Variations In Nutritional Requirements

Mild abnormalities may call for only a few dietary improvements, but serious illness, when stresses are piled upon stresses, causes the nutritional requirements of the entire body as well as of the pituitary and adrenal glands to be increased. Any deficiency becomes worse in proportion to the number, kind, and intensity of stresses. Often such large quantities of vitamin A are excreted in the urine that any amount stored is quickly exhausted. Severe stress also causes the "non-essential" amino acids-those normally made in the body-to become essential because the body cannot produce them rapidly enough. To meet such dietary demands is by no means easy.

How well each of us copes with stress depends on the adequacy of our diet both before and during the stress itself. Malnutrition has been compared to an ,iceberg, which is largely hidden until hit by the Titanic of stress; then its disastrous effects quickly become obvious.

The Antistress Factors

Certain vitamin-like substances called the antis tress factors are still unidentified but have a fantastically protective action against most types of stress, though not all. For example, when rats are given strychnine, sulfanilamide, promine, atabrine, stilbestrol, excessive thyroid, cortisone, or aspirin, all cause harmful effects that cannot be overcome by increased amounts of any known vitamin, mineral, or other nutrient. Yet the animals are completely protected if given foods supplying the antistress factors. These substances also prolong the survival time of rats exposed to x-rays; and wheat germ particularly causes a marked resistance in animals injected with various bacteria.

The antistress factors are found in liver, especially pork liver, wheat germ, some yeasts, kidneys, and soy flour from which the oil has not been removed. Another equally protective antistress factor, different from the one in liver, is found in the pulp of green leafy vegetables. Research indicates that ill persons should work as many of these foods as possible into their daily diets.

A symptom of an illness or even a disease itself is often nothing more than the body's reaction to stress. An adrenal hormone, desoxycortisone, or DOC, for example, often counterbalances the effect of cortisone, keeping it in check. DOC helps the body to fight infections and protects it by setting up an inflammation around bacteria and toxic substances, preventing them from spreading to surrounding tissues; thus is a boil or tubercular lesion walled off. This hormone causes blood and tissue fluids to be drawn to a damaged area and white blood cells and other defense mechanisms to be called in; although swelling, pain, and fever result, the remainder of the body is protected. Thus the reaction to stress, occurring during any inflammation, becomes the disease itself.

Arthritis, bursitis, colitis, nephritis, and allergies, among others, are spoken of as "stress diseases." Ii If so little cortisone can be produced that DOC is not held in check, the inflammation can get out of hand and continue year after year, as it does in arthritis, some allergies, and many diseases. On the other hand, if too little DOC can be produced or if cortisone is given as a medication, the body becomes susceptible to infections, inflammations, and damage from toxic substances. Another adrenal hormone, aldosterone, holds salt (sodium) and water in the body, thus preventing dehydration. When it is being produced in excessive amounts during the first two stages of stress, so much water may be retained that the hands, ankles, and eyes become puffy and too much potassium is lost in the urine. Such a condition can be the cause of high blood pressure and may become a major problem during certain types of kidney and heart disease. Restricting the salt intake at such a time causes aldosterone to be excreted and prevents the loss of potassium. Taking potassium to replace the urinary losses also rectifies this situation.

Adrenals exhausted from prolonged stress are unable to produce sufficient amounts of aldosterone; too much salt and water are lost from the body, the blood pressure usually falls below normal, dehydration occurs, and potassium is withdrawn from the cells. In this case salt (sodium) rather than potassium is needed. The salt intake, therefore, should be restricted during the "alarm reaction," moderate during the "stage of resistance," and high if the adrenals become exhausted. Rats under prolonged stress, allowed to select their own diet and offered separate nutrients-except .vitamin C which they synthesize-will particularly increase" their intake of salt and pantothenic acid.

ACTH And Cortisone Therapy

There are times when ACTH or cortisone must be given, and each physician carefully weighs the many advantages against the disadvantages. Either sets up a condition analogous to the onset of stress accelerates the breakdown of body protein, prevents healing, or the synthesis of new proteins causes the thymus and lymph glands to atrophy, or shrivel, and water and salt to be held in the body. They decrease natural hormone production, inhibit the synthesis of antibodies and white blood cells needed to fight infections, and increase both the need for almost everybody requirement and the urinary loss of amino acids, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and vitamin A, C, and all the B vitamins. Persons being given ACTH or cortisone often develop stomach ulcers and severe spontaneous bruising, nosebleeds, and hemorrhages; and if the sugar formed from the destruction of body proteins is not used for energy, it is changed into fat, which accounts for part of the gain ill weight when cortisone is taken.

Filling The Demands Of Stress

That adrenal exhaustion has become widespread is shown both by the millions of persons suffering from "stress diseases" and by the number of illnesses for which physicians now give cortisone. Yet the person deficient in pantothenic acid-which seems to be most of our population-receives the same benefit from taking the vitamin as from being given ACTH or cortisone and with no toxic effects.

A combination of vitamins give excellent results and believe should be obtained during every illness or severe stress, we might call the antistress formula. Because these vitamins dissolve in water, they are readily lost in the urine; hence greater improvement occurs when small amounts are taken frequently rather than larger quantities at one time. Vitamin B2 is essential for the synthesis of adrenal hormones, but if given alone, a vitamin-B6 deficiency is produced.