Catalogue

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE ON THE CORRELATON BETWEEN LONGEVITY-CANCER FREE HUMAN GROUPINGS AND THEIR DIET AND ENVIRONMENT

What is it about the food and water of this place that makes it special? Fifteen kilometers above Vilcabamba is the continental divide and the highest local peaks. Up there it is almost constantly precipitating in one way or another. All water, including rain water, has some mineralization. Only water distilled in a lab is pure. So, when our rain, drizzle or sleet fall on these mountains it is already carrying some dissolved solids. The ground on the very high ridges of the Andes is covered with thick grass-like plants that grow and die; but since they can't really rot at the temperature up there, they just continue to grow one on top of the other. What this creates is a deep vegetable sponge that filters and mineralizes the water as it passes through. The Andes in this area were covered by glaciers during the last ice-age. These glaciers carved out shallow basins in the rock at about 3,000 meters of elevation. Now, they are lakes and their water have virtually the same mineralization as the river water in the valley below. The kinds of rocks that make up the lower terrains of the Andes are not particularly reactive to H20. So, all the minerals in Vilcabamba water, and the most important ones in the irrigated food chain are coming from a vegetable source. These grasses of the Andean tundra and the forests that grow in wind-protected clefts are feeding on glacier-ground rock particles of an ancient age. Fortunately for Vilcabamba, far below, there are no dikes of precious metals lacing the upper watershed. Otherwise gold miners would have long ago contaminated the high creeks with mercury and other toxic by-products found all over the Andes. In fact, gold is found almost every place else around, besides the Vilcabamba watershed. Also, these highlands are too rough and rocky for agricultural purposes. Therefore nobody's been fertilizing or fumigating up there. No one even lives up that high, since pasture animals cannot survive on this rough grass. Its minerals are balanced, but it has almost no protein. This tundra, cloud-forest area is useless, besides producing the most therapeutic water on the earth's surface.

4. HOPI & NAVAJO INDIANS

The Indians of North America are another people who are remarkably free from cancer. The AMA went as far as conducting a special study in an effort to discover why there was little to no cancer amongst the Hopi and Navajo Indians
.
The February 5, 1949 issue of the journal of the American Medical Association declared that they found 36 cases of malignant cancer from a population of 30,000. In the same population of white persons there would have been about 1800. Dr Krebs research later found that the typical diet for the Navajo and Hopi Indian consisted of nitriloside-rich foods such as Cassava. He calculated that some of the tribes would ingest the equivalent of 8000mg of Vitamin B17 per day from their diet chamisa is rich in rubidium and potassium

The Hunza People From the Himalaya have been closely studied and physicians have confirmed for a long time that “The Hunza has no known incidence of cancer” (Dr Robert McCarrison, AMA Journal, Jan 7, 1922). In addition, “ They live well beyond 100 years old and have commonly been known to still father children at the age of 110”, provided they do not adopt the “sad” model (standard American diet”) and stay in their paradisiacal eco-villages close to Nature: Some of their lifestyle conditions - no pollution, pure and alcalinic water and foods (like for the Hopi whose chamisa is rich in rubidium and potassium), clean ozonated air, rich humus-topsoil, medium mountain altitude, exercises, sun, vegetarianism with lots of apricots (eating the nitriloside-amygdalin rich kernel as well), as seen in the picture above. Similar to the People of Abkhazia in central Euro-asia or the Vilcabambans from the “Sacred Valley” of centenarians in Ecuador, or the Tarahumara of Mexico or even the Cretians and certain French Mediterranean groupings and the Seven Day Adventist (whose cancer incidence is more than 50 percent less than in mainstream society), these people eat a plant-based diet, remain active within a happy rural village structure and live without competitive stress, toxicity overload, inappropriate diet, nor chronic « civilization » dis-ease.

One of the first medical teams to study the Hunza was headed by world-renown British surgeon Dr Robert McCarrison. Writing in the AMA Journal Jan 7, 1922 he suspected that the Hunza diet had something to do with their health. “They have an abundant crop of apricots.These they dry in the sun and use largely in their food". It is interesting to note that the traditional Hunza Diet contains over 200 times more nitriloside (B17 Rich food) than the average American or Australian Diet. There is no such thing as money in Hunza. A mans wealth is measured by the number of apricot trees he owns. And the most prized of all foods was considered to be the apricot seed. It is very common for the Hunza to eat between 30 - 50 (ie. about 30mg of B17) apricot seeds as an after lunch snack. The thousands of seeds they do not eat they store or grind them very finely and then squeezed under pressure to produce a very rich oil used in cooking and to apply to the skin. The apricot is staple food in Hunza. They use the apricot, its seed and the oil for practically everything. In addition to the ever-present apricot, the hunzahuts eat mainly grain and fresh vegetables. These include buckwheat, millet, alfalfa, peas, broad beans, turnips, lettuce, sprouting pulse and berries of various sorts. All of these with the exception of lettuce and turnips contain vitamin B17.
It is also established that when the Hunza leave their secluded land and adopt the menus of other countries, they soon succumb to the same diseases and infirmities including cancer as the rest of man kind.

China Study Shows Need for Eating Plant-Based Diet

By Susan Lang

Americans will not reduce their rate of cancers, cardiovascular disease and other chronic, degenerative diseases until they shift their diets away from animal-based foods to plant-based foods, according to research findings emerging from the most comprehensive project on diet and disease ever done.
Findings from the study suggest that even eating just small amounts of animal-based foods is linked to significantly higher rates of cancers and cardiovascular diseases typically found in the United States, said Cornell nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell, director of the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health and Environment.
Further, he added, merely eating some low-fat foods or complying with current U.S. dietary recommendations is unlikely to prevent much disease. The dietary recommendations, Campbell said, do not go far enough in reducing the total fat content of the diet, or, more to the point, in advocating the exchange of foods of animal origin for foods of plant origin.
"To get really significant changes in disease rates, it will be necessary to shift the American diet from its heavy reliance on animal-based foods to one that relies far more on plant-based foods," said Campbell, who along with his colleagues has been analyzing the data from the the China project, a collaborative effort of Cornell, the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and University of Oxford.
The project, which just received $200,000 from the American Institute for Cancer Research to continue analyzing data, is a massive survey designed to study diet, lifestyle and disease across the far reaches of China; it includes almost 7,000 Chinese families. By investigating simultaneously more diseases and more dietary characteristics than any other study to date, the project has generated the most comprehensive database in the world on the multiple causes of disease.
The diets of rural China are mostly plant based and are, therefore, much lower in fat and animal protein and much higher in fiber than American diets. Chinese diets also go beyond the dietary recommendations now being promoted for long-term health in the United States and other Western countries. As a result, researchers not only could investigate the relationship of diet with disease, but also the worthiness of American dietary recommendations.
They have found, for example, that although chronic degenerative diseases are much more common in the United States than in China, the rates for these diseases are significantly higher in those areas of China where the intake of animal-based foods is higher.
"Whereas current dietary guidelines recommend that no more than 30 percent of calories (from the present 35 to 38 percent) come from fat, data from the China study suggest that reducing fat to about 15 percent of total calories would prevent 80 to 90 percent of chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes before about age 65," said Campbell, also an author of the original 1982 dietary recommendations on cancer prevention by the National Academy of Sciences.
"One of the most significant problems with the American diet is the excessive intake of animal-based foods and the inadequate intake of plant-based foods," said Banoo Parpia, a senior research associate on the project. She said that study after study shows that a diet rich in a variety of high-quality fresh plant-based foods with a minimum of animal-based foods is optimal for long-term health.
Such a diet not only would lower the risk of these Western diseases, but also would save an estimated $120 billion per year in health care costs while reducing the use of the Earth's resources needed for livestock, Campbell pointed out.
In the past two years, Campbell and his colleagues have published more than three dozen studies on their findings, which are partially summarized in two chapters Campbell wrote for the recently published book, Western Diseases: Their Dietary Prevention and Reversibility edited by N. Temple and D. Burkkitt, (Totowa, N. J.: Humana Press, 1994).
Among the new insights and relationships emerging from the Chinese data:

Breast cancer: Women who eat diets rich in animal foods reach menarche earlier, thereby producing more estrogen over their lifetimes and developing breast cancer at a significantly higher rate. In other words, "low-fat, high-fiber diets are linked with lower levels of female hormones and a lower risk for breast cancer," Parpia said.
Osteoporosis: Women who eat diets rich in animal foods excrete more calcium in their urine, providing a negative calcium balance -- a high risk factor for osteoporosis.
Liver Cancer: A primary cause of this cancer is chronic infection with hepatitis B virus, but the mortality rate for this disease is significantly correlated with plasma cholesterol which is correlated, in turn, with the consumption of animal-based foods.
Esophageal cancer: Chinese who eat little fruit have a five to nine times greater risk of developing this cancer than those who eat more fruit (the lowest quartile compared with the highest quartile).
Other cancers: As the consumption of animal-based foods increases and levels of cholesterol in the blood increase accordingly, the risks for eight different cancers go up as well, including colon cancer. Vitamin C emerged as one of the most important factors for a wide range of cancers.

"In the final analysis, we have strong evidence from this and other studies that nutrition becomes the controlling factor in the development of chronic degenerative diseases," Campbell concludes.
"Even small intakes of animal foods, which simultaneously alter the intake of countless nutrients and other constituents, is capable of significantly elevating plasma cholesterol and similar biomarkers, and thereby elevate the risk of degenerative diseases.
"Mere tinkering with our diets by consumption of a few low-fat foods or special nutrient supplements, although possibly useful under some circumstances, will likely only have minimally useful effects and almost certainly will not be a panacea for disease prevention." Rather, he stresses, Americans need to shift to a more plant-based diet.
The typical American diet contains 10 times more animal protein (as percent of calories) than does the typical Chinese diet. The average dietary fat intake in China is 15 percent of calories compared with 38 to 40 percent in the United States. The average consumption of dietary fiber is 33 grams a day in China compared with 10 to 12 grams in the United States.

The China Study:
the Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition
Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications
For Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health
By T. Colin Campbell with Thomas M. Campbell II
Benbella Books, 2005

If T. Colin Campbell were living 500 years ago, he might have been burned at the stake. He would have been denounced as a heretic who dared challenge the prevailing information. Although this is the 21st Century, there are still individuals and groups who relish the thought of burning him at the stake for his views on proper human nutrition.
In the book The China Study Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, and his son Thomas M. Campbell II present information that is a definite challenge to the dairy and beef industries by revealing how dangerous their products are to human health.
What credentials does Campbell possess that give him the credibility to attack these industries that are so prominent in our society? First, he is a professor who has spent 40 years in nutrition research. Second, he was the leader of the China Study, labeled by the New York Times as "the Grand Prix of Human Epidemiology." The study was a combined effort of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.
The study involved 65 counties in 24 different provinces of China. Most of the counties were in rural areas where people lived in the same area all their lives and ate food produced locally. Those living in rural communities and consuming mostly plant protein had fewer chronic diseases that those who lived in communities where more animal protein is available.
In rural China 9 to 10% of total calories comes from protein, yet only 10% of that amount is derived from animal foods. In contrast the American diet features 15 to 16% of calories from protein with 80% of that from animal foods. The rural Chinese were less likely to die from the diseases of affluence (cancer, diabetes, and heart disease) than diseases of poverty (pneumonia, parasitic disease, tuberculosis, diseases associated with pregnancy, and others). Campbell says that diseases of affluence might be more appropriately named "diseases of nutritional extravagance" because they are tied into eating habits.
The dairy industry would definitely like to silence Campbell who has announced results from an earlier study he conducted in the Philippines that showed children consuming high protein diets were most likely to get liver cancer. Included in this high protein diet were milk products.
In previous experiments with rats Campbell was able to show that with a diet of 20% casein (a milk protein) rats developed carcinogenic tumors. Switching the rats to a plant-based diet resulted in a decrease in tumor growth. Switching back to the casein diet brought renewed tumor growth. He was able to conclude that animal-based foods increased tumors while plant-based foods decreased the development of tumors.
Campbell further indicts dairy products showing they are linked to Type 1 diabetes, and breast, prostate and colorectal cancers. Countries with the lowest consumption of dairy products have lower incidences of these diseases.
The data gleaned from these studies led him to conclude that many of the chronic diseases found in society result from human consumption of animal protein. "There is enough evidence now that doctors should be discussing the option of pursuing dietary change as a potential path to cancer prevention and treatment," he writes. "There is enough evidence now that local breast cancer alliances, and prostate cancer institutions, should be discussing the possibility of providing information to Americans everywhere on how a whole foods, plant-based diet may be an incredibly effective anti-cancer medicine."
The book is divided into four major sections: The China Study, Diseases of Affluence, The Good Nutrition Guide, and Why Haven't You Heard This Before.
The Good Nutrition Guide emphasizes his Eight Principles of Food and Health:

Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.
There are no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants.
Genes do not determine diseases on their own. Genes function only by being activated, or expressed, and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed.
Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.
The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages (before diagnosis) can also halt or reverse disease in its later stages (after diagnosis).
Nutrition that is truly beneficial for one chronic disease will support health across the board.
Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence. All parts are interconnected.

The Good Nutrition Guide concludes with a chapter called How to Eat that offers advice on how to transition to a healthy plant-based diet. Featured here is a chart labeled "Eat All You Want (While Getting Lots of Variety) of Any Whole, Unrefined Plant-Based Food." The chart lists specific fruits, vegetables, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, and whole grains. It advises minimizing refined carbohydrates, added vegetable oil, and fish and avoiding meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs.
The last section of the book, "Why Haven't You Heard This Before?" shows how government, science, medicine, corporations, and the media have concentrated on profits instead of health. Together they have created confusing information about nutrition and have stifled and attempted to destroy viewpoints that challenge the status quo.
Campbell relates how he personally was almost expelled from a committee of scientists because he dared to suggest a link between diet and cancer. In discussing the personal consequences for him he writes "In the world of nutrition and health, scientists are not free to pursue their research wherever it leads. Coming to the 'wrong conclusions,' even through first-rate science, can damage your career."
The authors show how the food industry claims nutritional benefits for their products and works diligently to protect their products from being labeled unhealthy or causing disease. By hiring research scientists as experts, the industry uses science to increase the demand for its products. These same scientists may organize workshops, become leaders of scientific groups, choose committee members and thus be in a prominent position to develop public policy and publicity. Campbell refers to this "conflict of interest" that allows industries "to exercise their influence through the side door of academia."
Like Marion Nestle in her book Food Politics, Campbell shows how government has failed to promote health by avoiding statements that certain foods are damaging to health. "But instead of doing this the government is saying that animal products, dairy and meat, refined sugar and fat in your diet are good for you!" Not only is the government failing the people in its reports and pronouncements, it is also failing to promote research in nutrition.
"Big Medicine" is another target for criticism. The medical industry is aware of the research that suggests that chronic diseases of affluence are the result of poor nutrition and yet pays little or no attention to nutrition in the treatment. Campbell cites the work of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. John McDougall who both have had successful results in treating patients through nutrition. Yet both men have experienced rejection from the medical establishment that is focused on surgery and drugs instead of nutrition as standard treatment for chronic diseases.
Instead of burning Campbell at the stake Americans should place T. Colin Campbell on a pedestal and honor him for his 40 years of research and discovery. It's time for the nation to begin to heed his warnings about animal protein and work to change a system that has led to the current health crisis. Campbell, a man of great integrity and scholarship, presents a message that is supported by sound research. The book cites over 750 references, many from primary sources.
Some have already attempted and will continue to try to prevent the message of this book from reaching a wide audience. And yet our society needs people like Campbell who step forward to say we need to change the system in order to safeguard the health of this nation.
The China Study is a book that should be in every home. Instead of buying one copy, purchase another to give to a friend you care about. Better yet, buy a few more to make certain the message reaches a wider audience.
Reviewed April 2005

STILL OTHER STUDIES

"Studies comparing vegetarian to nonvegetaran groups show much less cancer among vegetarians, especially those avoiding dairy products" (Joel Fuhrman, MD, "Fasting and eating for Health"; St Martin's Gfiffin NY, 1995, page 35. Among hundreds of others, the study he is referring to is: Phillips, Garfinkel et al. 'Moratilty among Californian Seventh day adventists for selected cancer sites" (Journal of National Cancer Institute, 1980:65:1097-1107)

"THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE IN THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE THAT WHEN A REDUCTION IN FAT IS COMPARED TO A REDUCTION IN PROTEIN INTAKE, THE PROTEIN EFFECT ON BLOOD CHOLESTEROL IS MORE SIGNIFICANT THAT THE EFFECT OF SATURATED FAT. ANIMAL PROTEIN IS A HYPERCHOLESTEROLEMIC AGENT" (Bernard N et al. April 22, 1994, see "Good Medicine": 1994; 3:11-14 Likewise for cancer, "....all animal food consumption, even fish and chicken, raises the rates of cancer" quoting from Dr Fuhrman (ibid., page 33), who supports this piece of allegation with over twenty years of medical practice and key studies, such as the ones orchestrated by Chen, et al, entitled: "A a study of diet nutrition and disease in the People's Republic of China (1988).

"The committee concluded that nutrition education programs in US medical schools are largely inadequate to meet the present and future demands of the medical profession”. Committee of Nutrition in Medical education, National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Samuel Epstein is professor emeritus of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition (www.preventcancer.com). He has published some 260 peer reviewed articles, and authored or co-authored 10 books. In this testimony, he talks about common "chemo" agents.

First of all, animal and dairy products are highly contaminated with a wide range of pesticides and other industrial, chemical carcinogens. Take meat for instance. Apart from the pesticides and industrial carcinogens, you have the sex hormones. Because cattle in feedlots, 100 days to slaughter, are implanted with sex hormones such as estradiol in their ear, and from which high residues are left in the meat that you eat. These are very important risk factors for reproductive cancers—testicular cancers in men, breast cancers in women, and leukemia in children.
Children love hotdogs. Hotdogs are dyed pink and red with nitrite, and the nitrite reacts with certain amines—chemicals naturally present in food—to produce highly potent carcinogens, known as nitrosamines. We have the chemical data showing that nitrosamines are found in nitrite-dyed hot dogs, and we also have what’s called epidemiological studies on children showing that children who eat nitrite in their dyed hotdogs—which are the standard hotdog—have up to about a three- to four-fold increased incidence of brain cancer, and about a six to seven-fold increase incidence of leukemia. Apart from that, most of the milk in the country is contaminated. It comes from cows that have been injected with a genetically engineered growth hormone to increase their production of milk, and this hormone increases levels of a natural growth factor, known as IGF1. So the milk becomes supercharged by this growth factor, which in high levels has been clearly associated with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer".

AM EDT
Scientists Shed New Light on Aging Process
By Tan Ee Lyn, Reuters

HONG KONG (June 30) - Scientists in Hong Kong have shed new light on why cell repair is less efficient in older people after a breakthrough discovery on premature aging, a rare genetic disease that affects one in four million babies.


	AFP/Getty Images Children with progeria, such as this sister and brother in India, foreground, age at many times the normal rate.

Premature aging, or Hutchison-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (progeria), is obvious in the appearance of a child before it is a year old. Although their mental faculties are normal, they stop growing, lose body fat and suffer from wrinkled skin and hair loss. Like old people, they suffer stiff joints and a buildup of plaque in arteries which can lead to heart disease and stroke. Most die of cardiovascular diseases before they are 20.
In 2003, a team of scientists in the United States found that progeria was caused by mutation in a protein called Lamin A, which lines the nucleus in human cells.
A team at the University of Hong Kong, led by Zhou Zhongjun, took the research a step further in 2004 and found that mutated Lamin A actually disrupted the repair process in cells, thus resulting in accelerated aging.
The study was published in the July issue of the Nature Medicine journal.
Zhou said the team came by their findings after comparing skin cells taken from two progeria sufferers, normal humans, progeria mice and normal mice.
While damaged DNA was quickly repaired in the healthy human and mice cell samples, the samples taken from the progeria humans and mice had difficulty repairing damaged DNA.
"Mutation in this protein (Lamin A) can cause defects in repair and thus lead to progeria," Zhou, a research assistant professor with the biochemistry department at the University of Hong Kong, said in an interview.
"DNA damage is not effectively repaired in cells with defective Lamin A but very efficiently repaired in normal cells."
The study highlights the importance of Lamin A to the repair process, and any mutation to Lamin A that disrupts repair will bring about aging, Zhou said.
Having established the link between Lamin A and repair, Zhou is using major findings from other research he did in 2002 to work on his next project, a product which he hopes could kill cancer cells.
Zhou, Professor Karl Tryggvason in Sweden's Karolinska Institute and a Spanish research group found in 2002 that the enzyme Zmpste 24 was responsible in converting prelamin A to functional Lamin A.
Zhou's laboratory is now developing inhibitors to Zmpste 24, which he hopes to apply to tumors. These inhibitors should theoretically disrupt Lamin A production, thwart the repair function in cancer cells, and bring on their premature aging and death.
"We're now trying to develop inhibitors to Zmpste 24 and apply it to tumor cells," he said.
06-30-05 17:45 EDT

Len Goodman, PhD
Dynamic Chiropractic
November 20, 1995, Volume 13, Issue 24
The Way to Live -- Secrets for High Quality Octogenarianism
In my last column (June 5, 1995 issue of "DC") I speculated that the boom in fitness in America was a myth, that in reality only a small segment of the population really took hold of fitness and permanently changed their lifestyles. Fortuitously, this bold assertion on my part was bolstered by a study which was just published last month.1
The study surveyed over 34,800 U.S. citizens in most of the states. The authors found that though the incidence of inactivity has gradually decreased in many age/race/sex groups, still only one in 10 people are active in strenuous leisure-time activities -- activities intense enough (performed at 70-85 percent of peak oxygen uptake) to elicit all the favorable changes which are health-enhancing.
Another trend one often hears championed is that the current rate of mortality from coronary disease (CAD) has dropped over the past 30 years. But this, many argue, is simply due to improved symptom-based health delivery systems found in all industrialized countries. Stop-gaps like coronary bypass surgery, balloon angioplasty, vasoactive and cholesterol lowering drugs, etc., do not cure CAD. For example, bypass surgery temporarily improves/restores blood flow to the myocardium. Metabolically, the patient still has heart disease. Morbidity from CAD and atherosclerotic diseases is disturbingly high in North America. It still outranks cancer.
This leads to another related question: why do certain cultures still seem to avoid degenerative/occulusive diseases of the circulation, and attain high-quality longevity right into their eighties and nineties? Earlier studies indicated that during the Second World War in Europe, the incidence of CAD decreased. Most site the drastic reduction in food quantity and quality during the war when populations were on rationed diets. Animal studies have also shown conclusively that if you deliberately withhold food (i.e., fat, protein, and carbohydrate) from mice, they live longer than their well-fed control group colleagues. When the Japanese immigrated to the U.S., they did two things: they ate less seafood and vegetables, and they ate more processed high-fat food. They then started to develop CAD at the same rate as North Americans.
Has the incidence of coronary disease decreased in Bosnia? If one were to intrude into this awful world conflict and actually do the epidemiology, I think we'd find the rate had drastically decreased over the last few years.
Several years back, when I was completing my graduate work in Vancouver, I was privileged to be invited to a lecture by Dr. Kenneth Pelletier. Pelletier studied under the famed Hans Selye, who we all know as the individual who gave us our understanding of the stress response and general adaptation syndrome. Many of you now use these theories as adjunct treatment modalities in chiropractic care.
Dr. Pelletier's lecture was captivating and in the theme of cardiovascular disease prevention (it could be arthritis or cancer too), and the concept of facilitating long, healthy lifespans, I will summarize his key points that were put forth that day. They are still highly relevant and provocative today.
He first presented an optimal health continuum, which from memory I will attempt to reproduce here. The scale starts with the standard Western medical approach to treatment of disease disability, symptoms, signs, which were conceived around 1900 and persist today. Pelletier proposes that we must evolve past this to a point where issues (that medicine even now bypasses) become paramount, such as consciousness of stress management. He believes stress is responsible for between 50 and 80 percent of all diseases. Diet and nutrition are next (which has started to make inroads in our health care paradigm), followed by environmental, pyschosocial and physical effects (here he mentions electromagnetic pollution). Next along the continuum are the effects of political and economic factors which affect population health, and finally the last step along the continuum, longevity.
Pelletier then asks what do groups scattered about the world who are known for their outstanding longevity have in common? What set of life situations/conditions do they exhibit which provide the setting where ages above 85, 90 and even 100 years is obtainable?
Five groups were identified who have remarkably similar attributes in common. They are the Georgians and the Arkhazians in the former USSR; the Vilcabunba in Ecuador; the Huza in Pakistan; and the Tarahumara in Mexico. These groups will be expected to live (barring unforeseen natural disasters) well into their nineties and 100s. Tooth particle analysis determination (accurate to +-2 years) was done).
Pelletier outlines the following common parameters and environmental/social conditions imposed upon these people:

semi-mountainous habitat (chronic hypoxia, and acclimatization, physiological adaptations; exercise always just getting around)
impoverished conditions
genetic predisposition (albeit, small influence)
age exaggeration occurs (but it is a key element in their psychology)
dietary: lacto-ovo vegetarians who shun red meat; prolonged caloric restriction (1,800-2,000 per day vs. 3,000-5,000 per day for North Americans); restricted protein intake (40-50 vs. 90-100 grams per day for North Americans); emphasis on legumes, potatoes, grains, leafy vegetables
regular moderate aerobic activity (subsistence farming activity)
moderate alcohol consumption (raised HDLs) -- 40 oz. beer per day, but their pattern of consumption is telling: they drink gradually throughout the day, and combine it with food and socializing
smoking is common, but how they smoke is different: no chemicals in tobacco; native grown; not inhaled; only smoke outdoors
society promotes continued sexual activity well into old age (caloric restriction increases reproductive and sexually-active years). Women are also initiators of sexual relations
"mid-life crisis" -- a nonexistent concept
extended family units vs. nuclear families (North America and Europe)
no possessiveness or jealousy
religious orientation; alive vital universe of a unified functioning entity; not segmented like North America. Respect for higher values
no concept of time urgency
expectation of long life; elders have positions of social status -- are never made to feel useless. Grandparents care for children
autopsy findings: some CAD, but their coronary vessels are large. Those few with CAD go through elder years with largely "silent coronary disease." If they sustain a myocardial infarction, they are small and recovery time is rapid

Clearly, an examination of these common elements explains why we have so far to go in our society in understanding how to go into old age with self-respect, vigor and vitality. Perhaps a greater understanding and appreciation of these concepts practiced for thousands of years, will be recognized in time -- before our health care systems collapse entirely.
Reference
1. Caspersen C.J. et al. Physical activity trends among 26 states, 1986-1990. Medicine Science in Sports and Exercise. 27(5):713-720, 1995.
Len Goodman, PhD
Ontario, Canada

In actual fact, the oldest recorded living human was a French lady Jeanne Louise Calment who died at age 122. The country that has the largest number of persons over the age of 100 is actually Sweden, and the country with the longest average life expectancy is Japan. But since most of the mountain under-developed world has no dependable recording system, it can not be verified who outlives who. However, there have many anecdotal reports, many of which are based on empirical facts, which would indicate that a good number of people have lived over 120 years old.

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( Ernst Krebs, Jr. Presented before CCS Second annual Cancer Convention,
Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California )
It is certainly a pleasure to be here at the Second Annual Convention of the Cancer Control Society-an outgrowth, as you know, of the International Association of Cancer Victims and Friends.
As I look back through the years marketing the emergence of these two fine Societies, I can recall the number of miraculous victories we have had in those intervening years; that it is as true today as it was eleven years ago that Laetrile, Vitamin B17, is the first and last final hope in the prophylacsis in therapy of cancer in man and animals. The reason for this is that Laetrile is a vitamin. It is the 17th of the B vitamins.
We hear a great deal about its use in terminal cancer, but the time to start with vitamin B17 is now before the disease become clinical. The time to start is the same with any matter of adequate nutrition and that is right now. You may start now by commencing to eat the seeds of all common fruits that you eat. The apricot and peach seed contain almost 2 percent of vitamin B17 by weight. The apple seed, although very small, is equally rich in Vitamin B17. So are the seeds of prunes, plums, cherries, and nectarines. The only common fruit on the hemisphere that lacks nitrilosidic seeds, are the citrus fruits. This lack has come about by artificial cultivation by breeding and hybridization, since the seeds of citrus fruits on the African continent still contain Vitamin B17.
Two more rich sources of Vitamin B17 are the simple cereal millet and buckwheat. Macadamia nuts, although expensive and exotic, are very rich in Vitamin B17 and so are bamboo shoots, mung beans, lima beans, butter beans and certain strains of garden peas. But for convenience, the simple source for your Vitamin B17 are the seeds of the common fruit.
We know something about the prophylactic dose of Vitamin B17. For example, we know the Hunza's represent a population that has been cancer free for over 900 years of its existence. This population has a natural diet, which supplies on the average between 50 to 75 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day.
Hunzaland is a land that has sometimes been described as the "place where apricot is king." The Hunzakuts eat the fresh apricots for the three months they are in season and the remainder of the year they eat dried apricots. They never eat a dried apricot without enclosing the seed between them. This supplies them with better than average of 50 to 75 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day.
There are many of us in the Western World who don't ingest this amount of Vitamin B17 in the course of an entire year. As a result we're in the midst of a fulminating deficiency of Vitamin B17 or nitriloside, the anti-neoplastic vitamin. Its absence from our diets accounts for the fact that cancer on our population has reached such a pandemisity as to account for its occurrence in one in every three American families. The occurrence is probably much greater than that because it is very late in its development when the cancer is detected.. Many who develop cancer are killed by accident or intercurrent diseases before the malignant process has become sufficiently advanced to cause them to have it diagnosed.
Cancer is a chronic, metabolic disease...that is obvious. It isn't an infectious disease, which is caused by bacteria of viruses. It is a disease that is metabolic in origin. A metabolic disease is a disease that is linked with our utilization of food. Most metabolic diseases have as their basis specific vitamins and minerals. Let me give you a categorical or axiomatic truth to take with you. One that is totally uncontradictable, scientifically, historically and in every other way. This is that no chronic or metabolic disease in the history of medicines has ever been prevented or cured, except by factors normal to the diet or normal to the animal economy. There have been many erstwhile fatal devastating diseases that now have become virtually unknown. They have been prevented and cured by ingesting the dietary factors and thereby preventing the deficiencies, which accounted for these diseases.
The one in which you are probably most familiar is Scurvy. A fatal disease that killed mankind by the thousands. A disease that would sometimes wipe out an entire Polar expedition or accounted for about 50 percent mortality among the Crusaders. A disease that is totally prevented and totally cured by Vitamin C or ascorbic acid a factor normal to an adequate diet. As you know so well from your school days that Great Britain acquired the dominion of the seas, by empirically discovering that by adding lime or other citrus juices to the provisions of the British mariners the curse of scurvy from the British sea power was removed. Therefore, Britain competitively gained the ascendancy on the seas. Prior to the incorporation of Vitamin C into their diets it wasn't uncommon for three-fourths of the crew to become seriously ill by the end of a voyage and then those who didn't die would mysteriously recover after hitting shore because they would have access to fresh fruits and vegetables rich in Vitamin C.
Then we have Pernicious Anemia, which had a mortality rate of 98 or 99 percent. And no medical modality under the sun could touch it. Arsenic and its salts, strychnine, iron and hundreds of other remedies were tried, but to no avail until the researchers Drs. Murphy, Shipple and Minot commenced their classical studies on the relationship of Pernicious Anemia to dietary deficiency.
While working at the University of California they discovered a very simple remedy for preventing and curing this disease. They simply said to their patients, "go down to your butcher shop and get a quarter pound of fresh liver. Grind it up and take a tablespoon everyday and take the quarter pound and cook it very lightly and just singe the surface and use this as a ration for three days." And when the patients followed this advice without exception, those with Pernicious Anemia made complete recoveries. Despite this these men were censored by the Medical Establishment at the time and were criticized for engaging in what was alleged to be Medical Quackery.
The argument was how can respectable doctors advise people with a disease that has a 99 percent mortality rate to ignore all of the established drugs of medical science and go down to the butcher shop and buy some raw liver and take this and expect this to cure a disease that nothing else had cured. Well, raw liver did cure the disease and raw liver did prevent it.
As the chemistry of raw liver was studied it was discovered that the factors responsible were Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid. So Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid are now a part of our normal dietary experience.
So in 1974, the uninformed, the unimaginative and some of the illiterate are concerned with what to them is a preposterous idea that by eating seed of fruit you can prevent a disease that carries a mortality rate almost as high as that once carried by pernicious Anemia. But scientific truth isn't dependent upon credibility or lack of it. The scientific reality either is or isn't. And this is the scientific reality that the seeds of all common fruits (except citrus)contain Vitamin B17, an anti cancer vitamin. If we ingest proper quantities for these vitamin either in the pure form or through ingesting the nitrilosidic foods we will be able to prevent this decease just as surely as we are able to prevent Scurvy by the use of vitamin C or Pernicious Anemia by the use of vitamin B12.
There was another disease that is a metabolic or chronic nature and this is Pellagra. At one time it was so endemic in certain parts of the world, particularly the American southwest, that there were entire hospitals given to the treatment of Pellagrans.
The great Sir William Osler in his "Principles and Practices of Medicine" written at the turn of this century, said of Pellagra, "I was at Lenoir, North Carolina during one winter and this winter I visited the Lenoir home for the colored insane and there 75 percent of the inmates died from the disease. It ran rampant through this institution and convinced me beyond any doubt that pellagra is a virus that is infectious."
And then came the fine works of the United States Public Health Service Surgeon, Dr. Goldberger, who showed conclusively that the occurrence of Pellagra was related with a deficiency of fresh green material in the diet. So Dr. Goldberger approached this problem first by the use of Brewer's Yeast, which would completely prevent and cure pellagra. Further studies then showed that the factor in Brewer's yeast that was most determinate of this effect was niacin, Vitamin B3.
So another fatal chronic metabolic disease found total resolution and cure through factors normal to the normal diet or the animal economy. We know that cancer is no exception to this great generalization and to date has known no exception. That is that every chronic of metabolic disease that will ever be controlled by man, must be controlled by means that are a part of the biological experience of the organism. Chronic and metabolic diseases can never be controlled, prevented or cured by factors foreign to the biological experience of the organism.
Let's make it clear by what we mean by biological experience to the organism.We refer to the experience the of the organism has had over the million years of its evolution. The organism was exposed to water, air, carbohydrates, fats, amino acids and various salts and these factors became integrated with the evolving organism. And the evolving organism became integrated with these factors. And these factors with the evolving organism were incorporated into the beautiful machinery of "life." And the vital mechanism of life runs just like the parts of a fine Swiss watch only infinitely more complex.
Dr. Thomas of the Sloan Kettering Institute in a recent article in Science said, "I'm thankful that my liver works without my knowledge. I do not have the brains to commence to do one millionth of what my liver does. These things are automatic . So I swallow the food and this infinitely complex machinery takes care of itself. "We could spend years telling you about this magnificent machinery and we still wouldn't touch the surface of this infinite ocean. We do know that there is nothing that we can do to improve upon it. We do know that in the history of medicine there never had been found anything foreign to the indwelling requirements of this machinery that will do the living organism any good. And we can go further to say there has never in the history of medicine been found anything foreign to the indwelling machinery of this infinitely complex system that will not harm the organism. There isn't such a thing as a factor foreign to the biological experience that is not harmful to the organism.
There is nothing we can add to our air water and food to improve it. The most we can do is to look at some of our devitalized food and hopefully attempt to replace that which was capriciously removed from it in the process of food refining, manipulation or cooking. There is absolutely nothing that we can add to that food to improve it. These things are basic.
There isn't any chemical or drug that medical science could suggest that would make us healthier or better adjusted or wiser or give us hope for a longer life. There isn't a single drug or molecule in nature that can unless that molecule exists in normal food. And this probably explains one of the reasons why there is so much resistance to Laetrile, B17
The application of this science brings us face to face with a lot of things we do not like to face. We have become over-civilized. We are inclined in out delusory thinking to feel that here and there there must be a magic out. That there must be a simple way, a short cut, that somehow or other medical science or some other man-made forces beyond our comprehension will do for us those things we must do for ourselves. And it is slowly dawning on us, perhaps too slowly that this thinking is fraudulent; that it is unsound.
It isn't in the field of cancer alone where we see this form of charlatanism or quackery. We see it in the area of the human mind. The futile attempts to spare man from the realities that surround him. Above all to spare him from the fact that he is accountable to himself and to his God and that there is no short cut in this accountability.
It's real at the physical level. And when we are eating less than adequate food, we know better, And when we continue we are engaged in sin, this is the basis for practically all of our physical and mental and spiritual difficulties. We had better be realistic about it. We have them because we don't do the right things. And when we fail in view of our knowledge now to take Vitamin B17 this is a sin against our physical nature. And when we develop cancer we will receive the results of this transgression in the old fashion Biblical sense that the "wages of sin are death."
If you are not getting Vitamin B17 in your food the best way to get it is in the pure form. If you have cancer, the most important single consideration is to get the maximum amount of Vitamin B17 into your body in the shortest period of time. This is secondary to the medical skill involved in administering it, which is relatively minimal. Then very often there are many supportive measures that are taken in the management of the cancer patient such as the use of materials to build up the blood, to raise or lower the blood pressure or to relieve the pain.
Pancreatic enzymes and vegetable enzymes are part of the supportive theory. You have the papaya melons as the source of the enzyme Papain and pineapple as a source of the enzyme Bromelain.
The demasking effect of these enzymes against the pericellular layer of the malignant cell is something very concrete in the immunology of cancer. Now I prefer, rather than advising the use of bromelain or papaya tablets that the individual seeking these enzymes get them directly from the fresh ripe pineapple and papaya fruit. As much as half a pineapple a day should be ingested. This is the way to go. You have nothing to lose by eating fresh pineapple and papaya melons. Nothing to lose by eating millet, the seeds of all the common fruits and whole fresh foods.
Dietary deficiencies arrive primarily from eating less than whole food. This is why the Federal and State governments have made mandatory the artificial enrichment of white flour. Look at any loaf of white bread or white flour that has been enriched by the addition of crystalline Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, niacin, iron and all the rest. What a commentary on the stupidity of our civilization that we put good food through a process that defects it of its essential nutrients and then enforced by the Government mandate requirements that say that we must restore to this food some of the things that have been processed out. One of the most critical factors is removed and that is wheat germ, which contains the Vitamin E and the poly unsaturated fatty acids. it would not be necessary to take it in supplementation if our foods were not manipulated in a way to remove this.
Now something about supplementation's in addition to the Vitamin B17. We can't think in terms of just one vitamin. We get an adequate diet by eating as wide a variety of whole natural foods as possible and as close to their growing period as we can possibly obtain them.
There are laetrile therapists who recommend two or three grams of ascorbic acid or Vitamin C in conjunction with the Laetrile program. This is a very moderate recommendation and we can all take up to seven or eight grams of Vitamin C without any problems. This is about the same amount as the higher primates such as the gorilla on a pound to pound basis ingest between five to six grams of Vitamin C a day in their normal habitat. Incidentally, the gorilla in its natural habitat eats about 100 to 125 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day, too. Like the population of Hunzaland, these gorillas are free of cancer, so are bears in their normal habitat. out in the wilds they don't develop cancer.
In the San Diego Zoo there was a cage of about ten bears and out of the ten, seven of them developed cancer. To some this was a sign that some mysterious bear cancer virus was loose. but, it wasn't that at all. In the wild state the bears are omnivores and they eat a lot of wild nitrilosidic berries. Almost all wild fruits are nitrilosidic.
Keep in mind how far we have drifted from the dietary requirements of the machinery that we now possess. When we evolved and came to our maturity as organisms about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago the world witnessed the advent of agriculture and horticulture came a little later. The millions of years prior to that time we ate the cherries, apricots, apples, prunes and the rest of the fruits. They had Vitamin B17 not only within the seeds, but in the flesh, too. Today only wild fruit contain the Vitamin B17, but in the process of hybridization it has been removed. The fruit that we eat today is the product of years of manipulation and cultivation for lushness and abundance and so forth, so the meat to that fruit is free of Vitamin B17. To meet our indwelling needs of Vitamin B17 we must either eat the fruit seed in reasonable quantity or begin supplementing our diet with Vitamin B17 tablets. We can't of course, do that at present, but we hope to see before very long Vitamin B17 available so that we can prevent cancer in the same way we prevent scurvy.
Several new books are coming out on Laetrile. Both are written by non-medical men - World Without Cancer by Edward Griffin and Vitamin B17: Forbidden Weapon Against Cancer by Mike Culbert. We are all laymen in he field of cancer. There are more laymen in the Laetrile movement who know more about cancer than some of our most prestigious experts in our most prestigious institutions. These laymen know enough about it to keep alive and not die from it. So you're a pretty rotten expert if you know so little about it as to succumb from it or have your family succumb from it.
We have many case histories of people that have been helped by Laetrile. Both Alicia Buttons and Mary Henderson were terminal with oral pharyngeal cancer that has a mortality rate of 98-99 percent even in early diagnosis. Both made remarkable recoveries with Laetrile under the guidance of Dr. Hans Nieper in Germany.
You know we have been meeting ten or eleven years and you've been hearing this story. Each time after the meeting you had 360 days to go home and read newspapers, American Cancer Society Boiler Plate and so forth. In those ten years they haven't told you anything against Laetrile that makes any sense. You can be pretty sure they don't have anything against Laetrile because these people are very uninhibited and the area in which they are most uninhibited is in the area of simple lying. If you have any questions about Laetrile, the more critical the better because we are dealing with solid science. We are dealing with a science that admits that there is no rational alternative in the ten years that have past since these meetings. Nothing has come about to do anything except to make more obvious the fact that Laetrile, Vitamin B17 is the answer to cancer.
Question and Answer Period
Q. Will cooking millet destroy the Vitamin B17?
A. No, cooking doesn't destroy the Vitamin B17. Almost every food that we eat is better eaten raw. And when we cook a fruit we destroy the enzymes and wherever we have Vitamin B17 we have the accompanying enzyme B-glucosidase naturally. B-glucosidase is destroyed by heat, but Vitamin b17 is not destroyed by heat.
Q. Is there any way in which a person may be deficient in the enzyme rhodanese?
A. The enzyme rhodanese is a normally occurring enzyme that converts cyanide to the non-toxic compound neocyanate and we evolved with the Rhodes because the Vitamin B17 containing cyanide originally was so large a part of our diet. So far as we know there is no development of rhodanese deficiencies.
We must be very realistic that there is absolutely nothing we can do to alter this infinitely complex machinery of the cell and of life. All that we can do is to supply those components that are missing and then hope for the best. It's like being on the freeway with a Cadillac in which the hood is locked and you run out of gas. Now all your knowledge of mechanics are going to be of no avail just pour gas in to the tank and step on the starter and hope for the best that the gas gets sucked into the motor. When the machinery of the cell begins to falter or fail you put in those factors normal to the operation of that machinery. Since we have no choice we allow the universe to take its course. We don't go on the presumption that we can successfully tamper with that infinite machinery.
Q. Do you believe that we should take the Wobenzym enzymes along with the Laetrile?
A. Yes, they are good, except I think they are slightly overpriced and I strongly recommend the American Viokase put out by Viobin in Minticello, Illinois.
Q. Is Laetrile a prescription item in Mexico or Canada?
A. I know that it is legal in Mexico, but I don't know the exact situation in Canada at the moment. You may get it without a prescription in Mexico.
Q. If you get the benefits from the seeds of fruits for prevention, why is it necessary to take the more concentrated forms?
A. Like everything else in science, it is self-answering. It isn't necessary, so eat the seeds and you can get an adequacy of Vitamin B17.
Q. The fact that cancer is a metabolic disease, what role does pollution have in that process?
A. Pollutants harm the liver and the liver is a great detoxifying organ of the body. If the liver is detoxifying an excess of estrogen, for example, and capacity of the liver is impaired by pollutants, the estrogen level then may reach a concentration sufficient to induce cancer. If we are eating apples that have been sprayed with arsenic and we eat enough of these apples, the arsenic may produce a hepatic chirrosis that again will impair the capacity of the liver to detoxify certain carcinogens and thereby contribute to the development of cancer. If we are receiving a very high concentrating of Vitamin B17 this will offset the possibility of developing cancer, but these pollutants still can kill us through producing chirrosis of the liver and destroying other vital cells.
Q. Can the body handle inorganic Vitamin C?
A. The Vitamin C on the market is organic and contrary to some opinion, it is not synthetic. The Vitamin C that is produced in this country is produced by fermentation involving the growth of the mold Streptomycetes. So it is a biosynthetic process. This is the cheapest and most efficient way to do it, although this is not a "complex."
Q. How many seeds should we eat?
A. I would say that 15 seeds every other day would provide an adequacy and give quite a margin.
Q. If we are supposed to eat seeds, why aren't we supplied with teeth for breaking through the shell?
A. There are societies that have not become too corrupted by the sophistications of modern technology. These people are capable of biting through the shell. We have even seen small dogs break the shell and eat the seeds. Squirrels, chipmunks, bears, higher primates such as monkeys ordinarily do it.
Curators of zoos tell us when monkeys and apes are thrown fresh apricots, peaches and plums, in time, if they are thrown enough of them, they cease eating the sweet sugary fruit and they begin hoarding the pits. they manage to break open those pits. Primates will take them in hand and hammer them against a piece of concrete. Eating these seeds is universal among the nomads and among the higher animals.
Q. How do you keep the seeds once they are out of the pit?
A. You may keep the seeds indefinitely if you keep them thermatically sealed under refrigeration. If you don't keep them thermatically sealed, at least keep them under refrigeration. The Vitamin B17 won't deteriorate, but the unsaturated fatty acids will turn rancid and become carcinogenic.
Q. Does Vitamin B17 help sickle Cell Anemia?
A. A lot of fine work is being done on this. Robert Houston has done some very brilliant studies along these lines and he has published several top-rate papers. Sickle Cell anemia crises is the result of a fulminating deficiency of Vitamin B17 and it occurs in Americans of African origin, who upon leaving the African continent become removed from a dietary source of vitamin B17. Sickle Cell crisis is a Vitamin B17 deficiency disease in the same way that Pernicious Anemia is a Vitamin B12, Folic Acid deficiency disease.
Q. Do almonds contain cyanide?
A. The Romans found that here and there almond trees appeared which had almonds that were completely sweet and no longer had any trace of bitterness. That bitterness is due to the presence of Vitamin B17. So they proceeded to destroy all of the almond trees that had any trace of bitterness and propagated those almond trees that just yielded the sweet kernels. so those almonds that have come to us in the Western World are very rich in the enzyme B-glucosidase, but deficient in Vitamin B17. On the other hand the eastern part of the world, such as the Ukraine, Soviet Union, Turkey and Red China, have predominately the original bitter almond, very rich in Vitamin B17
Q. Is it o. k. to eat all the legumes raw?
A. No, it isn't. It is good to cook most beans. The cooking doesn't destroy the Vitamin B17 content. Although beans eaten raw in small quantities are quite acceptable as food.
Q. Is it best to take all 15 apricot kernels at once?
A. Yes. I should add that it is a good idea to grind them up in a nut grinder. One teaspoon of the material is equivalent to seven of eight seeds. Take two teaspoonfuls and lace a fruit salad or oatmeal or whatever you are eating. You can incorporate it into muffins or use it a hundred different ways. You can take it straight or you can eat it and then follow it with a little honey because of the persisting bitterness. BUT only grind the amount that you intend to eat immediately.
Q. Are the broad beans or visa fava high in cyanide?
A. Yes, they are splendid. It was one of the staples in the diet of the Roman legions. The legionnaires not only ate broad beans. but they fed them to their horses. This made for a very vigorous infantry in Calvary. Visa fava are also known as Italian beans or flat beans.
Q. Is Vitamin B17 helpful against devastating effects of excessive quantities of environmental or medical radiation?
A. No, and the reason for it is a very common sense one. In all of the exigencies of our evolution and natural selection, the presence of radiation in such horrible concentrations was never anticipated. The organism may be beset with such onslaught and there are no mechanisms including Vitamin B17 to medicate the deadly effects of such excess radiation. This is one of the most horrible assaults on living tissues. The most horrible assaults that living tissue can sustain, because it destroys not only the individual of one generation, but it may cripple, if not extinguish the immortal germ plasma, on which the continuity of the species itself relies.
From a mountaintop land where cancer and heart disease are unknown, come some down-to-earth ideas about eating for health.
Death Rides a Slow Bus in Hunza by Jane Kinderlehrer
How would you like to live in a land where cancer has not yet been invented? A land where an optometrist discovers to his amazement that everyone has perfect 20-20 vision? A land where cardiologists cannot find a single trace of coronary heart disease? How would you like to live in a land where no one ever gets ulcers, appendicitis or gout? A land where men of 80 and 90 father children, and there's nothing unusual about men and women enjoying vigorous life at the age of 100 or 120?
We see a lot of hands going up. Fine. But first, you have to answer a few more questions before setting out for a place called Hunza, a tiny country hidden in the mountain passes of northwest Pakistan.
Are you willing to live 20,000 feet up in the mountains, almost completely out of touch with the rest of the world? Are you ready to go outside in every kind of weather to tend your small mountainside garden, while keeping your ears open for an impending avalanche? Are you prepared to give up not only every luxury of civilization, but even reading and writing?
We see a lot of hands going down. But if you want the benefits of the pure air that whips by the icy cathedrals of the Himalayan Mountains, the pure water that trickles down from glaciers formed at 25,000 feet, and the mental and spiritual peace that comes from living in a land where there is no crime, taxes, social striving or generation gaps, no banks or stores-in fact,-no money- where are you going to find it outside of Hunza?
But don't give up! Not yet, because there is still one more question to be answered. That is: Are you prepared to eat the kind of food the Hunzas eat? If you are, then you can rightfully expect to give yourself at lease some measure of the super health and resistance to degenerative disease which the Hunzakuts have enjoyed for 2,000 years.
What kind of exotic, ill-tasting grub do these Hunza people eat, you are wondering. Strange as it may sound, virtually everything the Hunzakuts eat is delectable to the western palate, and is readily available in the United States-at least if you shopping horizons do not begin and end at the supermarket.
Not only is the Hunza diet not exotic, but there's really nothing terribly mysterious about its health-promoting qualities, Everything we know about food and health, gathered both from clinical studies and the observation of scientists who have traveled throughout the world observing dietary practices and their relationship to health, tells us that it is to be expected that the Hunza diet will go a long way towards improving the total health of anyone, anywhere. The Hunza story is only on of the more dramatic examples of the miraculous health produced by a diet of fresh, natural unprocessed and unadulterated food.
All systems "Go" At 20,000 Feet. Maybe you're wondering: are the Hunzas really all that healthy? That was the question on the mind of cardiologists Dr. Paul D. White and Dr. Edward G. Toomey, who made the difficult trip up the mountain paths to Hunza, toting along with them a portable, battery-operated electrocardiograph. In the American Heart Journal for December, 1964, the doctors say they used the equipment to study 25 Hunza men, who were, "on fairly good evidence, between 90 and 110 years old." Blood pressure and cholesterol levels were also tested. They reported that not one of these men showed a single sign of coronary heart disease, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
An optometrist, Dr. Allen E. Banik, also made the journey to Hunza to see for himself if the people were as healthy as they were reputed to be, and published his report on Hunza Land (Whitehorn Publishing Co., 1960). "It wasn't long before I discovered that everything that I had read about perpetual life and health in this tiny country is true, "Dr. Banik declared. "I examined the eyes of some of Hunza's oldest citizens and found them to be perfect."
Beyond more freedom from disease, many observers have been startled by the positive side of Hunza health. Dr. Banik, for example, relates that "many Hunza people are so strong that in the winter they exercise by breaking holes in the ice-covered streams and take a swim down under the ice." Other interpit visitors who have been there report their amazement at seeing men 80,90,and 100 years old repairing the always- crumbling rocky roads,and lifting large stones and boulders to repair the retaining walls around their terrace gardens. The oldsters think nothing of playing a competitive game of volleyball in the hot sun against men 50 years their junior, and even take part in wild games of polo that are so violent they would make an ice hockey fan shudder.
End of Presentation

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