovered that a high intake of vitamin C protects the arteries against deposition of cholesterol and formation of atherosclerotic plaque. Medicinal amounts of vitamin C can dissolve the atherosclerotic plaque and therefore could probably greatly decrease the incidence of strokes as well as the need for heart-by-pass operations. Vitamin D supplementation would also be beneficial during winter as it is only formed when the cholesterol in our skin is irradiated by ultra violet light.

Our bodies contain many different minerals, but most of these are supplied by even bad diets. Osteoarthritis blights the lives of many but Rex Newham has observed that it is not a problem for those who live near hot springs and have an adequate intake of boron. Low intakes of zinc can adversely affect many processes, especially the functioning of the prostate gland, and iron deficiency commonly causes anaemia in women. These apart, perhaps the most common mineral deficiency in the UK at the present time is that of selenium. A molecule of thyroxine contains four atoms of iodine and the enzyme that activates thyroxine by removing one of these atoms contains selenium. Thus, a deficiency of either iodine or selenium can be responsible for causing one or more of the disease conditions caused by hypothyroidism. Iodine deficiency has long been endemic in certain parts of the UK and does not always manifest itself as goitre. Most nations protect their citizens by legislation making it necessary for iodine to be added to salt, but this is not done in the UK. 

Selenium deficiency does not seem to have been a problem in this country as long as high selenium Canadian wheat was being imported, but since this source was closed and intensively grown European wheat used instead, the incidence of selenium deficiency has increased. It is unlikely that the increases in the incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, which have followed the replacement of Canadian wheat in our diets has been a coincidence. Selenium deficiency is a recognised problem in many countries; in Finland it has been added to agricultural fertiliser and is believed to have been a significant factor in improving health. In Scotland attempts have been made to follow the Finnish example, but inexplicably nothing has been done to increase the selenium status of common foods. Over a long period of time public health in Scotland had always declined whenever a particular community has decreased its consumption of seafood or food fertilised by seaweed. The explanation for this is that seafood is a good source of selenium and other essential minerals.

The reason why thyroid hormones are so important is that the availability of the activated form of thyroxin governs our ability to transform the food we eat into energy through its ability to control the basic rate of metabolic activity. When this falls below optimum many essential functions become adversely affected.

For instance, we can suffer from a combination of cold feet, indigestion, hypercholesterolaemia, hyperglycaemia and obesity. Of all the tissues in our bodies the brain needs the most energy per unit of weight so that our behaviour changes when we become afflicted by the hypothyroid syndrome. Acute symptoms include seasonal affective disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and manic depression. A good selenium status also provides the best protection against intestinal disorders and infection of the airways.

Arguably the 1918 influenza epidemic was so severe because the German blockade had been effective in preventing the importation of Canadian wheat and the general level of nutrition had become unsatisfactory. Today, increasing numbers of children are being born to mothers who are suffering from undiagnosed hypothyroidism. It is consequently unsurprising that these unfortunate children suffer from a list of disorders as they get older which includes food intolerances, asthma, obesity, hyperactivity or depression according to their genetics, their diet and their environment. These problems are commonly alleviated but not cured by the use of medicinal drugs and some may be made briefly more tolerable by resource to alcohol or recreational drugs. 

At present the public is being assaulted by a plethora about how to make good choices when purchasing food. Unfortunately, this advice is of little help when an essential mineral or vitamin is absent or poorly supplied in most common foods. What is required is for certain common foods to be grown, or to be supplemented during manufacture, in a manner which ensures that together they supply sufficient of all the components needed for the maintenance of good health. This is not a new idea, nor is it mass medication. It should be done so that all minerals and vitamins that are normally present in fresh food grown in soil which has not been over exploited for decades or even centuries by intensive farming are replaced. It has long been accepted that crops should be fertilised with artifical fertilisers containing only nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium so it is illogical to argue that it is wrong to add to these fertilisers small amounts of minerals that are no longer readily available in many soils. Agricultural practices that once increased the amounts of boron, copper and iodine in our food have been discontinued, but the addition of calcium and iron together with vitamins B1 and B3 to our bread has long been the practice since legislation in 1984. In the USA folic acid is added to bread so it is welcome news that at last there are plans to do the same here. Plans should also be advanced to legislate for iodine to be added to common salt and for selenium to be added to fertilisers

The thrust of research into common disease needs to be redirected, so more funds become available for research into the beneficial effects obtainable by supplementing common foods with a mineral or a vitamin. This is probably the most cost effective way to decrease incidence of many common ailments. At present most of those who have the responsibility for the allotment of research grants have little or no interest in nutrition and therefore finance other research products. As the result of this fundamental bias the medical profession are being deprived of essential information they need if they are to be fully effective. Government funds need to be ring-fenced to be used for research into use of minerals and vitamins for preventing and treating disease. Otherwise absenteeism will increase and the cost of maintaining the nation’s health will swallow up an even more disproportionate amount of national income than at present.

Click here for more articles by Tom Stockdale

First Published in 2009

Click here for LINKS to manufacturers of nutrition and food supplements.

Back to top